0:00:07 > 0:00:09This is the Danube,
0:00:09 > 0:00:12the most majestic river in Europe.
0:00:12 > 0:00:15And on its banks stands Vienna.
0:00:15 > 0:00:17Imperial city.
0:00:17 > 0:00:18This is its story,
0:00:18 > 0:00:24a story peopled by a cast of giants from Suleiman the Magnificent
0:00:24 > 0:00:29to Napoleon, from Mozart and Mahler to Freud, Hitler and Stalin.
0:00:29 > 0:00:33It grew as a bastion of Christendom against Islam,
0:00:33 > 0:00:36of Catholicism against Protestantism.
0:00:36 > 0:00:40And it all happened because of one family, a family whose empire,
0:00:40 > 0:00:43at its greatest, stretched from Peru to Poland,
0:00:43 > 0:00:46from the Netherlands to Naples.
0:00:46 > 0:00:49This is the rise and fall of the House of Habsburg.
0:00:49 > 0:00:54This is how Vienna became the imperial city of Europe,
0:00:54 > 0:00:55the paramount city,
0:00:55 > 0:00:58the city of the world.
0:01:02 > 0:01:07The strategic position of Vienna on the Danube, between the Black Forest
0:01:07 > 0:01:12and the Black Sea, was first appreciated by the ancient Romans.
0:01:17 > 0:01:20They built a forward military base here
0:01:20 > 0:01:26to defend the empire against endless attacks by Eastern barbarians.
0:01:28 > 0:01:30These are the ruins of Vindobona,
0:01:30 > 0:01:34the Roman town on the site of present-day Vienna.
0:01:34 > 0:01:37But its real importance was for future dynasties
0:01:37 > 0:01:39who liked to play up its Roman past
0:01:39 > 0:01:43to presage their own future imperial glory.
0:01:45 > 0:01:49Creating a heroic narrative for the city, and for themselves,
0:01:49 > 0:01:54the Habsburgs would help transform Vienna from a small frontier town
0:01:54 > 0:01:56to one of the world's greatest cities.
0:01:57 > 0:02:02They would use every medium - architecture, sculpture, printing,
0:02:02 > 0:02:05music and theatrical spectacle
0:02:05 > 0:02:09to glorify the city and project their own power.
0:02:09 > 0:02:11That's the point.
0:02:11 > 0:02:12This was all an act.
0:02:12 > 0:02:14It was all a show.
0:02:14 > 0:02:19Vienna would become the inspiration, the magnet, the stage for Mozart,
0:02:19 > 0:02:21Beethoven, Strauss and Mahler.
0:02:21 > 0:02:24It would also become an intellectual hotbed
0:02:24 > 0:02:26for some of the most brilliant,
0:02:26 > 0:02:28and the most dangerous thinkers of modern times.
0:02:30 > 0:02:34This is the story of empire,
0:02:34 > 0:02:38empire of conquerors, courtesans and composers,
0:02:38 > 0:02:42palaces, churches and coffee houses.
0:02:42 > 0:02:47But also, the empire of cultures, of nations, of ideas,
0:02:47 > 0:02:50monstrous ideas that killed millions,
0:02:50 > 0:02:54wonderful ideas that helped create our world.
0:02:54 > 0:02:56Yes, in so many ways,
0:02:56 > 0:03:00Vienna is the capital of the empire of the mind.
0:03:13 > 0:03:15Following the fall of the Roman Empire,
0:03:15 > 0:03:18Central Europe became the battlefield
0:03:18 > 0:03:20of rival tribes and warlords.
0:03:20 > 0:03:24They had much in common - the Roman legacy, the use of Latin,
0:03:24 > 0:03:26and faith in Christianity.
0:03:29 > 0:03:34Then in the eighth century, a brilliant, harsh, Frankish warlord,
0:03:34 > 0:03:39Charlemagne, Charles the Great, managed to unite much of Europe.
0:03:39 > 0:03:44Charlemagne created the idea of a pan-European state,
0:03:44 > 0:03:48a new Roman Empire based on two pillars,
0:03:48 > 0:03:51Christianity and a powerful European king,
0:03:51 > 0:03:54known as the Holy Roman Emperor.
0:03:54 > 0:03:57In 800, he was crowned by the Pope in Rome,
0:03:57 > 0:04:01and henceforth, the status of the Holy Roman Emperors
0:04:01 > 0:04:05justified their actions in the name of Christendom.
0:04:06 > 0:04:09These Holy Roman Emperors became, effectively,
0:04:09 > 0:04:11kings of a wider Germany,
0:04:11 > 0:04:17that later extended to include bits of modern France, Italy and Bohemia,
0:04:17 > 0:04:18with its capital, Prague.
0:04:23 > 0:04:24At the edge of this empire
0:04:24 > 0:04:28was the relatively insignificant town of Vienna.
0:04:28 > 0:04:31But by the 12th century, Vienna was becoming an increasingly
0:04:31 > 0:04:34important centre of German civilisation.
0:04:36 > 0:04:41Work began on a new church that would go on to become the mighty
0:04:41 > 0:04:44St Stephen's Cathedral,
0:04:44 > 0:04:47a masterpiece of Romanesque and Gothic architecture.
0:04:49 > 0:04:52The church was founded in 1137,
0:04:52 > 0:04:57the year in which Vienna is first referred to as a city.
0:04:57 > 0:05:01The cathedral's South Tower reaches 446 feet,
0:05:01 > 0:05:03still the city's highest point.
0:05:03 > 0:05:05And in the centuries ahead,
0:05:05 > 0:05:09this cathedral would be the magnificent stage
0:05:09 > 0:05:11for the drama of Vienna.
0:05:13 > 0:05:17When the first Habsburg Archduke became Holy Roman Emperor,
0:05:17 > 0:05:19it was here, on the altar,
0:05:19 > 0:05:24that he inscribed his mysterious code of power,
0:05:24 > 0:05:26A, E, I, O, U.
0:05:27 > 0:05:31And he inscribed them in different places all across his domains.
0:05:31 > 0:05:34And during his lifetime, no-one knew what they meant.
0:05:34 > 0:05:38Had they known, they would have seemed utterly preposterous.
0:05:38 > 0:05:40The Emperor didn't even reveal
0:05:40 > 0:05:42whether the code was Latin or German.
0:05:43 > 0:05:46On his deathbed, he revealed what the letters stood for,
0:05:46 > 0:05:48and by the time he revealed them,
0:05:48 > 0:05:51they no longer seemed quite so ridiculous.
0:05:51 > 0:05:53Here's what they stood for,
0:05:53 > 0:05:57"The whole world is dominated by Austria."
0:05:58 > 0:06:03I'm no German scholar, but these letters signify, in German,
0:06:03 > 0:06:06"Alles Erdreich ist Osterreich untertan."
0:06:08 > 0:06:11During the next 500 years,
0:06:11 > 0:06:15Vienna would become the capital of the Habsburg family monarchy,
0:06:15 > 0:06:20and effectively, the headquarters of the Holy Roman Emperors.
0:06:20 > 0:06:23The story of the rise of the Habsburgs
0:06:23 > 0:06:25possesses all the rollicking heroes
0:06:25 > 0:06:28and extravagant blood-letting of a medieval myth.
0:06:29 > 0:06:34In 1273, a new prince from a rising family
0:06:34 > 0:06:37was elected king of the Germans.
0:06:37 > 0:06:41His name was Rudolf, and he came from the family of Habsburg.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44They'd started in a Swiss castle,
0:06:44 > 0:06:47in an eyrie named The Hawk's Nest, Habsburg.
0:06:47 > 0:06:52And now they'd expanded their holdings into Austria.
0:06:52 > 0:06:54Rudolf was 55,
0:06:54 > 0:06:56and the electors who chose German kings
0:06:56 > 0:06:58believed he would be no threat.
0:06:58 > 0:06:59They were wrong.
0:07:04 > 0:07:08Rudolf, though already old by medieval standards,
0:07:08 > 0:07:12would go on to rule from his base in Vienna for 17 years.
