The Valleys of Tirol: Their traditions and customs and how to visit them

This spirit of discontent had time to gain ground during the first years of Maximilian’s grandson and successor, Charles Quint, whose immensely extended duties drew his attention off from Tirol. Very shortly after his accession, however, he made over the German hereditary dominions, including Tirol, to his brother Ferdinand, who established his family in this country. His wise administration and prudent concessions soon conciliated the people; though severe measures were also needed, and the year 1529 was signalized in Innsbruck by some terrible executions. These were forgotten when, in the year 1531, Charles Quint, returning victorious from Pavia, on his way to Augsburg stayed and held court at Innsbruck; Ferdinand met him on the Brenner pass, and accompanied him to the capital. When Charles reached the Burg, Ferdinand’s children received him at the entrance; and the tenderness with which he greeted and kissed them was remarked by the people, on whom this token of homely affection had a powerful effect. Electors and princes, spiritual and temporal, came to pay their homage to the Emperor; and Innsbruck was so filled with the titled throng, that the Landtag had to remove its session to Hall. Ferdinand’s other dominions, and the question of the threatened war with Turkey, necessitated frequent absences from Innsbruck. During one of these (in 1534) the Burg was burnt down, and his children were only rescued from their beds with difficulty. The great Hall, called the goldene Saal, and the state bedroom, which was so beautifully ornamented that it bore the title of das Paradies, were all reduced to ashes. In 1541 Innsbruck was once more honoured by a visit of the magnificent Emperor; and again, ten years later, he took up his residence there, that he might be near the Session of the Council of Trent. It was while he was living here peacefully in all confidence, and almost unattended, that Maurice, Elector of Saxony, having suddenly joined the Smalkald League, treacherously attempted to surprise him, marching with a considerable armed force through pass Fernstein. Charles, who was laid up with illness at the time, was enabled by the loyal devotion of the Tirolese to escape in the night-time and in a storm of wind and rain, being borne in a litter over the Brenner, and by difficult mountain paths through Bruneck into Carinthia. Maurice, baffled in his scheme, exercised his vengeance in plundering the imperial possessions, while his followers devastated the peasants’ homes, the monastery of Stams, and other religious houses that lay in their way. The sufferings of the Tirolese on this occasion doubtless tended to confirm them in their aversion for the Lutheran League. Maurice’s end was characteristic, and the Tirolese, ever on the look-out for the supernatural, were not slow to see in it a worthy retribution for his treatment of their Emperor. Albert of Brandenburg refused to join in the famous Treaty of Passau, subsequently concluded by Maurice and the other Lutheran leaders with the Emperor. This and other differences led to a sanguinary struggle between them, in the course of which Maurice was killed in battle at Sieverhausen.

Ferdinand the First’s reign has many mementos in Innsbruck. He built the Franciscan church, otherwise called the heiligen Kreuzkirche and the Hofkirche, which, tradition says, had been projected by his grandfather, Kaiser Max, though there is no written record of the fact; and he raised within it a most grandiose and singular monument to him, which has alone sufficed to attract many travellers to Tirol. The original object of the foundation of the church seems to have been the establishment of a college of canons in this centre, to oppose the advance of Lutheran teaching. It was begun in 1543, the first design having been rejected by Ferdinand as not grand enough, and consecrated in 1563. He seems to have been at some pains to find a colony of religious willing to undertake, and competent to fulfil, his requirements; and not coming to an agreement with any in Germany or the Netherlands, ultimately called in a settlement of Franciscans from Trent and the Venetian provinces, consisting of twenty priests and thirteen lay-brothers. The chief ornaments of the building itself are the ten large – but too slender – red marble columns, which support the plateresque roof. The greater part of the nave is taken up with Maximilian’s monument – cenotaph rather, for he lies buried at Wiener-Neustadt, the oft-contemplated translation of his remains never having been carried into effect. It was Innsbruck’s fault, as we have seen, that they were not originally laid to rest there, and it is her retribution to have been denied the honour of housing them hitherto. The monument itself is a pile upwards of thirteen feet long and six high, of various coloured marbles, raised on three red marble steps; on the top is a colossal figure, representing the Kaiser dressed in full imperial costume, kneeling, his face being directed towards the altar – a very fine work, cast in bronze by Luigi del Duca, a Sicilian, in 1582. The sides and ends are divided by slender columns into twenty-four fine white marble compartments,¹⁴⁵ setting forth the story of his achievements in lace-like relief. If the treatment of the facts is sometimes somewhat legendary, the details and accessories are most painstakingly and delicately rendered, great attention having been paid to the faithfulness of the costumes and buildings introduced, and the most exquisite finish lavished on all. They were begun in 1561 by the brothers Bernhard and Arnold Abel, of Cologne, who went in person to Genoa to select the Carrara tablets for their work; but they both died in 1563, having only completed three. Then Alexander Collin of Mechlin took up the work, and with the aid of a large school of artists completed them in all their perfection in three years more. Around it stands a noble guard of ancestors historical and mythological, cast in bronze, of colossal proportions, twenty-eight in number. It is a solemn sight as you enter in the dusk of evening, to see these stern old heroes keeping eternal watch round the tomb of him who has been called ‘the last of the Knights,’ der letzte Ritter. They have not, perhaps, the surpassing merit of the Carrara reliefs, but they are nobly conceived nevertheless. For lightness of poise, combined with excellence of proportion and delicacy of finish, the figure of our own King Arthur commends itself most to my admiration; but that of Theodoric is generally reckoned to bear away the palm from all the rest. They stand in the following order.

