Lecture 3 - Storm Clouds Gather: A Wearied Emperor & his Enemies

When the future Emperor Charles V was born in 1500, Europe was united by one factor above all others, the Catholic faith, with a common enemy, Islam, as represented by the Ottomans. When he abdicated in 1556, that Christian unity was destroyed as this was the era of 'reformations', destructive, yet creative in equal measure. As Luther's influence emboldened the always independently minded German 'Elector Dukes' to challenge the power of their erstwhile overlord, the 'Holy Roman Emperor', Charles found himself beset by a range of enemies. These ranged from traditional opponents such as France and a handful of Italian states, notably Venice and the Papacy (their fractious co-existence captured above in a fresco depicting a meeting between the Emperor, the King of France and the Papal Legate), to internal resistance in Spain and the growing power of the Ottoman Empire of Sulieman the Magnificent.

This is also the age when the great rulers of the day, their battles, triumphs and dynastic links were captured by some of the great artists from Holbein to Titian and in media as widely different as stone and bronze, images painted on wall and canvas and woven in tapestry. So too we shall see the eclipse of medieval architectural norms as the influence of Italian sources spread far and wide. Indeed, one of the most revolutionary changes saw artists and craftsmen no longer tied to a particular city or state, their freedom to work controlled by the power of the guilds, but free to move from city to city, from court to court - as was the case with Dürer.