0:07:12 > 0:07:16And the Habsburgs would dominate Europe for the next half-millennium.
0:07:20 > 0:07:23But Rudolf's rise to power would not go unchallenged.
0:07:23 > 0:07:28His principal rival for control of Middle Europe came from the north -
0:07:28 > 0:07:30Ottokar, King of Bohemia.
0:07:33 > 0:07:37In 1278, Ottokar, with his Bohemian army,
0:07:37 > 0:07:42began the march southwards towards the Danube.
0:07:42 > 0:07:45Rudolf and his army rode out from Vienna to meet them.
0:07:49 > 0:07:52A decisive battle between Rudolf von Habsburg,
0:07:52 > 0:07:57and Ottokar, King of Bohemia, took place right here on the Marchfeld,
0:07:57 > 0:08:04east of Vienna. The two sides met in August, 1278, in sweltering heat.
0:08:04 > 0:08:08They fought all day, and they fought themselves to a standstill.
0:08:08 > 0:08:11It was so hot that the knights in their armour
0:08:11 > 0:08:13started to faint in droves.
0:08:23 > 0:08:28At this point, Rudolf deployed the fresh brigade of cavalry
0:08:28 > 0:08:31he'd hidden right up this hill.
0:08:31 > 0:08:35They charged down into the Bohemians and routed them.
0:08:35 > 0:08:40Faced with defeat, the Bohemians murdered their own king, Ottokar.
0:08:40 > 0:08:42He was stripped naked,
0:08:42 > 0:08:46butchered and Rudolf displayed his body in the streets of Vienna.
0:08:51 > 0:08:53This was a victory that would mark
0:08:53 > 0:08:55the birth of a great European dynasty,
0:08:55 > 0:08:58and transform the fate of Vienna.
0:09:01 > 0:09:07When Rudolf died in 1291, it was his son, Albert, who succeeded him,
0:09:07 > 0:09:11first as Duke of Austria, and, ultimately, as King of the Germans.
0:09:14 > 0:09:19Albert was a shrewd and just ruler, but as a man, he was terrifying,
0:09:19 > 0:09:21vicious and arrogant.
0:09:21 > 0:09:24His face was distinguished by a gaping cavity
0:09:24 > 0:09:26where his eye should have been.
0:09:26 > 0:09:28When some enemies had tried to poison him,
0:09:28 > 0:09:31his doctors insisted that he be hung upside down
0:09:31 > 0:09:33for long periods of time
0:09:33 > 0:09:35to allow the poison to seep out.
0:09:35 > 0:09:39In the process, somehow, he'd lost his eye.
0:09:39 > 0:09:41Everyone called him Albert One Eye.
0:09:48 > 0:09:52Albert had a fearsome reputation, not only with his many foes,
0:09:52 > 0:09:54but also within his own family,
0:09:54 > 0:09:57and eventually this would be his undoing.
0:09:59 > 0:10:03On May Day, 1308, Albert rode out with his entourage,
0:10:03 > 0:10:06who included his 19-year-old nephew, John.
0:10:06 > 0:10:10As they rode, John tried to persuade his uncle to return the lands
0:10:10 > 0:10:12he'd taken from his family.
0:10:12 > 0:10:14Albert refused.
0:10:14 > 0:10:15John, furious,
0:10:15 > 0:10:20rowed across the river and gathered together a posse of assassins.
0:10:20 > 0:10:25When Albert himself crossed, they lay in wait, fell upon him,
0:10:25 > 0:10:29and stabbed him. They left him dying in a pool of his blood.
0:10:32 > 0:10:34The murderers fled,
0:10:34 > 0:10:37only to be ruthlessly hunted down by Albert's successors.
0:10:39 > 0:10:43One day of brutal revenge, presided over by his children,
0:10:43 > 0:10:46saw 63 of John's relatives beheaded.
0:10:46 > 0:10:51As blood spurted from them, Albert's daughter cried out in ecstasy,
0:10:51 > 0:10:54"This is like being bathed in May dew."
0:10:58 > 0:11:02The bitter family feud would halt the rise of Vienna,
0:11:02 > 0:11:07and keep the Habsburgs out of power for 30 years.
0:11:07 > 0:11:10But they were still one of the most powerful families
0:11:10 > 0:11:11within the Holy Roman Empire.
0:11:15 > 0:11:16They needed a statesman.
0:11:16 > 0:11:21And now they produced a young man of astonishing vision and guts,
0:11:21 > 0:11:23Rudolf IV, the Founder.
0:11:28 > 0:11:31Rudolf inherited the Habsburg lands at just 19.
0:11:31 > 0:11:34But he'd been brought up at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor,
0:11:34 > 0:11:36his father-in-law,
0:11:36 > 0:11:40and from the start, he was wildly ambitious, creative,
0:11:40 > 0:11:46a visionary, energetic, and I've come here to the Habsburg Archives
0:11:46 > 0:11:50to see his most ingenious creation.
0:11:57 > 0:12:01Rudolf craved the ultimate prize, the imperial crown.
0:12:01 > 0:12:05But he didn't have the same status as the German prince electors
0:12:05 > 0:12:09who chose both the German king and the emperor.
0:12:09 > 0:12:11So Rudolf came up with a cunning plan -
0:12:11 > 0:12:14he invented the title archduke
0:12:14 > 0:12:18to make his family more important than their rivals.
0:12:18 > 0:12:22Kathrin Kininger is a medieval specialist at the archives,
0:12:22 > 0:12:25and she's going to show me how he did it.
0:12:28 > 0:12:30Kathrin, tell me what this document is,
0:12:30 > 0:12:32and why it's so important.
0:12:32 > 0:12:35So this is one of the most famous
0:12:35 > 0:12:38medieval documents of Austrian history.
0:12:38 > 0:12:41It claims to be of the 12th century, but actually,
0:12:41 > 0:12:43it was made in the middle of the 14th century.
0:12:43 > 0:12:46- It's a forgery.- And what does it claim?
0:12:46 > 0:12:48So the purpose of the forgery
0:12:48 > 0:12:53was to increase the prestige of the Habsburg family of Austria,
0:12:53 > 0:12:55the Habsburg dynasty.
0:12:55 > 0:12:58And didn't he invent some titles in here?
0:12:58 > 0:13:01Yeah, for example, he invented the title archduke.
0:13:01 > 0:13:05It was an invention of Rudolf IV.
0:13:05 > 0:13:07And how do we know this is a forgery?
0:13:07 > 0:13:09Actually, it's quite difficult,
0:13:09 > 0:13:12because the forgery is really, really, very good.
0:13:12 > 0:13:13When you look at it,
0:13:13 > 0:13:17everything from the outside looks quite authentic
0:13:17 > 0:13:19because they use the seal,
0:13:19 > 0:13:22this is the original seal of Frederick I,
0:13:22 > 0:13:28and they transferred it from the original document to the forgery.
0:13:28 > 0:13:30And that's up to the 19th century,
0:13:30 > 0:13:33everyone believed that it was the real thing.
0:13:36 > 0:13:39All cities have their founding myths,
0:13:39 > 0:13:43but none have been based on quite such a brazen fraud.
0:13:43 > 0:13:45And it would work for centuries.
0:13:46 > 0:13:51It was a challenge to the ruling Holy Roman Emperor of the time,
0:13:51 > 0:13:55Charles VI, King of Bohemia, and it wasn't just political either.
0:13:55 > 0:14:00Rudolf also wanted Vienna to rival the Bohemian capital, Prague.
0:14:09 > 0:14:15Rudolf embellished and promoted both his dynasty and his capital.
0:14:15 > 0:14:19He invented a new title for himself, Archduke of Austria,
0:14:19 > 0:14:22which placed him above all the other princes and dukes.
0:14:22 > 0:14:26And in Vienna, he remodelled St Stephen's Cathedral
0:14:26 > 0:14:28and he founded this.
0:14:28 > 0:14:32In 1365, he created Vienna University,
0:14:32 > 0:14:35one of the oldest in Europe.
