Rudolf's legacy has traditionally been viewed in three ways:[1] an ineffectual ruler whose mistakes led directly to theThirty Years' War; a great and influential patron ofNorthern Mannerist art; and an intellectual devotee of occult arts and learning which helped seed what would be called theScientific Revolution. Determined to unifyChristendom, he initiated theLong Turkish War (1593–1606) with theOttoman Empire. Exhausted by war, his citizens inHungary revolted in theBocskai Uprising, which led to more authority being given to his brotherMatthias. Under his reign, there was a policy of toleration towardsJudaism.
Rudolf was born inVienna on 18 July 1552.[2] He was the eldest son and successor ofMaximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, King ofBohemia, and King ofHungary andCroatia; his mother was the Spanish PrincessMaria, a daughter ofCharles V[2] andIsabella of Portugal. He was the elder brother ofMatthias who was to succeed him as King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor.
A portrait bust of Rudolf II in the collection of theAntwerp City Hall, Belgium
Rudolf spent eight formative years, from age 11 to 19 (1563–1571), in Spain, at the court of his maternal unclePhilip II, together with his younger brotherErnest, future governor of theLow Countries.[3]
After his return to Vienna, his father was concerned about Rudolf's aloof and stiff manner, typical of the more conservative Spanish court, rather than the more relaxed and open Austrian court; but his Spanish mother saw in him courtliness and refinement.[4] In the years following his return to Vienna, Rudolf was crownedKing of Hungary (1572),King of Bohemia andKing of the Romans (1575)[5] when his father was still alive.
For the rest of his life, Rudolf would remain reserved, secretive, and largely a recluse who did not like to travel or even partake in the daily affairs of the state.[4]
He was more intrigued by occult learning such asastrology andalchemy, which was mainstream in theRenaissance period, and had a wide variety of personal hobbies such as horses, clocks, collecting rarities, and being a patron of the arts. He suffered from periodic bouts of "melancholy" (depression), which was common in the Habsburg line. These became worse with age and were manifested by a withdrawal from the world and its affairs into his private interests.
LikeElizabeth I of England, whose birth was 19 years before his, Rudolf dangled himself as a prize in a string of diplomatic negotiations for marriages but never in fact married. Rudolf was known to have had a succession of affairs with women, some of whom claimed to have been impregnated by him.[4] He had several illegitimate children by his mistressCatherina Strada. Their eldest son,Don Julius Caesar d'Austria, was likely born between 1584 and 1586 and received an education and opportunities for political and social prominence from his father.[6] Another famous child wasKarolina [fr] (1591–1662), Princess of Cantecroix, mother-in-law ofBeatrice de Cusance, laterDuchess of Lorraine as the second wife ofCharles IV of Lorraine.
During his periods of self-imposed isolation, Rudolf reportedly had affairs with hisObersthofmeister, Wolfgang Siegmund Rumpf vom Wullroß (1536–1606), and a series ofvalets. One of them, Philipp Lang von Langenfels (1560–1609), influenced him for years and was hated by those seeking favours with the emperor.[7][8]
Rudolf succeeded his father, Maximilian II, on 12 October 1576.[5] In 1583, he moved the court toPrague.[9]
In 1607, Rudolf sent Julius to live inČeský Krumlov Castle, inBohemia, in what is now theCzech Republic, a castle that Rudolf had acquired fromPeter Vok of Rosenberg, the last member of theHouse of Rosenberg, who had fallen into financial ruin. Julius lived at Český Krumlov in 1608, when he reportedly abused and murdered the daughter of a local barber, who had been living in the castle, and then disfigured her body. Rudolf condemned his son's act and suggested that he should be imprisoned for the rest of his life.[6]
However, Julius died in 1609 after he had shown signs ofschizophrenia, refused to bathe and lived in squalor. His death was apparently caused by an ulcer that ruptured.[6]
