The period between the French Revolution and the Battle of Königgrätz in 1866 was a period of war. The monarchies of Europe, led by the Habsburgs, had declared war on the French Republic. Fears were rife that the motto of the Revolution "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité" could spread across Europe. A young general named Napoleon Bonaparte was with his italienischen Armee advanced across the Alps as part of the coalition wars and met the Austrian troops there. It was not just a war for territory and power, it was a battle of systems. The Grande Armee of the revolutionary French Republic met the arch-Catholic Habsburgs.

Tyrolean riflemen were involved in the fighting to defend the country's borders against the invading French. Companies such as the Höttinger Schützen, founded in 1796, faced the most advanced and best army in the world at the time. The Cult of the Sacred Heart, which still enjoys great popularity in Tyrol today, dates back to this time. In a hopeless situation, the Tyrolean troops renewed their covenant with the heart of Jesus to ask for protection. It was the abbot of Stams Monastery who petitioned the provincial estates to henceforth organise an annual "das Fest des göttlichen Herzens Jesu mit feierlichem Gottesdienst zu begehen, wenn Tirol von der drohenden Feindesgefahr befreit werde." Every year, the Sacred Heart celebrations were discussed and announced with great pomp in the press. Particularly in the 19th and early 20th centuries, they were an explosive mixture of popular superstition, Catholicism and national resentment against everything French and Italian. Alongside Cranach's Mother of Mercy, the depiction of the heart of Jesus is probably the most popular Christian motif in the Tyrolean region to this day and is emblazoned on the façades of countless houses.

In the war years of 1848, 1859 and 1866, the so-called Italian wars of unification. In the course of the 19th century, at the latest since 1848, there was a veritable national frenzy among young men. Volunteer armies sprang up in all regions of Europe. Students and academics who came together in their associations, gymnasts, marksmen, all wanted to prove their new love of the nation on the battlefield and supported the official armies. Probably the most famous battle of the Wars of unification took place in Solferino near Lake Garda in 1859. Horrified by the bloody events, Henry Durant decided to found the Red Cross. The writer Joseph Roth described the events in the first pages of his classic book, which is well worth reading Radetzkymarsch.

"In the battle of Solferino, he (note: Lieutenant Trotta) commanded a platoon as an infantry lieutenant. The battle had been going on for half an hour. Three paces in front of him he saw the white backs of his soldiers. The first row of his platoon was kneeling, the second was standing. Everyone was cheerful and certain of victory. They had eaten copiously and drunk brandy at the expense and in honour of the emperor, who had been in the field since yesterday. Here and there one fell out of line."

As a garrison town, Innsbruck was an important supply centre. After the Congress of Vienna, the Tyrolean Jägerkorps the k.k. Tiroler Kaiserjägerregiment an elite unit that was deployed in these conflicts. Volunteer units such as the Innsbruck academics or the Stubai Riflemen were fighting in Italy. The media fuelled the atmosphere away from the front line. The "Innsbrucker Zeitung" predigte in ihren Artikeln Kaisertreue und großdeutsch-tirolischen Nationalismus, wetterte gegen das Italienertum und Franzosen und pries den Mut Tiroler Soldaten.

"Die starke Besetzung der Höhen am Ausgange des Valsugana bei Primolano und le Tezze gab schon oft den Innsbrucker-Akademikern I. und den Stubaiern Anlaß, freiwillige Ercur:sionen gegen le Tezze, Fonzago und Fastro, als auch auf das rechte Brenta-Ufer und den Höhen gegen die kleinen Lager von den Sette comuni zu machen...Am 19. schon haben die Stubaier einige Feinde niedergestreckt, als sie sich das erste mal hinunterwagten, indem sie sich ihnen entgegenschlichen..."

The year 1866 was particularly costly for the Austrian Empire, with the loss of Veneto and Lombardy in Italy. At the same time, Prussia took the lead in the German Confederation, the successor organisation to the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. For Innsbruck, the withdrawal of the Habsburg Monarchy from the German Confederation meant that it had finally become a city on the western periphery of the empire. The tendency towards so-called Großdeutschen LösungThe idea of statehood together with the German Empire instead of the independent Austrian Empire was more pronounced in Tyrol than in the rest of Austria.

The national aspirations of the individual ethnic groups did not stop at Tyrol, as the Trentino region between Salurn and Riva on Lake Garda also included an Italian-speaking part of the country. In the Tyrolean state parliament, Italian-speaking members of parliament called for so-called Irredentistsmore rights and autonomy for what was then South Tyrol. In Innsbruck, there were repeated tensions and clashes between Italian and German-speaking students. The WallschenThis term for Italians persists to this day and they were considered dishonourable, unreliable and lazy.