Starting on the right side of the nave on entering, we have:

1. Clovis, the first Christian King of France.

2. Philip ‘the Handsome,’¹⁴⁶ of the Netherlands, Maximilian’s son, reckoned as Philip I. of Spain, though he never reigned there.

3. Rudolf of Hapsburg.

4. Albert II. the Wise, Maximilian’s great-grandfather.

5. Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths. (455–526.)

6. Ernest der Eiserne, Duke of Austria and Styria. (1377–1424.)

7. Theodebert, Duke of Burgundy. (640.)

8. King Arthur of England.

9. Sigmund der Münzreiche, Count of Tirol. (1427–96.)

10. Maria Bianca Sforza, Maximilian’s second wife. (Died 1510.)

11. The Archduchess Margaret, Maximilian’s daughter.

12. Cymburgis of Massovica, wife of Ernest der Eiserne. (Died 1433.)

13. Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, father of Maximilian’s first wife.

14. Philip the Good, father of Charles the Bold. Founder of the Order of the Golden Fleece.

This completes the file on the right side; on our walk back down the other side we come to —

15. Albert II., Duke of Austria, and Emperor of Germany. (1397–1439.)

16. Emperor Frederick I., Maximilian’s father. (1415–95.)

17. St. Leopold, Margrave of Austria; since 1506 the patron saint of Austria. (1073–1136.)

18. Rudolf, Count of Hapsburg, grandfather or uncle of ‘Rudolf of Hapsburg.’

19. Leopold III., ‘the Pious,’ Duke of Austria, Maximilian’s great-grandfather; killed at Sempach, 1439.

20. Frederick IV. of Austria, Count of Tirol, surnamed ‘mit der leeren Tasche.’

21. Albert I., D. of Austria, Emperor. (Born 1248; assassinated by his nephew John of Swabia, 1308.)

22. Godfrey de Bouillon, King of Jerusalem in 1099.

23. Elizabeth, wife of the Emperor Albert II., daughter of Sigismund, King of Hungary and Bohemia. (1396–1442.)

24. Mary of Burgundy, Maximilian’s first wife. (1457–82.)

25. Eleonora of Portugal, wife of the Emperor Frederick III., Maximilian’s mother.

26. Cunigunda, Maximilian’s sister, wife of Duke Albert IV. of Bavaria.

27. Ferdinand ‘the Catholic.’

28. Johanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, and wife of Maximilian’s son, Philip I. of Spain.

There is a vast difference in the quality both of the design and execution of these statues; the greater number and the more artistic were cast by Gregor Löffler, who established a foundry on purpose at Büchsenhausen; the rest by Stephen and Melchior Godl, and Hanns Lendenstreich, who worked at Mühlau, a suburb of Innsbruck. All honour is due to them for the production of some of the most remarkable works of their age; but it was some unknown mind, probably that of some humble nameless Franciscan, to whom is due the conception and arrangement of this piece of symbolism. It originally included, besides the statues already enumerated, twenty-three others, of saints, which were to have received a more elevated station, and it is for this reason that they are much smaller in size. They are now placed in the so-called ‘Silver Chapel,’ and are too frequently overlooked; but it is necessary to take them into account in order worthily to criticize this great monument. They are as follows: – 1. St. Adelgunda, daughter of Walbert, Count of Haynault. 2. St. Adelbert, Count of Brabant. 3. St. Doda, wife of St. Arnulf, Duke of the Moselle. 4. St. Hermelinda, daughter of Witger, Count of Brabant. 5. St. Guy, Duke of Lotharingia. 6. St. Simpert, Bishop of Augsburg, son of Charlemagne’s sister Symporiana, who rebuilt the monastery of St. Magnus at Füssen. 7. St. Jodok, son of a king of Great Britain; he wears a palmer’s dress. 8. St. Landerich, Bishop of Metz, son of St. Vincent, Count of Haynault, and St. Waltruda. 9. St. Clovis. 10. St. Oda, wife of Duke Conrad. 