Many artworks commissioned by Rudolf are unusually erotic.[10] The emperor was the subject of awhispering campaign by his enemies in his family and theCatholic Church in the years before he was deposed. Sexual allegations might well have formed a part of the campaign against him.[11]
Historians have traditionally blamed Rudolf's preoccupation with the arts, occult sciences, and other personal interests for the political disasters of his reign.[1] More recently historians have re-evaluated that view and see his patronage of the arts and occult sciences as a triumph and key part of the Renaissance, and his political failures are seen as a legitimate attempt to create a unified Christian empire that was undermined by the realities of religious, political and intellectual disintegrations of the time.[1]
Although raised in his uncle'sCatholic court in Spain, Rudolf was tolerant ofProtestantism and other religions includingJudaism.[4] The tolerant policy by the empire towards the Jews would see Jewish cultural life flourishing, and their population increased under Rudolf's reign.[12]
Portrait of Rudolf II as a young man byMartino Rota
He largely withdrew from Catholic observances and even in death refused the last sacramental rites. He had little attachment to Protestants either, except as a counter-weight to papal policies. He put his primary support behindconciliarists,irenicists andhumanists. When the papacy instigated theCounter-Reformation by using agents sent to his court, Rudolf backed those whom he thought were the most neutral in the debate, either by not taking a side or by trying to promote restraint. This led to political chaos and threatened to provoke civil war.[1]
His conflict with theOttoman Empire was the final cause of his undoing. Unwilling to compromise with the Ottomans and stubbornly determined that he could unify all of Christendom with a newcrusade, he started a long and indecisive war against the Ottomans in 1593.[13] The war lasted until 1606 and is known as the "Long Turkish War".[1]
By 1604, his Hungarian subjects were exhausted by the war and revolted, led byStephen Bocskai (Bocskai uprising). In 1605, Rudolf was forced by his other family members to cede control of Hungarian affairs to his younger brother ArchdukeMatthias. By 1606, Matthias had forged a difficult peace with the Hungarian rebels (Peace of Vienna) and the Ottomans (Peace of Zsitvatorok).
Rudolf was angry with Matthias's concessions and saw them as giving away too much to further his hold on power. That made Rudolf prepare to start a new war against the Ottomans, but Matthias rallied support from the disaffected Hungarians and forced Rudolf to cede the crowns of Hungary,Austria andMoravia to him. Meanwhile, the Bohemian Protestants demanded greater religious liberty, which Rudolf granted in theLetter of Majesty in 1609. Bohemians continued to press for further freedoms, and Rudolf used his army to repress them.[14]
Bohemian Protestants then appealed to Matthias for help. His army held Rudolf prisoner in his castle in Prague until 1611, when Rudolf ceded the crown of Bohemia, as well, to his brother.[citation needed]
Rudolf died in 1612, nine months after he had been stripped of all effective power by his younger brother, except the empty title of Holy Roman Emperor, to which Matthias was elected five months later. In May 1618 with the event known as theDefenestration of Prague, the Protestant Bohemians, in defence of the rights granted them in theLetter of Majesty, threw imperial officials out of the window and thus theThirty Years' War (1618–1648) started.[15]
Rudolf's collections were the most impressive in the Europe of his day and the greatest collection of Northern Mannerist art ever to be assembled.[1] The adjective Rudolfine, as in "Rudolfine Mannerism" is often used inart history to describe the style of the art that he patronised.
His love of collecting went far beyond paintings and sculptures. He commissioned decorative objects of all kinds and in particular mechanical moving devices. Ceremonial swords and musical instruments, clocks, waterworks, astrolabes, compasses, telescopes and other scientific instruments were all produced for him by some of the best craftsmen in Europe.
