The Richest Man Who Ever Lived: The Life and Times of Jacob Fugger

by Greg Steinmetz

  The argument that Jacob was the most influential businessman in history is not my own. James Westfall Thompson, a University of Chicago professor for thirty-seven years and one-time president of the American Historical Association, made the assertion in his 1931 book Economic and Social History of Europe in the Later Middle Ages. After examining the facts, it became clear to me that Thompson was right and that his assertion, more than any other, explained why Fugger was worth getting to know. For the argument that Fugger was the richest person in history, I used methodology I came across in a 2007 front-page story in the New York Times. The piece, based on a 1996 book by Michael Klepper and Robert Gunther, compared a person’s net worth with the size of the economy in which he operated and named John D. Rockefeller as the richest American of all time. The method is flawed. As a friend cleverly pointed out, the richest man by this standard was the biblical Adam, who with his partner Eve possessed all global wealth. But I liked this method because it equalizes for differences in economic landscapes across time. To measure Fugger by his worth in gold, a method that has the virtue of adjusting for inflation, chops him down to a mere $50 million, making him no wealthier than, say, a successful real estate developer or a multilocation car dealer. That’s not right either.

  Special thanks go to retired Colgate University professor Dirk Hoffmann. Dirk taught me German more than thirty years ago and, for this book, helped me decipher Pölnitz, Fugger’s letters to Duke George, and the significance of Ulrich von Hutten, among other things. Dirk also provided valuable feedback on the many drafts of this book. His fingerprints cover the pages. Maureen Manning, Jane Reed and the rest of the staff at the University Club library in New York tracked down as many as four books a day for me. I could never have finished the book without their heavy lifting. Priscilla Painton at Simon & Schuster immediately recognized why Fugger’s story was worth telling and understood what I was trying to say before I did. Her sharp pencil saved this book from being unreadable mush. David Kuhn was everything an agent should be. Bob Goldfarb and my colleagues at Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb provoked me with well-considered questions.

  My reader circle of John Bensche, Robert Clymer, Bill Griffin, Doug Lavin, Terence Pare, Robin Rogers, Art Steinmetz, Julia Steinmetz and Martin Uhle read early drafts and provided terrific feedback. Tobias Dose, Regine Wosnitza and my cousin Robert Richter helped with the research. Catherine Minear and Claudia and Andre Castaybert helped with the French. All errors are all mine.

  A portrait of Jacob Fugger that appeared on the cover of a sixteenth-century Fugger family chronicle, in which he looks characteristically shrewd and unyielding. (Courtesy of the Fuggerei Museum, Augsburg, Germany/Bridgeman Images.)

  A roughly contemporary painting showing Fugger’s hometown of Augsburg, Germany. (Augsburger Monatsbuilder by Jorg Breu I [1480–1537], c. 1531; courtesy of Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, Germany; Copyright © DHM/Bridgeman Images.)

  Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (ABOVE) and his grandson and successor Charles V (NEXT PAGE) both relied on Fugger’s loans throughout their lives to keep their family, the Habsburgs, on a firm political footing. (Portrait of Maximilian I: Early sixteenth-century woodcut by Albrecht Dürer; courtesy of Private Collection/Bridgeman Images. Portrait of Charles V: Painting by Christoph Amberger [c. 1505–1562/63]; courtesy of Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille, France/Bridgeman Images.)

  These two woodcuts show some of the typical work that would have been done at the silver and copper mining operations Fugger owned at Schwaz and at Arnoldstein, through which he made much of his money. (Workers hoisting leather buckets from mine shaft, 1556: Courtesy of Universal History Archive/UIG/Bridgeman Images. Blast furnace for smelting, 1556: Universal History Archive/UIG/Bridgeman Images.)

  The famous Ermine Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I of England, in which she is wearing the Three Brothers, one of the world’s largest diamonds. Before it became a symbol of Elizabeth’s wealth and power, it belonged to Jacob Fugger. (The Ermine Portrait by Nicholas Hilliard [1547–1619], 1585; courtesy of Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, UK/Bridgeman Images.)