0:14:35 > 0:14:39Even today, it's known as Alma Mater Rudolphina.
0:14:45 > 0:14:47Rudolf had laid the foundations for Vienna
0:14:47 > 0:14:50to become one of Europe's great cities.
0:14:50 > 0:14:53Had he lived longer, who knows what he might have achieved?
0:14:53 > 0:14:59But sadly, for Vienna and the Habsburgs, he died at just 26.
0:15:01 > 0:15:05But Rudolf's embellishment of Vienna had not been cheap,
0:15:05 > 0:15:08and he'd had to borrow to pay for it.
0:15:17 > 0:15:21The Habsburg dukes depended on the Jews for financial loans,
0:15:21 > 0:15:23like many medieval rulers.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27It was a close relationship - the Jews lived under royal protection.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30This Judenplatz was the site of the Jewish city
0:15:30 > 0:15:32where the Jews all lived,
0:15:32 > 0:15:35and this, now the Holocaust Memorial,
0:15:35 > 0:15:37was the site of the community's synagogue.
0:15:37 > 0:15:41The Royal Court was right next door.
0:15:41 > 0:15:45But this relationship was ambivalent. It led to resentment.
0:15:45 > 0:15:51And in 1421, it exploded in a savage pogrom against the Jewish community.
0:15:57 > 0:16:01Now Archduke Albert V turned against the Jews,
0:16:01 > 0:16:04first crippling them with taxes,
0:16:04 > 0:16:08then torturing them when they couldn't pay.
0:16:08 > 0:16:11The pogrom climaxed with the lynching,
0:16:11 > 0:16:14torturing and burning at the stake of hundreds of Jews,
0:16:14 > 0:16:18as the Jewish community was systematically destroyed.
0:16:18 > 0:16:20Finally, the Duke issued a decree
0:16:20 > 0:16:23that all Jewish children under the age of 15
0:16:23 > 0:16:27should be abducted and forcibly converted to Christendom.
0:16:27 > 0:16:31The surviving Jews retired to their community synagogue
0:16:31 > 0:16:35and locked themselves in. After a siege of two or three days,
0:16:35 > 0:16:39they committed suicide en masse by setting the synagogue alight.
0:16:46 > 0:16:49A Christian merchant of the time
0:16:49 > 0:16:52gleefully celebrated the Jewish tragedy
0:16:52 > 0:16:59by putting up this plaque which reads, "The raging fire of 1421
0:16:59 > 0:17:04"cleansed the city of the vile crimes of the Hebrew dogs."
0:17:08 > 0:17:10The boundless ambitions of the House of Habsburg
0:17:10 > 0:17:13finally reached their fulfilment
0:17:13 > 0:17:16with the unlikely figure of Frederick III.
0:17:16 > 0:17:20In 1442, he was crowned Emperor by the Pope in Rome.
0:17:23 > 0:17:26Frederick was the first Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor,
0:17:26 > 0:17:27the first of many,
0:17:27 > 0:17:30and everything about him was big -
0:17:30 > 0:17:35his ambitions, the length of his reign, and his mountainous stomach.
0:17:35 > 0:17:37He was known as Frederick the Fat.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40He was shrewd, patient, long-suffering,
0:17:40 > 0:17:45but also notoriously sluggish and vacillating.
0:17:45 > 0:17:47The Pope said that he wanted to conquer the world
0:17:47 > 0:17:49whilst sitting down.
0:17:49 > 0:17:54And in Germany, his nickname was the Arch Sleepyhead of the empire.
0:17:58 > 0:18:00On becoming Emperor,
0:18:00 > 0:18:04he confirmed Rudolf the Founder's forged document.
0:18:04 > 0:18:09And henceforth, the Habsburgs would always be Archdukes of Austria.
0:18:11 > 0:18:16This is the Hofberg, the ancient city fortress of Vienna.
0:18:16 > 0:18:19And when Frederick III, Frederick the Fat,
0:18:19 > 0:18:20became Holy Roman Emperor,
0:18:20 > 0:18:23this became his imperial headquarters.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28But Frederick's ambitions always exceeded
0:18:28 > 0:18:30both his energy and his resources.
0:18:30 > 0:18:33And it wasn't long before his rivals were circling.
0:18:38 > 0:18:41Ever since the murder of Albert One Eye,
0:18:41 > 0:18:44the House of Habsburg had been deeply divided.
0:18:46 > 0:18:49Now Frederick was challenged by his own brother, another Albert,
0:18:49 > 0:18:52who marched on Vienna in 1462,
0:18:52 > 0:18:56intending to wrest power from him and his son and heir, Maximilian.
0:18:59 > 0:19:02Albert allied himself with the Bohemian warlord,
0:19:02 > 0:19:08and, together, they came down to Vienna and besieged Fat Frederick,
0:19:08 > 0:19:12his wife, and Maximilian here at the Hofberg.
0:19:12 > 0:19:16This is, in fact, one of the very few parts of the Hofburg Palace
0:19:16 > 0:19:18that dates from Frederick's time.
0:19:18 > 0:19:20It looked like everything was lost,
0:19:20 > 0:19:24but Frederick endured all this with his usual mixture
0:19:24 > 0:19:28of sleepy patience and obstinate tenacity
0:19:28 > 0:19:30that all would turn out right.
0:19:30 > 0:19:32And so it did.
0:19:32 > 0:19:38The siege was lifted, Albert died, and Frederick swallowed his lands.
0:19:42 > 0:19:44But these family feuds had distracted him
0:19:44 > 0:19:46from a greater danger -
0:19:46 > 0:19:50his dynamic neighbour, the King of Hungary, Matthias.
0:19:55 > 0:20:01In 1482, Matthias attacked Vienna. Frederick ingloriously fled.
0:20:01 > 0:20:03He'd lost his capital.
0:20:07 > 0:20:12But once again, Frederick succeeded by simply outliving his enemies.
0:20:12 > 0:20:16And when Matthias died, he retook Vienna without a fight.
0:20:20 > 0:20:24In celebration, he finished the building of St Stephen's,
0:20:24 > 0:20:28and it was he who inscribed the letters of his code -
0:20:28 > 0:20:30A, E, I, O, U -
0:20:30 > 0:20:33"The whole world is dominated by Austria," - on the altar.
0:20:38 > 0:20:42And he designed a special place for himself, centre stage.
0:20:42 > 0:20:48When he died in 1493, he'd ruled longer than his supposed ancestor,
0:20:48 > 0:20:50the Roman Emperor Augustus.
0:20:51 > 0:20:54During his long reign, Frederick the Fat
0:20:54 > 0:20:57had endured an astonishing number of disasters.
0:20:57 > 0:20:59And yet he triumphed in the end.
0:20:59 > 0:21:03He'd even lost a leg to diabetes, and survived that.
0:21:03 > 0:21:05But when he finally died, appropriately,
0:21:05 > 0:21:06it was from overeating.
0:21:06 > 0:21:08And here's his tomb.
0:21:08 > 0:21:12And as you can see, it's an amazing masterpiece.
0:21:14 > 0:21:16And look at these little creatures,
0:21:16 > 0:21:20the elaborate decoration, these arches.
0:21:20 > 0:21:23Here are the good things in his life, the holy works,
0:21:23 > 0:21:25and here is all the evil he overcame.
0:21:32 > 0:21:34What you have up here,
0:21:34 > 0:21:36in immaculate detail,
0:21:36 > 0:21:41is a surprisingly slim-fit version of Frederick the Fat,
0:21:41 > 0:21:46with all the accoutrements, the paraphernalia of power, the sword,
0:21:46 > 0:21:47the shield, the sceptre.
0:21:50 > 0:21:53Before he died, Frederick pulled off one last victory
0:21:53 > 0:21:55for the House of Habsburg.
0:21:55 > 0:21:57And it wasn't on a battlefield,
0:21:57 > 0:21:58it was in the marriage chamber.