He patronized the astronomersTycho Brahe andJohannes Kepler, who both attended his court.[16] Tycho, who had spent much of his life making observations of stars and planets that were more accurate than any previous observations, directed Kepler to work on the planet Mars. In doing so, Kepler found that in order to fit the observations to the required accuracy, it was necessary to assume that each planet orbits the sun in an ellipse with the sun at one focus, sweeping out equal areas in equal times. Thus were born two ofKepler's laws of planetary motion. It was Rudolf's patronage of the two astronomers that made this possible, as Kepler recognized when he eventually published theRudolphine Tables. As mentioned earlier, Rudolf also attracted some of the best scientific instrument makers of the time, such asJost Bürgi,Erasmus Habermel andHans Christoph Schissler. They had direct contact with the court astronomers and through the financial support of the court were economically independent to develop scientific instruments and manufacturing techniques.[17]
Rudolf kept a menagerie of exotic animals, botanical gardens, and Europe's most extensive "cabinet of curiosities"[4] (Kunstkammer) incorporating "the three kingdoms of nature and the works of man". It was housed atPrague Castle, where between 1587 and 1605 he built the northern wing to house his growing collections.[18] A lion and a tiger were allowed to roam the castle, as is documented by the account books, which record compensation paid to survivors of attacks or to family members of victims.[19]
TheCodex Gigas was one of Rudolf's possessions. He was also alleged, by a single piece ofhearsay, to have owned theVoynich manuscript, a codex whose author, purpose, language and script, and posited cipher remain unidentified to this day. In a letter written in 1665,Johannes Marcus Marci claims to have heard that Rudolf acquired the manuscript for 600 goldducats at some unspecified time. No evidence in support of this assertion has ever been discovered.
As was typical of the time, Rudolf II had a portrait painted in the studio of the renownedAlonso Sánchez Coello. Completed in 1567, the portrait depicted Rudolf II at the age of 15. This painting can be seen at theLobkowicz Palace in the Rozmberk room.
Richly ornamentedcelestial globe with clockwork, made for the Kunstkammer of Rudolf II, 1579
By 1597, the collection occupied three rooms of the incomplete northern wing. When building was completed in 1605, the collection was moved to the dedicatedKunstkammer.Naturalia (minerals andgemstones) were arranged in a 37-cabinet display that had three vaulted chambers in front, each about 5.5 m wide by 3 m high and 60 m long, connected to a main chamber 33 m long. Large uncut gemstones were held in strong boxes.[20]
Apart from the fantastic nature of the objects, it is also the aesthetics of their arrangement and presentation which attracts the visitor's attention. Without, however, there being a desire for purely scientific systematization on the part of the sovereign, it is necessary to detect the harmonious expression of the order of God and discern in the micro-macrocosm the analogy of a mimetic dependence on human arts towards nature and the world.[21]
Rudolf'sKunstkammer was not a typical "cabinet of curiosities", a haphazard collection of unrelated specimens. Rather, the RudolfineKunstkammer was systematically arranged in anencyclopaedic fashion. In addition, Rudolf employed his court gemologist and physicianAnselmus Boetius de Boodt (1550–1632),[22] tocurate the collection. Anselmus was an avid mineral collector and travelled widely on collecting trips to themining regions of Germany,Bohemia andSilesia, often accompanied by his Bohemiannaturalist friend,Thaddaeus Hagecius. Between 1607 and 1611, Anselmus catalogued theKunstkammer and in 1609 publishedGemmarum et Lapidum, the finestgemological treatise and encyclopedia ever written for this time.[20]
As was customary at the time, the collection was private, but friends of the emperor, artists and professional scholars were allowed to study it. The collection became an invaluable research tool during the flowering of 17th-century Europeanphilosophy.
Rudolf's successors did not appreciate the collection, and theKunstkammer gradually fell into disarray. Some 50 years after its establishment, most of the collection was packed into wooden crates and moved to Vienna. Most of the paintings that reached Vienna remain there, in theKunsthistorisches Museum, with other pieces in theSecular Treasury and other museums. The collection remaining at Prague was looted during the last year of theThirty Years' War bySwedish troops who sacked Prague Castle on 26 July 1648 and took the best of the paintings, many of which later passed to theOrléans Collection after the death ofChristina of Sweden. In 1782, the remainder of the collection was sold piecemeal to private parties byJoseph II. One of the surviving items from theKunstkammer is a "fine chair" that was looted by the Swedes in 1648 and now owned by theEarl of Radnor atLongford Castle in Britain,[23] and others survive in museums.[24][25]
Astrology andalchemy were regarded as mainstream scientific fields inRenaissancePrague, and Rudolf was a firm devotee of both. His lifelong quest was to find thephilosopher's stone, and Rudolf spared no expense in bringing Europe's best alchemists to court, such asEdward Kelley andJohn Dee. Rudolf even performed his own experiments in a private alchemy laboratory.[4] When Rudolf was a prince,Nostradamus prepared ahoroscope, which was dedicated to him as 'Prince and King'. In the 1590s,Michael Sendivogius was active at Rudolph's court.[26]
Rudolf gave Prague a mystical reputation that persists in part to this day, withAlchemists' Alley l, on the grounds of Prague Castle, being a popular visiting place andtourist attraction.