  At the center of this portrait is Pope Leo X, whom Fugger convinced to overturn the Church’s ban on money lending. (Portrait of Leo X, Cardinal Luigi de Rossi and Giulio de Medici, 1518: courtesy of Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy/Bridgeman Images.)

  Martin Luther was outraged by the Church’s sales of indulgences, which were engineered as a scheme to pay back one of Fugger’s loans. Luther didn’t target Fugger as directly as did his supporter Ulrich von Hutten, who publicly demanded that Jacob Fugger & Nephews be shut down. (Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach the Elder [1472–1553]; courtesy of Kurpfalzisches Museum, Heidelberg, Germany/Bridgeman Images.)

  A sixteenth-century woodcut depicting a battle scene from the German Peasants’ War, the first great clash between capitalism and communism. Fugger financed the army fighting for the nobility, saving his own fortune and saving free enterprise from an early grave. (Copyright © SZ Photo/Bridgeman Images.)

  A woodcut portrait of Thomas Müntzer, one of the main leaders of the German peasant revolt, who believed in the abolition of private ownership. He and Fugger are iconic opposites in German history; during the Cold War, West Germany put Fugger on a postage stamp and East Germany put Müntzer on a five-mark bill. (Hand-colored woodcut, c. 1600; courtesy of Private Collection/Bridgeman Images.)

  Fugger didn’t entrust just anyone with the details of his business, but a few people did benefit from his money-making expertise. Here Fugger stands in his Golden Counting Room, teaching his apprentice Matthaus Schwarz about the art of bookkeeping. (Jacob Fugger in his office, 1518; courtesy of Private Collection/Bridgeman Images.)

  A portrait of his nephew and protégé Anton Fugger, who inherited the business after Jacob died. (Portrait of Anton Fugger by Hans or Johan Maler [fl. 1510–1523], c. 1500–29; courtesy of Louvre-Lens, France/Bridgeman Images.)

  Two pieces of Fugger’s legacy today, both still standing: (ABOVE) a postcard depicting the Fugger Palace, now occupied by several Augsburg businesses, as it looked in the nineteenth century; (NEXT PAGE) a recent photo of the Fuggerei public housing project, which remains in operation. (Fugger Palace: Courtesy of the Private Collection Archives, Charmet/Bridgeman Images. Fuggerei: Courtesy of De Agostini Picture Library/G. Dagli Orti/Bridgeman Images.)

  About the Author

  GREG STEINMETZ grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and spent fifteen years as a journalist for publications including the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, the Houston Chronicle, Newsday and The Wall Street Journal, where he served as the Berlin bureau chief and later the London bureau chief. He currently works as a securities analyst for a money management firm in New York. He is a graduate of Colgate University and has a master’s degree from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism. He has three children and lives in Larchmont, New York.

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  Notes

  INTRODUCTION

  “They say I am rich” Jacob Strieder, Jacob Fugger the Rich: Merchant and Banker of Augsburg, 1459–1525 (New York 1966), 171.

  When he died in 1525 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP). Accessed April, 20, 2011.

  “To God, all-powerful” Strieder, Jacob Fugger, 25.

  to make as much Götz von Pölnitz, Jakob Fugger (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1949), 465.

  CHAPTER 1: SOVEREIGN DEBT

  F-u-c-k-e-r Max Jansen, Die Anfänge der Fugger (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1907), 8.

  “have concentrated all their force for
trading” Roger Crowley, City of Fortune: How Venice Rules the Seas (New York, 2013), 256.

  “Who could count the” M. Margaret Newett, Canon Pietro Casola’s Pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the Year 1494 (Manchester: University Press, 1907), 29.

  “Here wealth flows like water in a fountain.” Crowley, City of Fortune, 273.

  “If Augsburg is the daughter” Philippe Erlanger, The Age of Courts and Kings: Manners and Morals, 1558–1715 (Garden City, 1970), 90.

  “His name is great” Leopold von Ranke, History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations (London: G. Bell & Sons, 1887), 101.

  “oon of the myghtyest Princez” Richard Vaughan, Charles the Bold: The Last Valois Duke of Burgundy (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2002), 47.

  “respectability, truthfulness” Pölnitz, Jakob Fugger, 14.