0:21:58 > 0:22:03He married his son and heir, Maximilian, to Mary of Burgundy,
0:22:03 > 0:22:06the richest heiress in Europe.
0:22:06 > 0:22:09She was heiress to the Duchy of Burgundy,
0:22:09 > 0:22:12that, in those days, contained the Netherlands, Belgium,
0:22:12 > 0:22:17Luxembourg and swathes of Eastern France.
0:22:17 > 0:22:21It would make the Habsburgs the greatest dynasty in Europe.
0:22:26 > 0:22:29"Let others wage war," went the saying,
0:22:29 > 0:22:33"But you, happy Austria, shall marry."
0:22:33 > 0:22:36Maximilian's brilliant match to Mary of Burgundy
0:22:36 > 0:22:40was just the first of the three weddings
0:22:40 > 0:22:44that would raise Vienna from Germanic to world capital.
0:22:46 > 0:22:50Maximilian was as gifted a warlord as he was a matchmaker.
0:22:55 > 0:22:57Maximilian couldn't have been more different
0:22:57 > 0:23:00from his flabby, sleepy father.
0:23:00 > 0:23:01Or from the cliche
0:23:01 > 0:23:04of the weak-chinned Habsburgs of the 19th century.
0:23:04 > 0:23:08He was an exuberant, swaggering swashbuckler,
0:23:08 > 0:23:11nicknamed the German Hercules.
0:23:11 > 0:23:16"I laughed, I danced, I jousted, I paid court to the ladies,"
0:23:16 > 0:23:18he wrote in his autobiography.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21"But most of all, I just laughed wholeheartedly."
0:23:27 > 0:23:32But his greatest achievements were in his marriage alliances.
0:23:32 > 0:23:36First he married his son, Philip the Handsome,
0:23:36 > 0:23:37to Juana of Spain,
0:23:37 > 0:23:40daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella.
0:23:44 > 0:23:49When they died, the Habsburgs inherited the Spanish Empire.
0:23:49 > 0:23:51But Maximilian wasn't finished yet.
0:23:57 > 0:24:00Towards the end of his life, in 1515,
0:24:00 > 0:24:01Maximilian pulled off
0:24:01 > 0:24:06a second astonishing marriage coup for the dynasty.
0:24:06 > 0:24:09He married his grandchildren, his grandson, Ferdinand,
0:24:09 > 0:24:14and his granddaughter, to the heirs to the Kingdoms of Hungary,
0:24:14 > 0:24:16Bohemia and Croatia.
0:24:18 > 0:24:21In an age of extremely high infant mortality,
0:24:21 > 0:24:24even Maximilian couldn't have expected
0:24:24 > 0:24:27all his marriage alliances to come good.
0:24:28 > 0:24:30But as it happened,
0:24:30 > 0:24:33he and the House of Habsburg were extremely lucky.
0:24:34 > 0:24:37His marriage alliances delivered to the House of Habsburg
0:24:37 > 0:24:41not only Spain, not only the Spanish Empire,
0:24:41 > 0:24:46but also the thrones of Bohemia, Hungary, and Croatia.
0:24:46 > 0:24:50It would make the Habsburgs the greatest family empire
0:24:50 > 0:24:52the world had ever known.
0:24:55 > 0:24:59Maximilian was determined that his achievements would not go unnoticed.
0:25:02 > 0:25:06He'd be aided in this mission by the invention of the printing press.
0:25:08 > 0:25:12The Emperor Maximilian had used marriage alliances and war
0:25:12 > 0:25:14to promote the House of Habsburg.
0:25:14 > 0:25:17But now he was one of the first rulers
0:25:17 > 0:25:19to use the new medium of printing
0:25:19 > 0:25:22to project his majesty and magnificence.
0:25:22 > 0:25:26And I'm here at the Albertina Museum to see how he did it.
0:25:30 > 0:25:36These famous but rarely seen works are held in storage at this museum.
0:25:36 > 0:25:39But they've offered to take them out and show them to us.
0:25:40 > 0:25:46Christof Metzger is head of the Albertina's graphic art collection.
0:25:46 > 0:25:49This is the first sheet.
0:25:49 > 0:25:53And now you can make a sequence of altogether
0:25:53 > 0:25:55more than 40 metres.
0:25:57 > 0:25:59One of the largest ever made,
0:25:59 > 0:26:02Maximilian's print depicts his travels around the empire.
0:26:02 > 0:26:07But it's also meant to resemble the triumphal processions
0:26:07 > 0:26:08of the Roman Emperors.
0:26:10 > 0:26:12Just tell me about, you know, what was done with these -
0:26:12 > 0:26:17these were printed and then sent around the Holy Roman Empire?
0:26:17 > 0:26:19Yes, yes,
0:26:19 > 0:26:23using the very, very modern medium of printing.
0:26:25 > 0:26:29And if you want to have an impression how this has been made,
0:26:29 > 0:26:34we have here the wood block of the artists of this procedure.
0:26:34 > 0:26:38The detail is so intricate.
0:26:38 > 0:26:40You fill it with ink, you cover it with ink,
0:26:40 > 0:26:43you take a sheet of paper,
0:26:43 > 0:26:47you put it on the coloured wood block...
0:26:48 > 0:26:50..make a little pressure on it.
0:26:50 > 0:26:55And afterwards, you have the final print.
0:26:55 > 0:26:59This was the latest technology in 1518, or whatever,
0:26:59 > 0:27:02it was like Twitter or Facebook today.
0:27:02 > 0:27:04- Yes.- This was the new medium.
0:27:04 > 0:27:10That's the new medium, and the first possibility, really,
0:27:10 > 0:27:13to create art as a mass product.
0:27:13 > 0:27:14Fascinating.
0:27:15 > 0:27:17But there's also a colour version
0:27:17 > 0:27:19of Maximilian's triumphal procession,
0:27:19 > 0:27:22hand-drawn and hand-painted.
0:27:22 > 0:27:27This has been the most precious version for the emperor,
0:27:27 > 0:27:30and the imperial family.
0:27:30 > 0:27:34The printed version was for
0:27:34 > 0:27:35nearly everybody.
0:27:35 > 0:27:39I think it's a thing of breathtaking beauty.
0:27:39 > 0:27:43It's one of the greatest treasures in Vienna.
0:27:43 > 0:27:46Am I right in saying that it's only been exhibited
0:27:46 > 0:27:49about two or three times in 500 years?
0:27:49 > 0:27:51Very, very rare occasions.
0:27:51 > 0:27:54Can I look at it a bit more closely?
0:27:54 > 0:27:55Yes, of course.
0:27:55 > 0:27:58I'd just like to look at some of the detail on it.
0:27:58 > 0:28:04I love this horse here, this caparisoned horse,
0:28:04 > 0:28:05with these eagles on it.
0:28:05 > 0:28:07Now, who is this?
0:28:07 > 0:28:14These two horsemen introduce the carriage of the imperial family.
0:28:14 > 0:28:18I think nothing really approaches the resplendent bling
0:28:18 > 0:28:22of this gold-worked armour.
0:28:23 > 0:28:26So moving this way, now we approach,
0:28:26 > 0:28:29we suddenly see somebody very important is coming,
0:28:29 > 0:28:31because look, there's one, two...
0:28:31 > 0:28:32- there's 12 horses...- 12.
0:28:32 > 0:28:35..each ridden by a postilion,
0:28:35 > 0:28:38that are pulling a giant carriage.
0:28:38 > 0:28:40And who is in this carriage?
0:28:40 > 0:28:43Well, this is Maximilian himself, isn't it?
0:28:43 > 0:28:45Let's look at him.
0:28:45 > 0:28:48This is, in effect, the story we're about to tell.
0:28:48 > 0:28:53So we have Maximilian, and then we have his son, Philip the Handsome,
0:28:53 > 0:28:59who was married to Juana of Spain.
0:28:59 > 0:29:04And there we see their children, the future Emperor Charles V,
0:29:04 > 0:29:09and the future Emperor Ferdinand, his brother.