Rudolf was a patron of the occult sciences. That and his practice of tolerance towards Jews caused during his reign the legend of theGolem of Prague to be established.[12]
Rudolf had a relationship with theRoyal mistressKateřina Stradová (also known as Anna Marie Stradová, or Catherina Strada, c. 1568-1629), with whom he had six children:
The full titulature of Rudolf after he inherited the Holy Roman Empire and the vast realms of Central and Eastern Europe went as following:
"His Imperial and Royal Majesty, Rudolf II, by the Grace of God elected Holy Roman Emperor, forever Augustus, King of Germany, King of Hungary, of Bohemia, of Dalmatia, of Croatia, of Slavonia, of Galicia, of Lodomeria, of Italy, of Cumania, of Bulgaria, of Serbia, of Rama, of Romania, etc. etc.; Archduke of Austria; Duke of Burgundy, of Styria, of Carinthia and of Carniola; Grand Prince of Transylvania; Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Brabant, of Limburg, of Luxemburg, of Guelders, of Württemberg, of Upper and Lower Silesia, of Milan, of Mantua, of Parma, of Piacenza, of Guastalla, of Auschwitz, of Zator and of Teck; Prince of Swabia; Princely Count of Habsburg, of Flanders, of Tyrol, of Hainault, of Kyburg, of Gorizia, of Gradisca, of Namur; Lord of the Wendish Mark and of Mechlin; Landgrave of Alsace; Duke of Lorraine and Bar, Grand Duke of Tuscany; Marquess of the Holy Roman Empire, Burgovia, the Enns, the Upper and Lower Lusatia, Lord of the Marquisate of Slavonia, of Port Naon and Salines, etc. etc."
^Evans, R.J.W. (1973).Rudolf II and His World. p. 136.
^Kern, Ralf (2010).Wissenschaftliche Instrumente in ihrer Zeit/Volume 1: Vom Astrolab zum mathematischen Besteck. Cologne. pp. 366 and 370.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Wendell E. Wilson, Joel A. Bartsch & Mark Mauthner, Masterpieces of the Mineral World: Treasures from the Houston Museum of Natural Science, Houston Museum of Natural Science Harry N. Abrams/New York, 2004.ISBN0-8109-6751-0
^Hayward, J. F., 1980. A Chair from the 'Kunstkammer' of the Emperor Rudolf II. The Burlington Magazine, 122(927), 428–432.[1]Archived 2020-03-11 at theWayback Machine
Evans, R. J. W. (1973).Rudolf II and his world: A study in intellectual history, 1576–1612. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2nd ed, 1984. Considered the fundamental re-evaluation of Rudolf.
Rowse, A. L. (1977).Homosexuals in History: Ambivalence in Society, Literature and the Arts. MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc.ISBN0-02-605620-8
Marshall, Peter (2006).The Magic Circle of Rudolf II: Alchemy and Astrology in Renaissance Prague.ISBN0-8027-1551-6. Also published asThe Theatre of the World: Alchemy, Astrology and Magic in Renaissance Prague (in the UK,ISBN0-436-20521-1; in Canada,ISBN0-7710-5690-7); and in paperback asThe Mercurial Emperor: The Magic Circle of Rudolf II in Renaissance Prague (2007)ISBN978-1-84413-537-0. Biography, focusing on the many artists and scientists Rudolf patronized.
Trevor-Roper, Hugh;Princes and Artists, Patronage and Ideology at Four Habsburg Courts 1517–1633, Thames & Hudson, London, 1976,ISBN0-500-23232-6
Philippe Malgouyres;La Science de l’émerveillement. Artistes et intellectuels à la cour de Rodolphe II (1552-1612), Paris, Mare & Martin, 2025,ISBN978-2-36222-125-5
Generations are numbered by male-line descent from the first archdukes. Later generations are included although Austrian titles of nobility were abolished in 1919.
