Montaigne in Innsbruck

“a very beautiful little town and well built, standing in the bottom of the valley..."

When the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was 47 years old, he decided to make a long journey through Europe. Why exactly he made this journey is not known. Was it only for pleasure? A kind of “Grand Tour”? Did he have a secret mission? We don’t know. What we do know is when he made the trip and which places he visited, for Montaigne kept a diary of his journey. It has apparently been written for private purposes only. He didn’t mention it in his Essays and it was found 180 only years after his death.
Montaigne didn’t travel alone. He was accompanied by four other gentlemen, including his youngest brother, plus a number of servants. After having arrived in Rome, Montaigne travelled without the company of the other gentlemen. They left Paris in September 1580, and went via Augsburg and Munich in Germany through Austria to Venice, Florence and Rome in Italy. From Rome Montaigne made also a round trip through central Italy. He returned to France in 1581, when the king had ordered him to do so, because he had appointed him mayor of Bordeaux. Montaigne did so reluctantly and he didn’t hurry to reach Bordeaux. 

Fernand II

One of the places where Montaigne stayed during his travel was Innsbruck, in Tirol in Austria. This summer I spent a holiday near this town, and I decided to take photos of places visited there by Montaigne. After his stay in Seefeld in Austria, which I have described in another blog (see here), Montaigne’s next stop was Innsbruck, where he (and his company; but I’ll leave this mostly implicit) arrived in the evening. Innsbruck was (and still is) the capital of Tirol, and it was also the residence of Fernand II, Archduke of Austria. Montaigne describes Innsbruck as “a very beautiful little town and well built, standing in the bottom of the valley and full of fountains and running water… The houses are almost all built terraced, and we found lodgment at the ‘Rose’.”

The Golden Rose today

There are still many fountains in Innsbruck, and also “the Rose”, usually called “the Golden Rose”, is still there, although it is no longer an inn. Since about 40 years this old inn from the 14th century houses a shop of a well-known glass crystal company. The day after his arrival, Montaigne makes a trip to Hall, a town situated two miles east of Innsbruck and known by its salt industry. Hall has several beautiful churches, so Montaigne, and he tells us that he visited the church of the Jesuits there (just as he had visited the church of the Jesuits in Innsbruck).

Hall, Church of the Jesuites

When I was in Hall, I found the church closed, but an information board on the front wall told me that the present church dates from 1608, so it must have been the chapel of the Jesuits, built in 1573, that Montaigne visited. Also the church of the Jesuits in Innsbruck visited by Montaigne was another one than the present baroque church from the 17th century.
On their way back from Hall to Innsbruck Montaigne and his company decides to pay a visit to Archduke Fernand, who stayed at that moment in his castle in Amras, halfway Hall and Innsbruck. Also in the morning, on their way to Hall, Montaigne c.s. had tried to see the archduke, but the archduke had given the message that he was too busy to receive them. Actually, it was, as a court official told them, because the archduke didn’t like the French. They even didn’t get permission to visit the castle, built in 1563 and

The Ambras Castle

housing a large art collection. So, Montaigne returned a bit irritated to Innsbruck, where he turned his steps to the Hofkirche (Court Church): “We next saw in a church eighteen magnificent bronze statues of the princes and princesses of the house of Austria.” What Montaigne doesn’t tell us is that this church houses the tomb of the Austrian Emperor Maximillian I (1459-1519) (The tomb is a cenotaph and the body of the Emperor has been

Innsbruck, Hofkirche

buried in Vienna). It’s true that the tomb was then still under construction, so Montaigne will not have seen it in all its glory. The bronze statues, which Montaigne does mention, surround the tomb as a guard of honour. Maximilian’s idea was that he wanted to be surrounded by his ancestors and role models. Montaigne writes that he saw eighteen statues there, though in fact there are 28, the last one being cast already in 1550. A mistake?

Cenotaphe of Maximilian I surrounded 
by bronze statues

After having left the church, Montaigne “went to sup with the Cardinal of Austria and the Marquis of Burgant, sons of the archduke”. No, not as a guest but as a spectator, for in those days it was customary to watch the meals of princes, as if it were a spectacle, as my Dutch edition of Montaigne’s travel diary explains.
The next day Montaigne left Innsbruck and travelled via the Brenner pass to Sterzing (Vipiteno) (see here).