0:29:09 > 0:29:10So, in effect,
0:29:10 > 0:29:15this carriage contains the future destiny of the House of Habsburg,
0:29:15 > 0:29:17and of Europe itself,
0:29:17 > 0:29:20for the next 100 years.
0:29:24 > 0:29:26Maximilian was ready to die.
0:29:26 > 0:29:29He travelled everywhere with his own coffin
0:29:29 > 0:29:31and he specified that on his death,
0:29:31 > 0:29:34he was to be treated like a common sinner,
0:29:34 > 0:29:37his teeth pulled out of his body, his hair shorn,
0:29:37 > 0:29:40and his cadaver scourged with whips.
0:29:40 > 0:29:44When he died, his heir was not his son,
0:29:44 > 0:29:47Philip the Handsome, who'd predeceased him, but his grandson,
0:29:47 > 0:29:52Charles V, who inherited all his vast domains.
0:29:52 > 0:29:54But it was too much for any one man,
0:29:54 > 0:29:57and so he brought his brother, Ferdinand,
0:29:57 > 0:30:00who'd been brought up in Spain, speaking only Spanish,
0:30:00 > 0:30:05and gave him the Austrian lands and Vienna.
0:30:05 > 0:30:07From now on, this is Ferdinand's story.
0:30:13 > 0:30:18In 1521, Ferdinand I became Archduke of Austria.
0:30:18 > 0:30:20But when his brother-in-law,
0:30:20 > 0:30:22the King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia,
0:30:22 > 0:30:25was killed in battle by the Ottoman Turks,
0:30:25 > 0:30:27he inherited those lands as well.
0:30:30 > 0:30:34Ferdinand was now in charge of defending the entire eastern flank
0:30:34 > 0:30:39of Christendom from the looming threat of the Ottomans and Islam.
0:30:42 > 0:30:46The Sultan of the Ottomans was Suleiman I,
0:30:46 > 0:30:49known to history as Suleiman the Magnificent.
0:30:52 > 0:30:58In 1529 he marched on the city with an army of 300,000 men.
0:31:03 > 0:31:09Ruling an empire that stretched from Iraq to Africa and the Balkans,
0:31:09 > 0:31:13Suleiman the Magnificent saw himself as a Roman emperor,
0:31:13 > 0:31:16an Islamic caliph and a Turkish sultan.
0:31:16 > 0:31:19Now 35, in his prime, he'd already
0:31:19 > 0:31:22taken the cities of Belgrade and Buda.
0:31:22 > 0:31:25And he was advancing into Hungary,
0:31:25 > 0:31:27defeating the Hungarians and
0:31:27 > 0:31:30Bohemians and killing their young king.
0:31:30 > 0:31:34This allowed Ferdinand to claim those thrones,
0:31:34 > 0:31:36but it also started the duel between
0:31:36 > 0:31:39the two greatest dynasties of their time,
0:31:39 > 0:31:42the Ottomans versus the Habsburgs.
0:31:42 > 0:31:46As he advanced on Vienna, this wasn't just a battle for a city,
0:31:46 > 0:31:51it was a battle for Christendom and Europe itself.
0:31:51 > 0:31:53Christendom was in peril.
0:31:57 > 0:32:00In September, the Ottoman army camped right
0:32:00 > 0:32:04here on the outskirts of Vienna.
0:32:04 > 0:32:07Suleiman commanded the siege of Vienna from his tent,
0:32:07 > 0:32:09pitched on this spot.
0:32:09 > 0:32:12But he'd started late in the year -
0:32:12 > 0:32:15winter was coming, supplies were low
0:32:15 > 0:32:17and then his troops mutinied.
0:32:17 > 0:32:19He'd never been defeated before,
0:32:19 > 0:32:22and so he ordered a final assault on the city.
0:32:22 > 0:32:26And when it failed, he reluctantly retreated.
0:32:26 > 0:32:32Afterwards, the Habsburgs celebrated by building this palace on the site.
0:32:32 > 0:32:33But it wasn't over.
0:32:33 > 0:32:39This was the beginning of a titanic struggle that lasted 200 years.
0:32:44 > 0:32:48But Islam wasn't the only threat to Vienna and the House of Habsburg.
0:32:49 > 0:32:53Martin Luther had launched his protest against
0:32:53 > 0:32:55papal abuses in Germany
0:32:55 > 0:32:58and the Protestant Reformation of the church had now
0:32:58 > 0:33:00spread into Bohemia as well.
0:33:01 > 0:33:04Ferdinand went to war, and he managed to contain
0:33:04 > 0:33:06the Protestant threat.
0:33:06 > 0:33:10But his grandson didn't just compromise with Protestantism,
0:33:10 > 0:33:13he actively encouraged religious diversity.
0:33:13 > 0:33:15Crowned emperor in 1576,
0:33:15 > 0:33:20his portrait hangs here in the Art History Museum.
0:33:20 > 0:33:22This is Rudolf II,
0:33:22 > 0:33:26the mercurial Holy Roman Emperor who ruled for 30 years.
0:33:26 > 0:33:28And here you can see the exhaustion on his face.
0:33:28 > 0:33:33But for three decades he had dazzled, amused
0:33:33 > 0:33:36and worried all of Europe with his crazy antics.
0:33:36 > 0:33:38He was known as Rudolf the Mad.
0:33:38 > 0:33:44He had a court filled with necromancers, magicians, alchemists,
0:33:44 > 0:33:45Jewish Kabbalists.
0:33:45 > 0:33:47He wasn't interested in politics,
0:33:47 > 0:33:51he was bored by religious politics which obsessed everybody else.
0:33:51 > 0:33:56What interested him was collecting great art, a quest for beauty
0:33:56 > 0:33:58and truth and magic.
0:33:58 > 0:34:00He was a mystic. He was a collector.
0:34:00 > 0:34:01He was a connoisseur.
0:34:01 > 0:34:03Everything he did was extraordinary.
0:34:03 > 0:34:08He had, for example, a pet tiger that wandered his castles,
0:34:08 > 0:34:10occasionally eating his courtiers.
0:34:10 > 0:34:14He loved boys, he loved girls, he fathered many bastards.
0:34:14 > 0:34:17His sex life shocked everybody.
0:34:17 > 0:34:20But he was always on the verge of madness.
0:34:25 > 0:34:29Rudolf amassed one of the most impressive art collections in Europe
0:34:29 > 0:34:34with works by Durer, Brueghel and the Italian Giuseppe Arcimboldo.
0:34:36 > 0:34:39The style of Rudolf's court painter
0:34:39 > 0:34:43and impresario of court spectacles, Arcimboldo,
0:34:43 > 0:34:46tells you a lot about the fantastical atmosphere
0:34:46 > 0:34:49at Rudolf the Mad's court.
0:34:49 > 0:34:52Arcimboldo loved to portray courtiers and even
0:34:52 > 0:34:55royalty using everyday objects.
0:34:55 > 0:34:59Here, this man's nose is a gherkin, for example.
0:34:59 > 0:35:01His chin is a pear.
0:35:01 > 0:35:03Arcimboldo's signature is in the straw.
0:35:04 > 0:35:07His most famous painting is not kept in Vienna,
0:35:07 > 0:35:08but in a museum in Sweden.
0:35:11 > 0:35:16This is Arcimboldo's masterpiece. It is Rudolf II himself.
0:35:16 > 0:35:19The emperor commissioned this. He loved it -
0:35:19 > 0:35:22he had it hanging in his imperial bedchamber.
0:35:22 > 0:35:27And he insisted that his own nose should appear as a pear.
0:35:27 > 0:35:33He is Vertumnus, Roman god of fecundity and of fruit.
0:35:33 > 0:35:35And that's how Rudolf saw himself.
0:35:35 > 0:35:37But, you have to ask,
0:35:37 > 0:35:41what to make of a Holy Roman Emperor who wanted himself portrayed
0:35:41 > 0:35:43as a living fruit salad.
0:35:43 > 0:35:48And his own family, the Habsburgs, were deeply unamused about this.