With the Tummelplatz, the Pradl military cemetery and the Kaiserjägermuseum on Mount Isel, Innsbruck has several places of remembrance of this time of great loss for the Habsburgs.

Philippine Welser was the wife of Archduke Ferdinand II. The Welsers were one of the wealthiest non-aristocratic families of their time. Her uncle Bartholomäus Welser was similarly wealthy to Jakob Fugger. He had also granted loans to the Habsburgs. Instead of paying off the loans, Emperor Charles V pledged part of the newly annexed lands in America to the Welsers, who in return used the land as a colony. Klein-VenedigVenezuela, with fortresses and settlements. They organised expeditions to discover the legendary land of gold El Dorado to discover. In order to get as much as possible out of their fiefdom, they set up trading posts to take part in the profitable transatlantic slave trade between Europe, West Africa and America. Their brutal behaviour led to complaints at the imperial court, where they were subsequently stripped of their fiefdom.

Ferdinand and Philippine met at a carnival ball in Pilsen. The Habsburg fell head over heels in love with the wealthy woman from Augsburg and married her. Nobody in the House of Habsburg was particularly pleased about the couple's secret marriage, even though the Welser's money was put to good use. Despite their wealth, marriages between commoners and nobles were considered scandalous and not befitting their status. The children were therefore excluded from the succession.

Philippine galt als überaus schön. Ihre Haut sei laut Zeitzeugen so zart gewesen, „man hätte einen Schluck Rotwein durch ihre Kehle fließen sehen können". Ferdinand had Ambras Castle remodelled into its present form for his beloved wife. His brother Maximilian even said that "Ferdinand verzaubert sai" by the beautiful Philippine Welser, when Ferdinand withdrew his troops during the Turkish war to go home to his wife.

Philippine Welser's passion was cooking. A collection of recipes still exists in the Austrian National Library today. In the Middle Ages and early modern times, the art of cookery was practised exclusively by the wealthy and nobility, while the vast majority of subjects had to eat whatever was available. The Middle Ages and modern times, in fact all people up until the 1950s, lived with a permanent lack of calories. Whereas today we eat too much and get ill as a result, our ancestors suffered from illnesses caused by malnutrition. Fruit was just as rare on the menu as meat. The food was monotonous and hardly flavoured. Spices such as exotic pepper were luxury goods that ordinary people could not afford. While the diet of the ordinary citizen was a dull affair, where the main aim was to get the calories for the daily work as efficiently as possible, the attitude towards food and drink began to change in Innsbruck under Ferdinand II and Philippine Welser. The court had contributed to a certain cultivation of manners and customs since Frederick IV, and Philippine Welser and Ferdinand continued to drive this development at Ambras Castle and Weiherburg Castle. The banquets they organised were legendary and often degenerated into orgies.

Herbalism was her second hobbyhorse. Philippine Welser described how plants and herbs could be used to alleviate physical ailments of all kinds. At Ambras Castle in Innsbruck, she had a herb garden created for her hobby and her studies.

According to reports of the time, she was very popular among the Tyrolean population, as she took great care of the poor and needy. The care of the needy, led by the town council and sponsored by wealthy citizens and aristocrats, was not a speciality at the time, but common practice. Closer to salvation in the next life than through Christian charity, Caritasyou could not come.

, konnte man nicht kommen. Ihre letzte Ruhe fand Philippine Welser nach ihrem Tod 1580 in der Silbernen Kapelle in der Innsbrucker Hofkirche. Gemeinsam mit ihren als Säugling verstorbenen Kindern und Ferdinand wurde sie dort begraben. Unterhalb des Schloss Ambras erinnert die Philippine-Welser-Straße an sie.

Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria (1529 - 1595) is one of the most colourful figures in Tyrolean history. His father, Emperor Ferdinand I, gave his son an excellent education. He grew up at the Spanish court of his uncle Emperor Charles V. He spent part of his youth at the court in Innsbruck, which was also influenced by Spain at the time. The years in which Ferdinand received his schooling were the early years of Jesuit influence at the Habsburg courts. At a young age, he travelled through Italy and Burgundy and had become acquainted with a lifestyle at the wealthy courts there that had not yet established itself among the German aristocracy. Ferdinand was what today would be described as a globetrotter, a member of the educated elite or a cosmopolitan. He was considered intelligent, charming and artistic. Among his less eccentric contemporaries, Ferdinand enjoyed a reputation as an immoral and hedonistic libertine. Even during his lifetime, he was rumoured to have organised debauched and immoral orgies.