  Owing to scarcity Solem Geir. The Historical Price of Silver. http://blog.elliottwavetechnician.com/2010/06/historical-price-of-silver-from.html. Accessed October 20, 2012.

  “It is noteworthy” Vaughan, Charles the Bold, 91.

  “Happiness is to forget” Andrew Wheatcroft, The Habsburgs: Embodying Empire (London, 1996), 80.

  CHAPTER 2: PARTNERS

  “It cost more than” Janssen, Anfänge der Fugger, vol. 2, 61.

  Approaching Vienna at the head R. W. Seton-Watson, Maximilian I: Holy Roman Emperor, (London: Constable, 1902), 29.

  He became a father Dan Fagin, Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation (New York, 2013).

  “No business can fall apart” Léon Schick, Jacob Fugger (Paris, 1957), 273.

  “for the furtherance” Günther Ogger, Kauf dir einen Kaiser: Die Geschichte der Fugger (Munich: Droemer-Knaur, 19798), 42.

  Miners barricaded Gerhard Benecke, Maximilian I (London, 1982), 87.

  Fugger’s letters preceded Victor Klarwill, The Fugger News-Letters (New York, 1926), xiv.

  In the summer of 1495 Ranke, History, 97.

  “I know not which to admire most” Seton-Watson, Maximilian I, 14.

  “achieved nothing but” Pölnitz, Jacob Fugger, 72.

  CHAPTER 3: THE THREE BROTHERS

  “In the year 1498” Inscription on Fugger wedding portrait, Dirk Hoffman, trans.

  “overweening pride” Mark Häberlein, The Fuggers of Augsburg (1367–1650) (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012), 177.

  “Although Gossembrot is dead” Pölnitz, Jakob Fugger, 134.

  “She had gold jewelry” Clemens Sender, Die Chroniken der Schwäbischen Städte (Leipzig:, 1894), 169.

  “It gives us Augsburgers” Donald Lach, Asia in the Making of Modern Europe (Chicago, 1994), 162.

  “A great Lord came” Franz Huemmerich, Die Erste Deutsche Handelsfahrt nach Indien, 1505/1506: Ein Unternehmen der Welser, Fugger und Anderer Augsburger sowie Nürnberger Häuser (Munich: 1902), 62.

  “If the captains went ashore” Cross, op. cit., 253.

  “He has advisors who are” Pölnitz, vol. 2, 126.

  “From our treasury” Pölnitz, Jacob Fugger, 175.

  “Thou art our duke” Ranke, History, 93.

  Joanna tried to shore up Bethany Aram, Juana the Mad (Baltimore, 2006), 93.

  “This he is and will ever be” Ernest Belfort Bax, German Society at the Close of the Middle Ages (London, 1894), 83.

  “His majesty wants” Pölnitz, Jakob Fugger, 182.

  “Reasonable people know this” Pölnitz, Jakob Fugger, 192.

  Fugger served seven popes Aloys Schulte, Die Fugger in Rom: 1459–1523 (Leipzig, 1904), 216.

  “God must help” Pölnitz, Jakob Fugger, 209.

  CHAPTER 4: BANK RUN

  “When I go to bed” Ogger, Kauf dir einen Kaiser, 106.

  CHAPTER 5: THE NORTHERN SEAS

  The attack was the work Götz von Pölnitz, Fugger und Hanse (Tübingen, 1953), 16.

  They stretched others on altars E. Gee Nash, The Hansa (New York, 1995), 110.

  Fugger kept his activities Philippe Dollinger, The German Hansa (Stanford, 1970), 423.

  “valid, reasonable” Pölnitz, Fugger und Hanse, 293

  “A captain ought to endeavor” Niccolò Machiavelli. The Prince and Other Works by Nicollò Machiavelli. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm.

  “Your good father” William Coxe (New York, 1971), 362.

  “There are fountains” Antonio de Beatis, The Travel Journals of Antonio de Beatis (London, 1979), 67.

  “The marble floor was slippery” Erlanger, Age of Courts, 91.

  “We were permitted to see two rooms” Häberlein, Fuggers of Augsburg, 149.