0:35:48 > 0:35:51They didn't just regard him as a fruit salad, or a fruit cake,
0:35:51 > 0:35:56for that matter. To them, his mysticism, his madness,
0:35:56 > 0:35:59his tolerance of Protestantism made
0:35:59 > 0:36:03him not just a nutter but more than that,
0:36:03 > 0:36:08a danger to the dynasty, to God, to Christendom itself.
0:36:14 > 0:36:17In 1609, Rudolf formally granted tolerance to
0:36:17 > 0:36:20the Protestants of Bohemia.
0:36:20 > 0:36:23For his family and the Pope, this was a step too far.
0:36:23 > 0:36:26They began to plot against him.
0:36:26 > 0:36:30In 1611, Rudolf's own brother Matthias overthrew him.
0:36:36 > 0:36:39Rudolf died nine months later.
0:36:39 > 0:36:43Although he saw himself as an advocate for religious tolerance,
0:36:43 > 0:36:46his legacy had a dark side.
0:36:47 > 0:36:50The Habsburg Empire was created by marriage,
0:36:50 > 0:36:54and they tried to keep it together by intermarriage within the family.
0:36:54 > 0:36:58But it wasn't long before these incestuous unions had started to
0:36:58 > 0:37:02produce a few depraved psychopaths.
0:37:02 > 0:37:08Rudolf the Mad's son, Don Julius, was even madder than his father.
0:37:08 > 0:37:13Finally, he kidnapped a barber's daughter, dismembered her,
0:37:13 > 0:37:16sliced off her ears, cut off her breasts
0:37:16 > 0:37:21and was finally found cradling her earless head,
0:37:21 > 0:37:24covered in his own blood and excrement.
0:37:24 > 0:37:29Such were the macabre secrets of the house of Austria.
0:37:34 > 0:37:36Matthias's rule was short lived.
0:37:36 > 0:37:41But the same cannot be said for the Catholic fervour of the Habsburgs,
0:37:41 > 0:37:44which now faced a new challenge from the Protestants of Prague,
0:37:44 > 0:37:46just 180 miles to the north.
0:37:47 > 0:37:50The age of tolerance was dead.
0:37:50 > 0:37:53The Catholic counterreformation was on the march.
0:37:53 > 0:37:58The new Habsburg monarch, Ferdinand II, was a religious bigot,
0:37:58 > 0:38:00a Catholic zealot.
0:38:00 > 0:38:02He revoked the tolerance of the
0:38:02 > 0:38:06Protestants of Bohemia, and they rebelled.
0:38:06 > 0:38:10The result was the Defenestration of Prague.
0:38:10 > 0:38:11Every schoolboy's favourite,
0:38:11 > 0:38:15defenestration means throwing someone out of the window.
0:38:15 > 0:38:19And throwing people out of windows was a bit of a national pastime
0:38:19 > 0:38:23in Bohemia. This was the second Defenestration of Prague.
0:38:23 > 0:38:26Four of Ferdinand's Catholic
0:38:26 > 0:38:31ministers were grabbed by the mob and tossed out of the window.
0:38:35 > 0:38:38The drop was 70 feet.
0:38:41 > 0:38:45Astonishingly, all four survived the fall.
0:38:45 > 0:38:48To Ferdinand and the Catholics this was a miracle -
0:38:48 > 0:38:53the Virgin Mary had intercepted them and softened their fall.
0:38:53 > 0:38:56To the Protestants, they had simply survived by landing
0:38:56 > 0:38:57in a heap of dung.
0:38:57 > 0:39:01But Ferdinand celebrated by making one of the lords
0:39:01 > 0:39:03Baron von Hohenfall,
0:39:03 > 0:39:05Baron of the High Fall.
0:39:05 > 0:39:08Nonetheless, Bohemia and the
0:39:08 > 0:39:11Protestants were now in open rebellion.
0:39:11 > 0:39:13This was war.
0:39:19 > 0:39:22Ferdinand was determined to regain Bohemia.
0:39:22 > 0:39:24He sent an army to march on Prague.
0:39:29 > 0:39:31In 1620, Ferdinand and the Catholics
0:39:31 > 0:39:35defeated the Protestants at the Battle of White Mountain.
0:39:35 > 0:39:38And when he retook Prague, he unleashed a terrible revenge.
0:39:38 > 0:39:4427 of the leading Protestant lords were tortured, dismembered,
0:39:44 > 0:39:50executed in the main town square, their heads hung from meat hooks.
0:39:50 > 0:39:53This was the beginning of the Thirty Years' War,
0:39:53 > 0:39:58a savage religious war and a brutal tournament of power that ultimately
0:39:58 > 0:40:01drew in most of the powers of Europe.
0:40:01 > 0:40:04And for the Europeans themselves, it was a disaster.
0:40:04 > 0:40:07Out of a population of around 78 million,
0:40:07 > 0:40:11somewhere between three and 12 million perished.
0:40:11 > 0:40:14That's as much as 15%.
0:40:14 > 0:40:17This was a European catastrophe.
0:40:21 > 0:40:27But war would be the making of one man, who seemed born for battle.
0:40:27 > 0:40:32Albrecht Wenzel von Wallenstein was one of the greatest generals
0:40:32 > 0:40:34the Habsburgs ever fielded.
0:40:34 > 0:40:38And he was the ultimate over-mighty swaggering warlord
0:40:38 > 0:40:40of the Thirty Years' War.
0:40:40 > 0:40:44At the war's opening he offered himself with 100,000 men to
0:40:44 > 0:40:46Emperor Ferdinand.
0:40:46 > 0:40:50He thrashed all the emperor's enemies - Danes, Protestants,
0:40:50 > 0:40:53Swedes, and became commander-in-chief.
0:40:53 > 0:40:57But he forced the emperor to make him Duke of Friedland,
0:40:57 > 0:41:00and amassed a vast, personal fiefdom.
0:41:00 > 0:41:04Soon he was even threatening the emperor himself.
0:41:11 > 0:41:15Ferdinand now feared that Wallenstein wouldn't rest until he
0:41:15 > 0:41:19dominated all of Central Europe.
0:41:19 > 0:41:24In 1634, Ferdinand gathered together in Vienna a tribunal that condemned
0:41:24 > 0:41:27Wallenstein was a traitor.
0:41:27 > 0:41:31He was to be brought back to Vienna, dead or alive.
0:41:31 > 0:41:36The hit squad was a group of Irish dragoons under an Irishman,
0:41:36 > 0:41:42Walter Butler. First they burst into the tavern where Wallenstein's
0:41:42 > 0:41:45entourage and henchmen were asleep. They murdered them all.
0:41:45 > 0:41:49And then, finally, burst into Wallenstein's own bedroom.
0:41:49 > 0:41:52As he lay in bed, they ran him through with a halberd,
0:41:52 > 0:41:57and there died, bled out on the bed in some remote lodgings,
0:41:57 > 0:42:00the greatest general of the Thirty Years' War.
0:42:00 > 0:42:03The warlord who had dared to challenge the emperor himself.
0:42:07 > 0:42:11But this was not just a war fought by generals on battlefields.
0:42:13 > 0:42:18The Thirty Years' War was also a battle for hearts and minds.
0:42:18 > 0:42:22Ferdinand II recruited the Jesuits, the holy order,
0:42:22 > 0:42:25as soldiers in his army of Christ.
0:42:25 > 0:42:27They provided his top advisers,
0:42:27 > 0:42:31the tutors for the heir to the throne, they ran the university,
0:42:31 > 0:42:33they took over education.
0:42:33 > 0:42:37And as the cloisters took over the corridors of power,
0:42:37 > 0:42:38the joke went like this -
0:42:38 > 0:42:42Austria, Osterreich, had become Cl-Osterreich.
0:42:45 > 0:42:48In Austria, the Counter-Reformation
0:42:48 > 0:42:51became known as the Klosteroffensive.
0:42:51 > 0:42:54It would transform the character of the city.
