Maximilian I.

Maximilian=s marriage to Mary of Burgundy (1477), his election as King of Rome (1486) and the Spanish and Hungarian double wedding (1496/97 and 1515), which laid the foundations for the empire of Charles V and the Danube Monarchy, brought the Habsburgs back to the centre of the European political stage after the setbacks of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and ushered in the century of the House of Austria/Casa d=Austria. During the 15 years since the first edition of this book, the image of Maximilian as being the ?last knight= and a ?virtuoso of useless arts= has increasingly shifted towards a view of him as a media emperor, Renaissance prince and (dynastic) power politician with clearly Machiavellian traits. At the same time, the upheavals at the turn of the century around 1500 have acquired ever clearer contours through new interdisciplinary approaches & contours that are also reflected in the multifaceted personality of Maximilian I. The method and goal of this second edition is to narrate and explain Maximilian=s story using a mixture of interpretation and quantification. The text has been slightly revised and supplemented with notes on sources and literature.