  Fugger informed the gathering Strieder, Jacob Fugger, 69.

  CHAPTER 6: USURY

  “Wretched usurers” Plutarch, www.platonic-philosophy.org. Accessed June 13, 2013.

  “Usury means nothing else” Thomas Storck, “Is Usury Still a Sin?” The Distributist Review, January 30, 2012.

  enthronement Bax, German Society, 82.

  “We cannot do this” Strieder, Jacob Fugger, 200.

  “Ask God for my health” Wiesflecker, Maximilian I, 190.

  “disadvantage, expletives and ridicule” Pölnitz, Jakob Fugger, 89.

  “strange and difficult” Pölnitz, Jakob Fugger, 334.

  CHAPTER 7: THE PENNY IN THE COFFER

  “God has given us” Chamberlin, E. R., The Bad Popes (New York, 1969), 210.

  “How very profitable” Chamberlin, The Bad Popes, 223.

  “God himself could not” Russel Tarr and Keith Randell, Access to History: Luther and the German Reformation 1517–55, 3rd ed. (London, 2008).

  “As the penny in the coffer” Bainton, Here I Stand, 61.

  Frederick’s business was relics Roland Bainton, Here I Stand (Peabody, MA 1950), 53.

  “The indulgences, which merchants extol” http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/history/95theses.htm.

  “Father in Christ” Bainton, Here I Stand, 67.

  CHAPTER 8: THE ELECTION

  The St. Moritz dispute Benjamin Scheller, Memoria an der Zeitwende: Die Stiftungen Jakobs Fuggers des Reichen vor und waehrend der Reformation (Berlin, 2004), 105.

  Years later, one of the servants Pölnitz, vol. 2,, 380.

  “These little men” Pölnitz, op. cit., 340.

  “Rarely will three people share” Schick, Jacob Fugger, 235.

  “I don’t know what” Häberlein, Fuggers of Augsburg, 126.

  “The reason that moves me” R. J. Knecht, Francis I (Cambridge, UK, 1982), 72.

  “If I only had to deal with the virtuous” Knecht, Francis I, 72.

  “These Fuggers are among the greatest” Beatis, Travel Journals, 67.

  “a devilish man” Schick, Jacob Fugger, 172.

  “Now I must die” Reston Jr., Defenders of the Faith, 23.

  CHAPTER 9: VICTORY

  “He accomplishes so many” Pölnitz, Jakob Fugger, 427.

  “If we had done that” Schick, Jacob Fugger, 173.

  “preferred to be a powerful duke” J. Haller, The Epochs of German History (New York, 1930), 101.

  “German tongue” Jervis Wegg, Richard Pace (New York, 1932), 146.

  “My voice and vote” The Golden Bull of Charles IV, 1356.

  “When the king’s highness” Scarisbrick, J. J., Henry VIII (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968).

  “We should consider” Deutsche Reichsakten (Gotha, Germany: 1893), 872.

  “There is more at the back of his head” Jack Beeching, The Galleys at Lepanto (New York, 1983).

  “Spain is not well” Pölnitz, Jakob Fugger, 449.

  “There is no one” Stephen Haliczer, The Comuneros of Castile (Madison, WI, 1981), 164.

  “The brothers Ulrich, George and Jacob” Scheller, Memoria an der Zeitwende, 156.

  “Commerce is hard on the conscience” Scheller, Memoria an der Zeitwende, 152.

  “to honor and love God” Pölnitz, Jakob Fugger, 350.

  CHAPTER 10: THE WIND OF FREEDOM

  The wind of freedom stirs http://www.stanford.edu/dept/p
res-provost/president/speeches/951005dieluft.html. Accessed March 12, 2012.

  “acorns from whence issued” Peter Ball, The Devil’s Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science (New York, 2006), 224.

  “The Fuggers have earned” Schulte, Die Fugger in Rom, 110.

  “You do not steal” Victor Chauffeur-Kestner, Ulrich Von Hutten: Imperial Poet and Orator (Edinburgh, 1863), 129.

  “You see what Hutten wants” David-Friedrich Strauss, Ulrich von Hutten: His Life and Times (London, 1874), 259.