0:42:55 > 0:42:58Ferdinand himself founded this Jesuit church
0:42:58 > 0:43:02in the old university quarter of Vienna.
0:43:03 > 0:43:06In 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia
0:43:06 > 0:43:09finally ended the ruinous Thirty Years' War.
0:43:09 > 0:43:13In wider Europe, there was a compromise between the Catholics and
0:43:13 > 0:43:17Protestants. But within the Austrian monarchy,
0:43:17 > 0:43:20it marked the total victory of Catholicism.
0:43:20 > 0:43:24And that confidence, that exuberance,
0:43:24 > 0:43:29that supremacy of Catholicism, is expressed here in this church.
0:43:33 > 0:43:38Its interior was remodelled in opulent Baroque style by an Italian
0:43:38 > 0:43:42architect and stage designer, Andrea Pozzo.
0:43:44 > 0:43:47The ceiling is a fine example of a trompe-l'oeil,
0:43:47 > 0:43:50creating the optical illusion of a domed roof.
0:43:52 > 0:43:56And Pozzo's background in stage design is apparent
0:43:56 > 0:44:00in the inclusion of these theatrical boxes on the first floor.
0:44:07 > 0:44:11Positioning the Habsburgs as champions of Catholicism,
0:44:11 > 0:44:16Ferdinand laid the foundation stone for the family Imperial Crypt.
0:44:19 > 0:44:23We've been given exclusive access to this wonderful,
0:44:23 > 0:44:25if somewhat eerie place.
0:44:28 > 0:44:34When a Habsburg emperor died, his funeral cortege would come here,
0:44:34 > 0:44:39to the Capuchin Chapel to the Kaisergruft, the Emperor's Crypt.
0:44:40 > 0:44:45The doors would be locked, and they would knock on the doors and say,
0:44:45 > 0:44:48"This is the Emperor. The King of Bohemia."
0:44:48 > 0:44:52And they would list all his other many, many titles, a page long.
0:44:53 > 0:44:57"We recognise no-one of that name," they would reply.
0:44:57 > 0:45:00So they would knock again and this time,
0:45:00 > 0:45:02they would give a shorter version.
0:45:02 > 0:45:07And again they would reply, "We know of no-one of that name."
0:45:07 > 0:45:10And finally, they would knock for the third time.
0:45:10 > 0:45:12"Who goes there?" they would say.
0:45:12 > 0:45:14And the cortege would answer,
0:45:14 > 0:45:16"A penitent sinner."
0:45:16 > 0:45:19And then they would open the door.
0:45:19 > 0:45:22That was how Habsburgs were buried.
0:45:27 > 0:45:30But in spite of their supposed humility in death,
0:45:30 > 0:45:32the Habsburgs were still buried
0:45:32 > 0:45:37in these ornate metal sarcophagi, decorated with skulls,
0:45:37 > 0:45:39but also with their many crowns.
0:45:43 > 0:45:46And that's the point. This was all an act.
0:45:46 > 0:45:47It was all a show.
0:45:47 > 0:45:52A Habsburg emperor lived and died as an emperor.
0:46:12 > 0:46:16Educated by the Jesuits and originally intended for the church,
0:46:16 > 0:46:19Ferdinand's grandson, Leopold I,
0:46:19 > 0:46:24was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1658.
0:46:27 > 0:46:31The new young emperor, Leopold I, was no beauty.
0:46:31 > 0:46:34Even by the standards of Habsburg interbreeding,
0:46:34 > 0:46:37he was possessed of the most ginormous jaw
0:46:37 > 0:46:40in the whole history of the family.
0:46:40 > 0:46:45Wits at court meanly nicknamed him Schweinemund von Habsburg.
0:46:45 > 0:46:47The Hog Mouth of Habsburg.
0:46:47 > 0:46:53In a 50-year rule, he endured disasters and he endured glories.
0:46:53 > 0:46:55He was endearing. He was sweet.
0:46:55 > 0:47:01He was untalented but he loved music. He lived for music.
0:47:01 > 0:47:04He was a consummate if conventional composer.
0:47:04 > 0:47:09His tragedy was that he wrote the requiems for both of his dead wives.
0:47:11 > 0:47:16His first wife was a toddler when she was betrothed to him.
0:47:16 > 0:47:21An extraordinary story is told in a series of portraits that hang in the
0:47:21 > 0:47:22Art History Museum.
0:47:23 > 0:47:29This is Margarita Teresa, a child who is the Infanta of Spain.
0:47:29 > 0:47:34And from the age of about three, she was destined to marry her uncle,
0:47:34 > 0:47:39Leopold I, Emperor in Austria, in Vienna.
0:47:39 > 0:47:43And this was just another example of the insane,
0:47:43 > 0:47:45and ultimately disastrous policy of
0:47:45 > 0:47:48the Habsburg marrying their relatives.
0:47:48 > 0:47:52She was not only his niece, both her parents were also Habsburgs,
0:47:52 > 0:47:56so they were related on many levels.
0:47:56 > 0:47:59And because she was far away in Madrid, and she had to grow up,
0:47:59 > 0:48:02the court painter in Spain, Velazquez,
0:48:02 > 0:48:05was commissioned to paint her every two or three years.
0:48:06 > 0:48:07Here's the first painting.
0:48:09 > 0:48:12Here in the second painting she is at five.
0:48:12 > 0:48:16And here she is, the third one, at eight.
0:48:16 > 0:48:20The actual marriage took place when she was 15.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23And when they were married, and they were husband and wife,
0:48:23 > 0:48:26she always called her husband "Uncle."
0:48:33 > 0:48:35In the summer of 1666,
0:48:35 > 0:48:39Margarita Teresa finally travelled to Vienna and
0:48:39 > 0:48:41their marriage took place in December that year.
0:48:45 > 0:48:51Leopold celebrated his wedding with a giant allegorical spectacular here
0:48:51 > 0:48:56at the Hofburg. Life-size ships, horses, carriages
0:48:56 > 0:48:58hovered above the lake.
0:48:58 > 0:49:02Two 60-foot mountains, Etna and Parnassus,
0:49:02 > 0:49:06spurted forth fire like volcanoes.
0:49:06 > 0:49:08And the climax came when Leopold
0:49:08 > 0:49:13himself excitedly lit 70,000 fireworks
0:49:13 > 0:49:17that illuminated the sky above Vienna,
0:49:17 > 0:49:20spelling out the letters A, E, I, O, U.
0:49:20 > 0:49:24Austria dominates the world.
0:49:29 > 0:49:32For days, the entire city was given over
0:49:32 > 0:49:35to a series of baroque spectaculars,
0:49:35 > 0:49:38including a four-hour equestrian ballet.
0:49:43 > 0:49:46Rudi Risatti is one of the curators
0:49:46 > 0:49:48of an exhibition of baroque spectacle
0:49:48 > 0:49:50at the Vienna Theatre Museum.
0:49:59 > 0:50:04He's made an animated film from original period prints of the
0:50:04 > 0:50:07horse ballet, performed in the Hofburg Square.
0:50:10 > 0:50:14Rudi, tell me about the special effects of the 17th century.
0:50:14 > 0:50:17How on earth did they get these life-size
0:50:17 > 0:50:19carriages to seem to float on water?
0:50:19 > 0:50:26They tried through means of illusion to create wonderful images in the
0:50:26 > 0:50:28three-dimensional space.
0:50:28 > 0:50:31So, for example, in the horse ballet you saw
0:50:31 > 0:50:35different wagons and chariots moved by the
0:50:35 > 0:50:38force of horses, etc.
0:50:38 > 0:50:41The water was not real water,
0:50:41 > 0:50:47it was just a combination of different fabrics and painted parts.
0:50:47 > 0:50:52Tell me about other spectaculars that Leopold put on.
0:50:53 > 0:50:58A second big event confirming the power of the court
0:50:58 > 0:51:01was the opera Il Pomo D'oro,
0:51:01 > 0:51:04for which Leopold I composed some parts.
