The alchemist of austria

Rudolf II of Austria

b.1552-d.1612 Reigned 1576-1612

Destined to inherit the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, Rudolf also became king of Hungary and Croatia from 1572 to 1608, king of Bohemia from 1575 to 1611, and king of Germany from 1575 until his death.

Being born into the 16th-century Habsburg dynasty was a fate carrying with it territorial responsibility, political power and genetic problems. The problems were the direct result of trying to safeguard the responsibility and the power – put simply, the Habsburgs believed that one way to remain the leading European dynasty was intermarriage. They couldn’t know that inbreeding over time produced physical and mental disorders.

The boy who was born on 18 July 1552 to Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II and Maria of Spain was a victim of this policy of deliberate consanguinity. In his mother’s family, 80 per cent of marriages were between closely related partners including Maximilian and Maria, who were both grandchildren of Joanna ‘the Mad’ of Castile. Did Joanna merit her moniker? It’s an issue that historians have long debated but, for whatever reason, she suffered from depression or, as it was known then, melancholia. So did Rudolf.

His general wellbeing was not helped by an enforced sojourn in Spain from 1563 to 1571. While spending his early years in the relatively liberal atmosphere of the Austrian imperial court where his father ruled a patchwork empire of states – some of which were officially Lutheran or Calvinist – he had learned the political art of pragmatism. His Spanish wife, however, had been reared in the fanatically Catholic atmosphere of the court governed by her father and her brother, Philip II. It was she who insisted that Rudolf complete his education under the stiffly formal and pious Spanish regime.

By the time he returned home to Austria, the heir to the Holy Roman Empire was quiet, introverted and aloof, more interested in pursuing his own hobbies than in following affairs of state. It would be hardly surprising that a ruler-in-waiting would not relish getting to grips with the complexities of politico-religious issues to which his tolerant father and fanatical mother had taken such opposed attitudes.

Rudolf’s hobbies were numerous. He embraced the Renaissance concept of l’uomo universale, the idea that to be fully human one should acquire as much knowledge and experience as possible, and his education was thorough. He could speak all the languages necessary to control his multilingual empire and to converse with ambassadors. He also had an informed understanding of art, which he may well have picked up from his uncle, Philip II, who owned an extensive collection.

In an age when scholars were pursuing ‘scien