Ferdinand had taken over the province of Tyrol as sovereign in turbulent times. The mines in Schwaz began to become unprofitable due to the cheap silver from America. The flood of silver from the New World led to inflation. This did not stop him from maintaining an expensive court, while the cost of living rose for the poorer sections of the population. The Italian cities were style-defining in terms of culture, art and architecture. Ferdinand's Tyrolean court was in no way inferior to these cities. His masked balls and parades were legendary. Ferdinand had Innsbruck remodelled in the spirit of the Renaissance. In keeping with the trend of the time, he imitated the Italian aristocratic courts in Florence, Mantua, Ferrara and Milan. Court architect Giovanni Lucchese assisted him in this endeavour. Gone were the days when Germans in the more beautiful cities south of the Alps were regarded as uncivilised, barbaric or even as Pigs were labelled.

But Ambras Castle was not the end of the story. To the west of the town, an archway is a reminder of the Tiergartena hunting ground for Ferdinand, including a summer house also designed by Lucchese. In order for the prince to reach his weekend residence, a road was laid in the marshy Höttinger Au, which formed the basis for today's Kranebitter Allee. The Lusthaus was replaced in 1786 by what is now known as the Pulverturm The new building, which houses part of the sports science faculty of the University of Innsbruck, replaced the well-known building. The princely sport of hunting was followed in the former Lusthauswhich was the Powder Tower. Near the city centre, he had the princely Comedihaus on today's Rennweg.

Ferdinand's politics were also influenced by Italy. Machiavelli wrote his work "Il Principe", which stated that rulers were allowed to do whatever was necessary for their success if they were incompetent and could be deposed. Ferdinand II attempted to do justice to this early absolutist style of leadership and issued a modern set of legal rules for the time with his Tyrolean Provincial Code. The Jesuits, who had arrived in Innsbruck shortly before Ferdinand took office to make life difficult for troublesome reformers and church critics, reorganise the education system and strengthen the church's presence, were given a new church in Silbergasse. It may seem contradictory today that the pleasure-seeking Prince Ferdinand defended the church as a Catholic and counter-reformer, but this was not the case in the late Renaissance period. With his measures against the Jewish population, he was also in line with the Jesuits.

Ferdinand spent a considerable part of his life at Ambras Castle near Innsbruck, where he amassed one of the most valuable collections of works of art and armour in the world.

Ferdinand's first "semi-wild marriage" was to the commoner Philippine Welser. The sovereign is said to have been downright infatuated with his beautiful wife, which is why he disregarded all conventions of the time. Their children were excluded from the succession due to the strict social order of the 16th century. After Philippine Welser died, Ferdinand married the devout Anna Caterina Gonzaga, a 16-year-old princess of Mantua, at the age of 53. However, it seems that the two did not feel much affection for each other, especially as Anna Caterina was a niece of Ferdinand. The Habsburgs were less squeamish about marriages between relatives than they were about the marriage of a nobleman to a commoner. However, he was also "only" able to father three daughters with her. Ferdinand found his final resting place in the Silver Chapel with his first wife.

Maximilian zählt zu den bedeutendsten Persönlichkeiten der europäischen und der Innsbrucker Stadtgeschichte. Über Tirol soll der passionierte Jäger gesagt haben: "Tirol ist ein grober Bauernkittel, der aber gut wärmt." Er machte Innsbruck in seiner Regierungszeit zu einem der wichtigsten Zentren des Heiligen Römischen Reichs. „Wer immer sich im Leben kein Gedächtnis macht, der hat nach seinem Tod kein Gedächtnis und derselbe Mensch wird mit dem Glockenton vergessen.“ Dieser Angst wirkte Maximilian höchst erfolgreich aktiv entgegen. Unter ihm spielten Propaganda, Bild und Medien eine immer stärkere Rolle, bedingt auch durch den aufkeimenden Buchdruck. Maximilian nutzte Kunst und Kultur, um sich präsent zu halten. So hielt er sich eine Reichskantorei, eine Musikkapelle, die vor allem bei öffentlichen Auftritten und Empfängen internationaler Gesandter zum Einsatz kam. Das Goldene DachlThe Hofburg, the Hofkirche and the Innsbruck Armoury were largely initiated by him, as was the paving of the streets and alleyways of the old town. He had the trade route laid in what is now Mariahilf and improved the city's water supply. Fire regulations had already existed in Innsbruck since 1510 and the new water pipeline, which had been laid to Innsbruck 25 years earlier under Maximilian, opened up new possibilities for fire protection. In 1499 Maximilian ordered the SalvatorikapelleHe began to rebuild a hospital for the needy inhabitants of Innsbruck, who had no right to a place in the Brotherhood's city hospital. He also began to chip away at the privileges of Wilten Abbey, the largest landowner in the present-day city area. Infrastructure owned by the monastery, such as the mill, sawmill and Sill Canal, were to come under greater control of the prince.

