About 6 hours south of Kassel, and on the other side of the Alps is the beautiful city of Innsbruck, Austria, surrounded by snow-capped mountains, and nestled in a lush green valley ablaze, in early May, with the cherry and lilac blossoms.

It is here that Hapsburg Archduke Ferdinand II (1529-1595) moved to in 1564, converting a gothic castle into a Renaissance palace, and here that one of the most satisfying wunderkammern can be seen today. It is exhibited in the same place and in much the same manner as was first installed by Ferdinand in the 1560’s.

Ferdinand’s father, uncle and older brother were each Holy Roman Emperors. His uncle, Charles V (1500-1558) was perhaps the best known and most powerful Holy Roman Emperor of all times, and the empire then included Austria, Hungary, upper Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain.

So Ferdinand II had plenty of money and plenty of free time and he put both to good use in assembling one of the most famous wunderkammern of his time. Though it was sold for a fortune by his son about 1600 to Emperor Rudolf II (1552-1612) and was then temporarily moved twice to avoid the devastation of war (during the Napoleonic era and World War II), this collection has remained quite in tact. And what we see today is quite similar to what Ferdinand left behind.

His plan (and the one used today) was to group items based upon the materials they were composed of, and place each group in its own floor-to-ceiling case, where the background color was chosen to show that group to best advantage. Thus the goldsmith items were presented against a blue background, the wood against red, the stone against green, etc.

The goldsmith items usually were natural items of great rarity set in gold settings. For instance, here is a coconut shell, a rare and wondrous item in the 1560’s and one reputed to have magical healing properties, mounted as a chalice with gold base, handles and ornamentation. The blue, as selected by Ferdinand, sets off the gold work nicely.

18 such cases were placed in the middle of this large room back to back in rows of 9, and the walls and ceiling at the perimeter were richly hung with paintings and oversized items (Auer et al, p 30).

The collection was encyclopedic, and the scope as broad as possible with naturalia and artificialia from all fields of knowledge. And the various collections were presented side by side with the gold and treasury items to underscore the idea that all of God’s works were of equal value.

The categories included many predictable ones for a princely wunderkammer, goldsmith works, stone works, instruments (scientific as well as musical), bronzes, and exotica such as ivory and mother of pearl works, but then also ones of particular interest to Ferdinand, such as hand stones, coral, wood turnings produced by his turnery, glass, including that executed by his own glassworks, and natural history.

Hand stones were bizarrely shaped rocks and minerals sized to fit your palm that were then trimmed with tiny gold and silver figurines. Here a porous mineral specimen has had its niches filled with gold support columns and subterranean human figures, all surmounted by Christ’s crucifixion.

Ferdinand II owned the world’s most important collection of hand stones of his time (Auer et al, p36).Here is another hand stone where the natural specimen seems to be white coral. Biblical figures rest about its base while one of their numbers receives a visitation by an angel, who you can see atop the coral column. This is a particularly beautiful object.

Coral was richly represented. Here a collection of a wide variety was mounted on bases, and at the beginning of this chapter, naturalistic coral had sections carved in the image of Christ’s crucifixion.

Wood was elevated by being so skillfully turned and filigreed often by Ferdinand’s own turners. See the detail of a large Tirol sepulcher c1575 as well as a similar work in ivory.

Similarly Ferdinand’s love for Venetian glass caused him to found his own glass works, producing these crucifixes. (You can’t help but notice how often the subject is a crucifix…you might say they were crusi-fixated.)

This glass works also produced glass images. This example shows an image of Adam and Eve on paper sprinkled with powdered glass and featuring glass trees and figures.

The bold architectural design of this brass and iron lock shows that base metal works deserve inclusion in the wunderkammer.

Mandrake roots naturally occur in the rough shape of the human form and so were valued for their alleged magical properties. This mandrake root looks like a crucifix and would have been doubly prized as an example of mirabilia, an object demonstrating a miracle.

And just plain bizarre: here is a pair of leather boots from the mid 16th century where the toes are individually sheathed like gloved fingers.

The walls and ceiling at the perimeter of the room are here hung with a 16th century taxidermist’s shark lurking among other naturalia.

The adjacent 3 rooms house Ferdinand’s collection of knightly armor and Renaissance military weaponry. In 1564 he had 17 tons of armor transported to Ambras. The knightly material give witness to how important jousting was as a form of courtly entertainment in Ferdinand’s time, while the military material reminds us of how conscious the Hapsburgs were of the nearby threat of the Turks who occupied Eastern Europe.

Ambras is not to be missed. I’d recommend most of a day for the armory, wunderkammer, and the impressive portrait gallery in the main palace (see info.ambras@khm.at.) After your visit, I cannot recommend strongly enough a trip across town to Cafe Konditorei (Schneeburggasse 3, A-6020 Innsbruck) for pastry. They offer a wide choice of the best pastry I have ever tasted as well as light meals and cocktails.

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References:
Ambras Castle, Alfred Auer, Veronika Sandbicher, KarlSchutz, and Christian Beauford-Spontin, Translated by John Winbigler, (Vienna, 2000).