Price: £1,000.00
Title: right - "The Holy Roman Empire dedicates the city Augusta Videlicorum after Caesar Augustus and after the tenth stepson...son of Nero and Luvia Drusilla...and after the Caesars Augustus, Antoni, Pio, Septimo Severo, Pertinaci, Avreliano, Charlemagne, Otto III, ...Henry III, Frederick III, Rudolf, Albert III, Rupert, Sigmund, and Maximillian. Maintain and enrich immortal God Caeser Charles V, the best of leaders, health and ...greatly cherish the perpetuity of the Holy Roman Empire and ...". A very large and fine panorama of Augsburg. The buildings are detailed and recognizable, including the Fuggerei. The Fuggerei was founded in 1516 by Jakob Fugger the Rich and his brothers as the world’s first social settlement for hardworking and honest but impoverished citizens of the Roman Catholic faith. The yearly rent was—and is—one Rhinish Gulden, equivalent to less than a Euro. Daily recitation of The Lord’s Prayer on behalf of the founders remains part of the house rules. Known as “the town within a town,” the settlement comprises 67 two-story structures housing 147 apartments, a church and a simple, elegant fountain. The first references to the Roman military colony of Augustus Vindelicorum date to 832. In 1276 Augsburg became a free city and owing to its location at the junction of the east-west trade routes it brought great economic success to its merchant class, particularly the Fugger family during the 15th and 16th centuries. The condition is very good. There is a mild damp stain at the top of the imperial crest, and there is a neighborhood in which someone inked what appear to be proper names in Latin on the map. Additional Information: A stone lithographic reproduction of the map of ‘Augusta Vindelicorum’ originally engraved in Augsburg Germany in 1521 by Georg Seld (1454-1527) and Hans Weiditz. This reproduction was probably produced in 1821 and is printed on laid paper which is mounted on linen. The map depicts in detail the buildings, streets, canals, churchs, and inhabitants of the Roman walled merchant city today known as Augsburg. There are 3 text blocks. One is at the top right and the other two are at the bottom left and right. Following is a rough translation of the text at the top right; "The Holy Roman Empire dedicates the city Augusta Videlicorum after Caesar Augustus and after the tenth stepson, son of Nero and Luvia Drusilla and after the Caesars Augustus, Antoni, Pio, Septimo Severo, Pertinaci, Avreliano, Charlemagne, Otto III, Henry III, Frederick III, Rudolf, Albert III, Rupert, Sigmund, and Maximillian. Maintain and enrich immortal God Caeser Charles V, the best of leaders, health and greatly cherish the perpetuity of the Holy Roman Empire and ...". The buildings are detailed and recognizable, including the Fuggerei. The Fuggerei was founded in 1516 by Jakob Fugger the Rich and his brothers as the world’s first social settlement for hardworking and honest but impoverished citizens of the Roman Catholic faith. The yearly rent was, and is, one Rhinish Gulden, equivalent to less than a Euro. Daily recitation of The Lord’s Prayer on behalf of the founders remains part of the house rules. Known as “the town within a town,” the settlement comprises 67 two-story structures housing 147 apartments, a church and a simple, elegant fountain. The first references to the Roman military colony of Augustus Vindelicorum date to 832. In 1276 Augsburg became a free city and owing to its location at the junction of the trade routes of Italy, Germany, Asia, and Western Europe it brought great economic success to its merchant class, particularly the Fugger family, during the 15th and 16th centuries. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When the Roman Empire was set to dominate the known world, it did not however include the bulk of Germany under its control. The watch on the Rhein was maintained by the Roman legions at the northern-most boundaries of civilization, but by the time of the Emperor Augustus, who decreed that all the world should pay a tax, the Romans had pushed their defenses against the northern tribes through the Alps as far as the Danube river. Thus Augsburg became one of the first settlements in present day Germany to come under the influence of Roman civilization and commerce and indeed bears the name of the Emperor Augustus. As the first major city that traders met after the Brenner Pass, it became the major metropolis on the northeastern flank of the Roman Empire. This was at a time when Munich, forty miles to the south, had not even been thought of. Augsburg's grandeur reached its height in the Renaissance through the efforts of two local merchant families. The fabulous wealth of Augsburg's Fugger and Welser families was so staggering that in sheer monetary value they individually out-shown their