11. St. Pharaild, daughter of Witger, Count of Brabant. 12. St. Reinbert, brother of the last. 13. St. Roland, brother of St. Simpert. 14. St. Stephen, King of Hungary. 15. St. Venantius, martyr, son of Theodoric, Duke of Lotharingia. 16. St. Waltruda, mother of St. Landerich (No. 8). 17. St. Arnulf, husband of St. Doda (No. 3), afterwards Bishop of Metz. 18. St. Chlodulf, son of St. Waltruda (No. 16), also Bishop of Metz. 19. St. Gudula, sister of St. Albert, Count of Brabant. 20. St. Pepin Teuto, Duke of Brabant. 21. St. Trudo, priest, son of St. Adela. 22. St. Vincent, monk. 23. Richard Cœur-de-Lion. A series of men and women, all more or less closely connected with the House of Hapsburg, selected for the alleged holiness of their lives or deeds under one aspect or another. It needs no laboured argument to show the appropriateness of thus representing to the life the solidarity of piety and worth in the great hero’s earthly family, though a few words may not be out of place to distinguish the characters allied only or chiefly by the ties of the great family of chivalry. These are – 1. King Arthur (No. 8), representative of the mythology of the Round Table. 2. Roland (No. 13 in the series of the saints), representing the myths of the Twelve Peers of France. 3. Theodobert (No. 7), who received a hero’s death in the plain of Chalons at the hand of Attila, to be immortalized in the Western Nibelungen Myths. 4. Theodoric (No. 5), celebrated as ‘Dietrich von Bern’ in the Eastern. 5. Godfrey de Bouillon (No. 22), representing the legendary glory of the Crusades.¹⁴⁷

The two other statues, of a later date – St. Francis and St. Clare – are by Moll, a native of Innsbruck, who became a sculptor of some note at Vienna. The picture of St. Anthony over the altar of the Confraternity of St. Anthony, on the Epistle side of this church, has a great reputation among the people, because it remained uninjured in a fire which in 1661 burnt down the church of Zirl, where it was originally placed.¹⁴⁸ Five years later it was brought hither for greater honour, and was let into a larger painting by Jele of Vienna, representing a multitude of sick and suffering brought by their friends to pray for healing before it. There is not much else in this church that is noteworthy (besides ‘the Silver Chapel,’ which belongs to the notice of Ferdinand II.). What there is may be mentioned in a few lines, namely – the Fürstenchor, or tribune for the royal family, high up on the right side of the chancel, with the adjoining little chapel and its paintings, and cedar-wood organ, the gift of Julius II. to Ferdinand I.; the quaint old clock; and the memory that Queen Christina of Sweden made her abjuration here 28th October 1655. Her conduct on the occasion was, according to local tradition, most edifying. She was dressed plainly in black silk, with no other ornament than a large cross on her breast, with five sparkling diamonds to recall the glorious Wounds of the Redeemer. The emphasis with which she repeated the Latin profession of faith after the Papal nuncio did not pass unnoticed. The Ambrosian Hymn was sung at the close of the ceremony, and the church bells and town cannon spoke the congratulations of the Innsbruckers on this and the subsequent days of her stay among them. Among other tokens of gladness, several mystery plays (which are still greatly in vogue in Tirol) were represented. Another public ceremony of her stay was the translation of Kranach’s Madonna, the favourite picture of Tirol, brought to it by Leopold V. The original altar-piece of the Hofkirche, by Paul Troger – the Invention of the Cross – was removed by Maria Theresa to Vienna, because the figure of the Empress Helena was counted a striking likeness of herself.

