Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

Fugger

 
 

German family of merchants and bankers. Under their patronage Augsburg flourished throughout the Renaissance as a centre of art, literature and music. Over 40 printed music volumes were dedicated to members of the family by such composers as Aichinger, Eccard, A. and G. Gabrieli, Hassler, Lassus and Monte.



Search unanswered questions...
Enter a word or phrase...
All Community Q&A Reference topics
 

Fugger, a prosperous merchant family in Augsburg, which became a great banking house in the later Middle Ages. The name is first mentioned in the 14th c., at the end of which the head of the family, Johannes (d. 1409), was a recognized patrician. His second son, Jacob (d. 1469), greatly extended the activities of the house and founded its fortune. His three sons, who survived into the 16th c., made the family one of the richest in Europe. In 1514 Jakob (styled Jakob II, 1459-1525) founded the Fuggerei, a complex of almshouses for 106 families, which still exists in Augsburg. In 1535 the Fuggers received the privilege of minting coinage. The head of the house was made a count in 1530; from him sprang three noble lines, all of which survived into the 20th c. One branch was raised to the rank of prince (Fürst) in 1913.

 
Fugger (fʊg'ər) , German family of merchant princes. The foundation of their wealth was laid by Hans Fugger, allegedly a weaver, who moved to Augsburg in 1367. His descendants built up the family fortune by trade and banking. With Jacob Fugger II, 1459–1525, called Jacob the Rich, the house entered its zenith. It owned extensive real estate, merchant fleets, and palatial establishments throughout Europe. Jacob's fortune was largely built on a virtual monopoly in the mining and trading of silver, copper, and mercury. He lent immense sums to Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and helped secure the election (1519) of Charles V as Holy Roman emperor by bribing the electors. Charles ennobled the family and granted them sovereign rights over their lands, including that of coining their own money. Then the richest family in Europe, the Fuggers were generous patrons of the arts and learning and philanthropists, notably at Augsburg, their residence. Under Raimund Fugger, 1489–1535, and Anton Fugger, 1493–1560, the house reached the limits of its power and fortune. Its decline paralleled that of the Hapsburgs, whose wars the Fuggers financed. Several descendants were prominent, but, except for some real estate, little is left of the once fabulous wealth.

Bibliography

See R. Ehrenberg, Capital and Finance in the Age of the Renaissance (tr. 1928); J. Strieder, Jacob Fugger the Rich (tr. 1931, repr. 1966); G. T. Matthews, ed., News and Rumor in Renaissance Europe: The Fugger Newsletters (1959).


 
Dictionary: Fug·ger   (fʊg'ər) pronunciation
Top

Family of German financiers who exerted great economic and political influence in the 15th and 16th centuries. Founded by Johannes (1348–1409), the family business was greatly expanded by his son Jakob (died 1469).


 
Wikipedia: Fugger
Top
Grafschaft Kirchberg und Weißenhorn
County of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn
State of the Holy Roman Empire
Duchy of Bavaria
 
Duchy of Württemberg
 
Imperial City of Augsburg
1507–1806
 

Coat of arms of Fugger

Coat of arms

Location of Fugger
Map of Württemberg before the French Revolutionary Wars, showing the County of Fugger, with the Danube shown running through the centre of the image and the Iller forming the border between Württemberger lands (coloured) and Bavarian lands (non-coloured)
Capital Weißenhorn (nominally)
Imp. City Augsburg (de facto)
Government Principality
Historical era Middle Ages
 - Pledged non-immediate
    County of Kirchberg and
    Lordship of Weißenhorn
 
 
1507
 - Raised to Imperial nobility 1511
 - Gained immediate
    Lordship of Glött
 
1536
 - Fugger lands' immediacy 1541
 - Joined Swabian Circle 1563
 - Mediatised to Bavaria
    and Württemberg
 
1806

The Fugger (German pronunciation: [ˈfʊɡɐ]) family was a historically prominent group of European bankers, members of the fifteenth and sixteenth-century mercantile patriciate of Augsburg, international mercantile bankers, and venture capitalists like the Welser and the Höchstetter families.

Contents

History

The first reference to the Fugger family in the Swabian Free City of Augsburg is the arrival of Hans Fugger recorded in the tax register of 1357. He married Klara Widolf and became an Augsburg citizen. After Klara's death, he married Elizabeth Gfattermann. He joined the Weaver's Guild, and by 1396 he was ranked high in the list of taxpayers.

His eldest son, Andreas Fugger, was a merchant in the weaving trade, and was nicknamed 'the rich Fugger', buying land and other properties.

Andreas's son, Lucas Fugger, was granted arms by the Emperor Frederick III, a golden deer on a blue background, and he was soon nicknamed 'the Fugger of the Deer'. However, he was too ambitious and went bankrupt.

Hans Fugger's younger son, Jakob the Elder, founded another branch of the family, This branch progressed more steadily and they became known as the 'Fuggers of the Lily' after their chosen arms of a flowering lily on a gold and blue background. Jakob was a master weaver, a merchant, and an alderman, and married Barbara Basinger, the daughter of a goldsmith. His fortune progressed, and by 1461, he was the 12th richest man in Augsburg. He died in 1469.

Jakob's eldest son, Ulrich, took over the business on his father's death, and in 1473 he provided new suits of clothes to Frederick, his son Maximilian I, and his suite on their journey to Trier to meet Charles the Bold of Burgundy and the betrothal of the young prince to Charles's daughter Maria. This started the very profitable relationship between the Fugger family and the Habsburgs. Ulrich died in 1510.

Ulrich's youngest brother Jakob Fugger (illustration, below) was born in 1459, and was to become the most famous member of the dynasty. He married Sibylla Artzt in 1498, but they had no children. He was elevated to the nobility of the Holy Roman Empire in May 1511, and in 1519, led a consortium of German and Italian businessmen that loaned Charles V 850,000 florins (about 95,625 oz(t) of gold) to procure his election as Holy Roman Emperor over Francis I of France[1]. The Fugger's contribution was 543,000 florins. Jakob died in 1525. He is considered to be one of the richest persons of all time,[citation needed] and today he is well known as Jakob Fugger 'the rich'.

Jakob's successor was his nephew Anton Fugger, son of his elder brother Georg. Anton was born in 1493, married Anna Rehlinger, and died in 1560.

In 1511, Jakob deposited 15,000 florins as an endowment for some almshouses. In 1514, he bought up part of Augsburg and in 1516 he came to agreement with the city that he would build and provide a number of almshouses for needy citizens. By 1523, 52 houses had been built, and the Fuggerei had come into existence. It is still used today.[1]

Acquisitions

Popular culture references

  • In Joseph Heller's book "Something Happened," Bob Slocum remarks, "The Fuggers were all right as long as they stayed in Germany; then they sent their mothers here."

Gallery

See also

References

  1. ^ Brechin, Gray A. (1999). Imperial San Francisco: urban power, earthly ruin. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22902-9. 

External links


 
 
Learn More
Jakob Fugger
Eugen Ortner (person)
Wendel Dietrich (art)

Help us answer these
How does display charrecter and ather fugger?
Was anton fugger really the richest man to ever live?

Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:

 

Copyrights:

Music Encyclopedia. The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.  Read more
German Literature Companion. The Oxford Companion to German Literature. Copyright © 1976, 1986, 1997, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Fugger" Read more

 

Mentioned in