The imperial court, which was always based in Innsbruck, transformed Innsbruck's appearance and attitude. Envoys and politicians from all over Europe up to the Ottoman Empire as well as noblemen had their residences built in Innsbruck or stayed in the town's inns. Culturally, it was above all his second wife Bianca Maria Sforza who patronised Innsbruck. Not only did her wedding take place here, she also resided here for a long time, as the city was closer to her home in Milan than Maximilian's other residences. She brought her entire court with her from the Renaissance metropolis to the German lands north of the Alps.

Under Maximilian, Innsbruck not only became a cultural centre of the empire, the city also boomed economically. Among other things, Innsbruck was the centre of the postal service in the empire. The Thurn und Taxis family was granted a monopoly on this important service and chose Innsbruck as the centre of their private imperial postal service.

Maximilian was able to build on the expertise of the gunsmiths who had already established themselves in the foundries in Hötting under his predecessor Siegmund. The most famous of them was Peter "Löffler“ Laiminger. Die Geschichte der Löfflers ist im Roman Der Meister des siebten Siegels excellently processed.

The Fuggers maintained an office in Innsbruck. In addition to his favoured love of Tyrolean nature, the treasures such as salt from Hall and silver from Schwaz were at least as valuable and useful to him. Maximilian financed his lavish court, his election as king by the electors and his many wars by pledging the country's natural resources to the wealthy merchant family from Augsburg, among other things.

Maximilian was long unpopular with Tyrolean farmers during his lifetime. Maximilian curtailed the peasants' rights to the commons. Logging, hunting and fishing were placed under the control of the sovereign and were no longer common property. This had a negative impact on peasant self-sufficiency. Meat and fish, which had long been part of the diet in the Middle Ages, now became a luxury. It was around 1500 that hunters became poachers.

Many Tyroleans had to enforce the imperial will on the battlefields. Many of Maximilian's battles took place in the immediate vicinity of Tyrol. The wars demanded a great deal from the men fit for military service. This only changed in the last years of his reign. The skilful political move of the Tyrolean Landlibells from 1511 Maximilian was able to buy the affection and loyalty of his subjects and limit the influence of the bishops of Brixen and Trento. Maximilian conceded to the Tyroleans in a kind of constitution that they could only be called up as soldiers for the defence of their own country.

It is difficult to summarise Maximilian's work in Innsbruck. He is said to have been downright enamoured of his province of Tyrol. Of course, declarations of love from an emperor flatter the popular psyche to this day. His material legacy with its many magnificent buildings reinforces this positive image. He turned Innsbruck into an imperial residence city and pushed ahead with the modernisation of the infrastructure. Innsbruck became the centre of the armaments industry and grew economically and spatially. The debts he incurred for this and the state assets he pledged to the Fuggers left their mark on Tyrol after his death, at least as much as the strict laws he imposed on the ordinary population. In today's popular imagination, the hard times are not as present as the Goldene Dachl und die in der Schule gelernten weichen Fakten und Legenden rund um den einflussreichen Kaiser. 2019 überschlug man sich mit den Feierlichkeiten zum 500. Todestag des für Innsbruck wohl wichtigsten Habsburgers. Der Wiener wurde wohlwollend eingebürgert. Salzburg hat Mozart, Innsbruck Maximilian, einen Kaiser, den Tiroler, ob seiner damals nicht ungewöhnlichen Leidenschaft für die Jagd passend zur gewünschten Identität Innsbrucks als rauen Gesellen, der am liebsten in den Bergen ist, angepasst haben. Sein markantes Gesicht prangt heute auf allerhand Konsumartikeln, vom Käse bis zum Skilift steht der Kaiser für allerhand Profanes Pate. Lediglich für politische Agenden lässt er sich weniger gut vor den Karren spannen als Andreas Hofer. Wahrscheinlich ist es für den Durchschnittsbürger einfacher, sich mit einem revolutionären Wirt zu identifizieren als mit einem Kaiser.