Imperial Crown of Austria - History

History

Since the Imperial Regalia of the Holy Roman Empire, including the Imperial Crown, were kept in Nuremberg and could only leave the city for a coronation, some rulers had their own personal crowns made. For example, when they attended a session of the Imperial Diet (Reichstag), they attended with their own crowns. The oldest depiction of such a private crown is an etching by the artist Albrecht Dürer of Emperor Maximilian I, where a depiction of a crown is seen that might have later influenced the appearance of the crown of Rudolf II.

The Imperial Crown of the Habsburg Empire of Austria was never used for a coronation, since, unlike the Holy Roman Empire, it was a hereditary monarchy and such an act of legitimization was not seen as necessary. The ceremony held was an act of investiture to mark the monarch's official ascension to the throne rather than a coronation.

The crown of Rudolf II was made in 1602 in Prague by Jan Vermeyen, one of the most outstanding goldsmiths of his time, who was called specially from Antwerp. The crown is made out of three parts: the circlet (Kronreif), the high arch (Kronbügel), and a mitre (Mitra).

In the earlier forms of the Western mitre the peaks or ‘horns’ were over the ears, rather than over the face and back of the head. The form of mitre used in the imperial mitral crown preserved this earlier form. This form of the imperial mitre-crown can be seen in the extant portraits of such emperors as Frederick III and Maximilian I The bronze effigy of Maximilian I found on his monumental cenotaph in the court church in Innsbruck has a crown with two arches which cross over the top of the mitre and the unique form of the imperial crown adopted by Maximilian as Emperor of Mexico File:X-Large Portrait of Maximiliano.jpg appears to have been modeled on this form, but with the half-arches and the eagles on the circlet on the front, back and sides of the imperial crown of Napoleon III. In the later 17th century Baroque form of mitral crown of Leopold I File:Kaiser-Leopold1.jpg the peaks of the mitre have been rounded into the hemispherical form Peter the Great would adopt as the Imperial Crown of Russia when he took the title emperor as Russian sovereign.

Although it is often assumed that the Imperial Crown made for Otto I with its single arch over its inner red cap was the original prototype for the western imperial crown, it is also possible that the Byzantine imperial crown, which in the twelfth century also became closed with two arches, inspired the western emperors to follow their example and also close their crowns with such a pair of arches.