0:51:04 > 0:51:07When the Habsburg monarchy was almost bankrupt,
0:51:07 > 0:51:12why did they spend so much on these spectacular extravaganzas?
0:51:12 > 0:51:15Spectacular and theatrical events
0:51:15 > 0:51:20were being made just to show the power of the dynasty.
0:51:22 > 0:51:25To finance these extravagant displays of power,
0:51:25 > 0:51:29Leopold had to borrow from Jewish moneylenders.
0:51:29 > 0:51:31They'd finally been allowed to return to Vienna,
0:51:31 > 0:51:35though only permitted to settle outside the city walls
0:51:35 > 0:51:37on the other side of the Danube.
0:51:39 > 0:51:44But now, influenced by the rabid anti-Semitism of his young wife,
0:51:44 > 0:51:46Leopold would turn against them
0:51:46 > 0:51:48and they were expelled from the city.
0:51:51 > 0:51:55Their synagogue was destroyed and Leopold built a church on its site.
0:51:58 > 0:52:00Soon after the Jewish expulsion,
0:52:00 > 0:52:04the city was blighted by an outbreak of bubonic plague
0:52:04 > 0:52:07that claimed over 70,000 lives
0:52:07 > 0:52:09and severely weakened its garrison.
0:52:12 > 0:52:16This didn't go unnoticed by a resurgent Ottoman Empire.
0:52:17 > 0:52:20Its grand vizier, or prime minister,
0:52:20 > 0:52:24was the ferociously ambitious Kara Mustafa,
0:52:24 > 0:52:28and he finally persuaded his sultan that the time was right
0:52:28 > 0:52:31to once again attempt to take Vienna.
0:52:34 > 0:52:38In July, 1683, the Ottoman army,
0:52:38 > 0:52:42200,000 strong and under the command of Kara Mustafa himself,
0:52:42 > 0:52:46arrived beneath the walls of Fortress Vienna.
0:52:46 > 0:52:49As the Ottomans besieged the city,
0:52:49 > 0:52:55they started to mine underneath the bastions and walls of its defences.
0:52:55 > 0:52:59This is one of the last city walls that still exists.
0:52:59 > 0:53:03Day by day they slowly, but systematically,
0:53:03 > 0:53:06blew up bastion after bastion,
0:53:06 > 0:53:11wall after wall, until they were almost ready to storm the city.
0:53:11 > 0:53:14If relief didn't come soon, Vienna would fall.
0:53:24 > 0:53:27Leopold was chiefly concerned with saving his own skin
0:53:27 > 0:53:31and he fled to Linz, more than 100 miles away.
0:53:31 > 0:53:34En route he was jeered and spat at by peasants.
0:53:41 > 0:53:46Leopold and the Pope implored Christian kings to join
0:53:46 > 0:53:49a holy league to defend the embattled city.
0:53:49 > 0:53:51And their call was heard.
0:53:53 > 0:53:57The leader of the Holy Alliance was King Jan Sobieski of Poland.
0:53:57 > 0:54:01He was the classic beau sabreur and knight who'd fought in many armies
0:54:01 > 0:54:03across Europe.
0:54:03 > 0:54:05He'd also been to many foreign capitals, Paris -
0:54:05 > 0:54:06he was a man of culture.
0:54:06 > 0:54:09He'd married a beautiful French wife.
0:54:09 > 0:54:11He was hugely overweight,
0:54:11 > 0:54:16but he could still stay in the saddle for 12 or 15 hours at a time.
0:54:16 > 0:54:20He knew that if Vienna fell, Poland would be next.
0:54:20 > 0:54:23And that's why he led his 3,000 famous Polish hussars
0:54:23 > 0:54:28in their leopard skins and tiger skins to rescue Vienna.
0:54:33 > 0:54:37Sobieski assembled his army here, in the Vienna Woods,
0:54:37 > 0:54:40and on the 12th of September, 1683,
0:54:40 > 0:54:43they began to fight their way towards Vienna.
0:54:46 > 0:54:49The battle raged from dawn till dusk,
0:54:49 > 0:54:51until eventually the Christian forces were ready
0:54:51 > 0:54:52for the final charge.
0:54:55 > 0:55:00King Jan Sobieski, now joined by the Bavarian and Saxon contingents,
0:55:00 > 0:55:06led 18,000 cavalrymen thundering down the hill into the Turkish camp.
0:55:06 > 0:55:10It's said it's the biggest cavalry charge in history.
0:55:10 > 0:55:12The Turks fled.
0:55:12 > 0:55:16Kara Mustafa had given orders that his favourite concubine and his pet
0:55:16 > 0:55:21ostrich must not fall into enemy hands.
0:55:21 > 0:55:23In the grand vizier's opulent tent,
0:55:23 > 0:55:28headless girl and headless bird were found side-by-side.
0:55:30 > 0:55:31BELL TOLLS
0:55:34 > 0:55:39It was a victory for Christ, it was a victory for Vienna.
0:55:41 > 0:55:45The bells of Saint Stephen's rang out in joyful celebration.
0:55:49 > 0:55:52King Jan Sobieski, by right, should have waited for
0:55:52 > 0:55:56Emperor Leopold to return before he entered his city.
0:55:56 > 0:55:59But the old swashbuckler just couldn't resist it
0:55:59 > 0:56:02and he galloped on into Vienna.
0:56:02 > 0:56:04When Leopold finally did return,
0:56:04 > 0:56:07there was a frosty meeting between the two monarchs.
0:56:07 > 0:56:10Leopold thanked him half-heartedly.
0:56:10 > 0:56:14"It was a pleasure to perform this small service for you,"
0:56:14 > 0:56:17replied the Polish king sardonically.
0:56:17 > 0:56:19Then he left for Poland.
0:56:19 > 0:56:23But Leopold commandeered the victory for the dynasty.
0:56:23 > 0:56:27It was the making of the House of Habsburg.
0:56:45 > 0:56:48Kara Mustafa had failed in his great enterprise,
0:56:48 > 0:56:51much of it due to his own incompetence.
0:56:51 > 0:56:53And he would pay the price.
0:56:53 > 0:56:57When the Sultan's deaf-mutes, his traditional executioners,
0:56:57 > 0:57:01arrived, Kara Mustafa knew why they had come.
0:57:01 > 0:57:04He bared his neck, "It is God's will," he said.
0:57:04 > 0:57:07They strangled him with their bowstring,
0:57:07 > 0:57:10and then beheaded him and sent the head to the Sultan.
0:57:10 > 0:57:13But for Vienna, and for the House of Habsburg,
0:57:13 > 0:57:16it was a new beginning, a new era.
0:57:16 > 0:57:19The Austrian Habsburgs became a great power in their own right
0:57:19 > 0:57:20for the first time.
0:57:20 > 0:57:23They struck east against the Ottomans,
0:57:23 > 0:57:26west against the mighty French.
0:57:26 > 0:57:28The empire was striking back,
0:57:28 > 0:57:32and Vienna would enter upon its own golden age.
0:57:36 > 0:57:40In the next 100 years, Vienna would see an extraordinary
0:57:40 > 0:57:42flourishing of the arts and the
0:57:42 > 0:57:46construction of some of the world's most spectacular palaces.
0:57:46 > 0:57:49This is one of the glories of 18th-century Vienna.
0:57:49 > 0:57:52No wonder it's called Belvedere - look at this view.
0:57:54 > 0:57:58And Vienna would inspire, perhaps, the most brilliant composer of all,
0:57:58 > 0:58:01Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
0:58:01 > 0:58:02I would say he was a rock star!
0:58:03 > 0:58:08But it would also come under threat from one of history's greatest
0:58:08 > 0:58:10conquerors, Napoleon Bonaparte.
0:58:10 > 0:58:15What makes Vienna the imperial city it is today?
0:58:15 > 0:58:20Find out more through the Open University's interactive map
0:58:20 > 0:58:23of landmarks, language and stories
0:58:23 > 0:58:26by heading to bbc.co.uk/vienna
0:58:26 > 0:58:31and following the links to the Open University.