Hey dear Hive friends, first of all I would like to welcome you all to my new post and hope you had a day full of positive experiences! In this post, I would like to discuss the history of the Habsburgs as well as the connections to alchemy and hope you can learn something new.
The Habsburg family has its origin in Switzerland and there the family owned a castle named after them and the beginning of the growth of the dynasty can be traced back to the 13th century and they were among the most powerful European noble families. In the 15th century, they expanded their territory more and more and populated Austria and from there they also expanded their influence to other parts of Europe and at that time they rose more and more to the great power on which also had a strong influence in the economic sector as well as mining and when it comes to mining, Schwaz was one of their most important monopolies. The empire of the house Habsburg can be divided into different areas and this includes the areas that have been owned by the family for a long time and are passed on and the areas that belonged to the monarchy and their influence also included Spain, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Croatia as well as Hungary and in the 16th century, the empire split into two different lines and through marriage they expanded their power further and further. The Spanish line was ruled by Philip II (1527 - 1598) and he also received the Italian territory and around 1700 the Spanish rule ended and shortly afterwards the War of the Spanish Succession started and then the empire was divided and France received Spain as well as some colonies and the Habsburg Empire the Spanish part of the Netherlands as well as some parts of Italy. Still until the 20th century, the Habsburg dynasty ruled until it lost power in the First World War due to the loss of the crown of Charles I (1887 - 1922) and now I have gone into the history of the dynasty and would like to devote myself to alchemy.
Through mining, the Habsburgs had already gained some experience when it comes to metals or minerals and they were also considered extremely interested in alchemy and were known to have supported many alchemists in their work and Rudolf II (1552 - 1612) showed a special interest in the topic and he was also very interested in other occult sciences. At that time, Prague was an important center when it came to alchemy and he saw that and supported many experiments and alchemists as possible and another reason for the interest was to look for ways to expand their empire even more and he is also often revered in history as a master of science and he himself also made some experiments in this area at that time. During his time in Prague, he met a goldsmith who made few objects for him in which he had engraved alchemical symbols as well as hidden messages and in the past there were more attempts to crack the encryption and there were many theories of what the encrypted messages could mean and the object of the goldsmith was also called Alchemy Hand Bell. Others of the dynasty also followed this interest and noticed how lucrative it could be if it succeeded in artificially creating gold and invested large amounts in research and there are also some writings and even traditions in the form of old discoveries that they would have managed to convert base metals into gold and silver. In numerous old writings of alchemists, connections to the Habsburg dynasty and alchemy appear again and again and at that time a great hype broke out in alchemy and many devoted themselves to the topic and the Habsburgs were among the most interested parties and supporters of this topic.
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about history and alchemy, I have created these artworks with the help of Artificial intelligence.