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.