The introduction of the Jesuits into Tirol, and the subsequent building of the Jesuitenkirche in Innsbruck, and the labours of B. Peter Canisius among the people, was also the work of Ferdinand I. The peaceful prosperity which his wise government procured for the country, while wars and religious divisions were distracting the rest of Europe, gave opportunity for the development of its literature and art-culture.¹⁴⁹

One melancholy event of his reign was the outbreak in its last year, of a terrible epidemic, which committed appalling ravages. All who could, including the royal family, escaped to a distance; and those who had been stricken with it were removed to the Siechenhaus, and isolated from the rest of the population. As has frequently happened on similar occasions, the dread of the malady operated to deprive the sick of the help of which they stood in need. It was when the plague raged highest, and the majority were most absorbed with the thought of securing their own safety, that a poor woman of the people, named Magaretha Hueber, rising superior to the vulgar terror, took upon herself cheerfully the management of the desolate Siechenhaus. The example of her courage was all that was needed to bring out the Christian confidence and charity of the masses; and to her devotion was owing not only the relief of the plague-stricken, but the moral effect of her spirit and energy was also not without its fruit in staying the havoc of the contagion; and she is still remembered by the name of die fromme Siechen.

Shortly before his death (which happened in 1564), Ferdinand had his second son, Ferdinand II., publicly acknowledged in the Landtag of Innsbruck, Landesfürst of Tirol. His own affection for the country had prevented him from suffering its interests to be ever neglected by the pressure of his vast rule; and now when his great age warned him that he would be able to watch over it no longer, he determined to give it once more the benefit of an independent government.

Ferdinand II. seems to have had all the excellent administrative qualities of his father in the degree necessary for his restricted sphere of dominion. His disposition for the culture of peaceful arts was promoted by the happiness of his family life. The story of his early love, and his marriage in accordance with the dictates of his heart, in an age when matrimonial alliances were too often dictated by political considerations alone, have made one of the romances dearest to the popular mind. The natural retribution of a disturbance of the regular succession to the throne followed, but with Tirol’s usual good fortune the consequences did not prove disastrous, as we shall see later on.

Situated at the distance of a pleasant hour’s walk from Innsbruck, and forming an exceedingly picturesque object in the views from it, is Schloss Ambras, in ancient times one of the chief bulwarks of the Innthal. Ferdinand I. bought it of the noble family of Schurfen at the time when he nominated his son to the government of the country, and it always remained Ferdinand II.’s favourite residence. Hither he brought home the beautiful Philippine Welser, whose grace and modesty had won his heart at first sight, as she leant forward from her turret window to cast her flowery greeting at the feet of the Emperor Charles Quint when he came into Augsburg, and the young and handsome prince rode by his side. Philippine had been betrothed by her father to the heir of the Fugger family, the richest and most powerful of Augsburg; but her eyes had met Ferdinand’s, and that one glance had revealed to both that their happiness lay in union with each other. Fortunately for Philippine she possessed in her mother a devoted confidant and ally. True, Ferdinand could not rest till he had obtained a stolen interview with her; but the true German woman had confidence in the honour and virtue of the reigning House, and the words Philippine, who was truth itself, reported were those of true love, which knows no shame. Nevertheless, the Fugger was urgent, and old Welser – a sturdy upholder of his family tradition for upright dealing – never, they knew, could be brought to be wanting to his word. The warm love of youth, however, is ever a match for the steady calculation of age. While the fathers Welser and Fugger were counting their money-bags, Ferdinand had devised a plan which easily received the assent of Philippine’s affection for him, the rather that her mother, for whom a daughter’s happiness stood dearer than any other consideration, gave it her countenance and aid. At an hour agreed, Ferdinand appeared beneath the turret where their happiness was first revealed to them; at a little distance his horses were in waiting. Not an instant had he to wait; Philippine, already fortified by her mother’s farewell benediction, joined him ere a pang of misgiving had time to enter his mind, an old and trusted family servant accompanying her. Safely the fugitives reached the chapel, where a friendly priest – Ferdinand’s confessor, Johann Cavallerüs – waited to bless the nuptials of the devoted pair, the old servant acting as witness. Old Franz Welser was subsequently induced to give his approval and paternal benediction; and if his burgher pride was wounded by his daughter marrying into a family which might look down upon her connexions, he had the consoling reflection that he was able to give her a dowry which many princes might envy; and also in the discovery of a friendly antiquary, that even his lineage, if not royal, was not either to be despised, for it could be traced up to the same stock which gave Belisarius to the Empire!