contemporaries the Medicis of Florence. Under their domination, Augsburg was made an imperial free city, independent of the powers which surrounded it. Considering that the Austrian Emperor, Charles the Fifth, once owed Anton Fugger 1 million florins, it's no wonder that the Augsburg merchant princes could command independence from their stronger predatory neighbors and gather the titles of princes and counts as well. They had their finger in almost every pie of the time. They financed new world explorations, the Venetian rare spice trade and any number of wars between kings. In fact, at one point in the 15th Century, the Fugger family so controlled Atlantic trade routes that it effectively ruled South America. A century later, the Welser family literally owned the country of Venezuela. But the powerful Fuggers were not the Medicis. They had neither the sweeping artistic vision nor the adventurous designs of their Italian neighbors. Basically, the rich Augsburgers were good practical merchants and financiers. The buildings were in the more conservative German renaissance style and their interests lay more in keeping good finances than in hatching political plots. But they retained a strong medieval Christian belief that their wealth obligated them to a concern for the less fortunate as a token of gratitude. In the early 16th Century, however, their enormous fortune stood in great contrast to the local population's poverty. The influx of settlers from feudal kingdoms into the free city caused the population to jump from 18 to 34 thousand in 20 years. A serious housing problem began, especially for those 3,000 inhabitants who did not possess enough even to pay taxes, and as in any such situation, today as then, rental costs began to rise. So much so that even those of moderate wealth began to feel a pinch. So, in 1510, the House of Fugger began the construction of a community of reasonably priced apartments for poor people. Finished in 1519, the walled town contained, as it does today, four gates, six alleys, 53 houses and one church. The size of the apartments varied from two to three rooms with kitchen. All the apartments open onto the carefully laid out streets, giving them the character of homes. The Fuggerei's first tenants in the comfortable quarters were the needy residents of Augsburg, the craftsmen, day-laborers and others who did not want to beg. As time when on, the tenants changed until the area became primarily a place for retired people. But the Fugger family has kept the terms of the lease exactly the same. The rent, per room, in a Fuggerei apartment, is 43 pfennings a year, or a total of one Rheinish Guilder, a Mark 72, or 42 cents. But this is only the monetary demand from the writer of lease, Jacob Fugger, called appropriately, The Rich. In addition, he required his tenants to conduct themselves honestly and piously and, to quote the deed of foundation, "every person young and old will say a Pater Noster and an Ave Maria for the founders, their parents, brothers and all relations, and their descendents." These daily prayers for the Fugger family, still the benefactors of the Fuggerei, are said each morning at mass in St. Marcus's Chapel and no resident would think of missing the recitation. In the 17th Century, the brick layer Franz Mozart, grandfather of the composer, was a Fuggerei resident and he had to abide by the same hours as the 20th Century renter. Although the development stands in the center of Augsburg, it closes its gates at 10 each night. Thereafter, each resident must pay the gatekeeper 10 pfennings before midnight or 20 pfennings after midnight to be let in. The rules prohibit nightly amusements or occupations which might disturb the neighbors and the residents is required to pay for anything he breaks or damages. The Fugger family, sitting in council, retains the right to cancel the right of residence on only eight days notice, but it has been many years since anyone has been turned out from the quiet rows of medieval houses. Today, the House of Fugger in Augsburg still administers the unique project. Although some 25 percent of the Fuggerei buildings were destroyed in World War II, these have now been rebuilt with one apartment set aside for visitors furnished exactly as the originals were four centuries ago. In fact, the Fuggerei is now building an additional wing to the present establishment. When finished, it will be in the same plain style as the others, but it will represent the continuing life of a project which today is as much a successful social experiment as it was an advanced idea in the minds of the Augsburg Fuggers in the 16th Century. From a 1964 article by Robert Rowen of the 24th Division Information Office, transcribed by Martha Rowen in September, 1999.
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