Ferdinand’s marriage was, I believe, never known to his father; though there are stories of his being won over to forgive it by Philippine’s gentle beauty and worth, but these are probably referable to the succeeding Emperor. However this may be, the devoted pair certainly lived for some time in blissful retirement at Ambras; and after his brother, Maximilian II., had acknowledged the legality of Ferdinand’s marriage – on the condition that the offspring of it should never claim the rank of Archdukes of Austria – Ambras, which had been their first retreat, was so endeared to them, that they always loved to live there better than anywhere else. There were born to them two sons – Karl, who afterwards became a Cardinal and Bishop of Brixen; and Andreas, Markgrave of Burgau, to whom Ferdinand willed Ambras, on condition that he should maintain its regal beauties, and preserve undiminished the rich stores of books and rare manuscripts, coins, armour, objects of vertù, and curiosities of every sort which it had been the delight of his and Philippine’s leisure hours to collect. This testamentary disposition the son judged would be best carried out by selling the place to the Emperor Rudolf II. in 1606; and Ambras has accordingly ever since been reckoned a pleasure-seat of the imperial family. The unfortunate love of centralization, more than the fear of foreign invasion, which was the ostensible pretext, deprived Tirol of these treasures. They were removed to Vienna in 1806, where they may be visited in the Belvedere Palace, the promise of restoring them, often made, not having yet been fulfilled. Among the remnants that are left, are still some tokens of Ferdinand’s taste and genius, and some touching memorials of thirty years of happiness purer and truer than had often before been combined with the enjoyment of power. There are some pieces of embroidery, with which Philippine occupied her lonely hours while Ferdinand’s public duties obliged him to be away from her, among them a well-executed Crucifixion; and some natural curiosities in the shape of gnarled and twisted roots, needing little effort of the imagination to convert into naturally – perhaps supernaturally – formed crucifixes, and which they had doubtless found pleasure in unearthing in the woods round Ambras. At the time of my visit the private chapel was being very well restored, and some frescoes very fairly executed by Wienhold, a local artist who has studied in Rome. There is still a small collection of armour, and a suit of clothes worn by a giant in the suite of Charles Quint, which would appear to have belonged to a man near eight feet high; also some portraits of the Hapsburg family and other rulers of Tirol; among them Margareta Maultasch, which, if it be faithful, disproves the story deriving her name from the size of her mouth; but of this I shall have occasion to speak later. Inglis mentions that among the relics is a piece of the tree on which Judas hanged himself, but it was not shown to me.

The people, whose own experience fixes the law of suffering in their minds, will have it that these years of tranquil joy were not unalloyed; but that Philippine’s mother-in-law embittered them by her jealous bickerings and reproaches, and that these in the end led her to make a sacrifice of her life to the exigencies of her husband’s glory. The bath is yet pointed out at Ambras where she is said to have bled herself to death to make way for a consort more conformable to her husband’s birth. All, even local, historians, however, are agreed in rejecting this tradition.¹⁵⁰ It has served nevertheless to endear her to the popular mind, for whom she is still a model of domestic virtues no less than a type of beauty. Scarcely is there a house in Tirol that is not adorned by her image. Among other traditions of her personal perfections, it is fabled that her skin was so delicate that the colour of the red wine could be seen softly opalized as it passed her slender throat.¹⁵¹