Chapter IX · NORTH TIROL—THE INNTHAL. INNSBRUCK (continued).

Ora conosce come s’innamora

Lo Ciel del giusto rege, et al sembiante

Del suo fulgore il fa vedere ancora.

It remains to call attention to the splendid and truly Tirolean panoramic view from the pretty terrace of Ambras, with its luxuriant trellis of passion-flower and ‘virgin vine.’ Overhanging the village of Ambras is the so-called Tummelplatz, where in the lifetime of Ferdinand and Philippine, many a gay tournament was held, but since used as a burying-place; first for the military hospital, to which the castle was at one time devoted—and some seven or eight thousand patriots were interred here between 1796 and 1810—and afterwards for those who fell successfully resisting the Italian invasion of 1859.

Whatever was the manner of Philippine’s death, it was bitterly lamented by Ferdinand, who found the usual refuge of human grief in raising a splendid monument to her memory, in the so-called Silberne Kapelle in the Hofkirche. The chapel had been built by him to satisfy her devotion to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception; and in her lifetime was so called from the solid silver image of the Blessed Virgin, and the bas-reliefs of the mysteries of the rosary in the same metal over the altar, itself a valuable ebony carving. She had loved to pray there, and it accordingly formed a fitting resting-place for her mortal remains. Her effigy in marble over her altar-shaped tomb is a figure of exceeding beauty, and is ascribed to Alexander Collin; it stands under a marble canopy. The upright slab is of white marble, carved in three compartments; the centre one bearing a modest inscription, and the other two, subjects recording her charity to the living and the dead; the outline of the town of Innsbruck, as it appeared in her day, forms the background. By his desire Ferdinand was buried near her; his monument is similarly sunk in the thickness of the wall, which is adorned with shields carved in relief, bearing the arms of his house painted with their respective tinctures; and on the tomb are marble reliefs, setting forth (after the manner of those on Maximilian’s cenotaph) the public acts of his life. This chapel came to be used afterwards for Italian sermons by the consorts of subsequent rulers of Tirol, many of whom were Italians.

While Philippine’s relations never sought to overstep the limits which imperial etiquette had set them, Ferdinand seems to have treated them with kind cordiality. An instance of this was the magnificence with which he celebrated the marriage of her nephew, Johann von Kolourat, with her maid-of-honour, Katarina von Boimont, in 1580: the ‘Neustadt’ or principal street afforded space for tournaments and races which lasted many days, and attracted the remaining votaries of chivalry from all parts of Europe. The festivities were closed by a splendid pageant, in which Ferdinand took part as ‘Olympian Jove.’

In 1582 Ferdinand married Anna Katharina Gonzaga, daughter of the Duke of Mantua, who was no less pious than Philippine. The marriage was celebrated at Innsbruck with great pomp. She was the first to introduce the Capuchin Order into Germany. Some discussion in the general chapter of the Order preceded the decision which allowed the monks to accept the consequences of being exposed to a colder climate than that to which they had been used. The first stone of their monastery was laid by Ferdinand and Anna Katharina in August 1593, at the intersection of the Universitäts-gasse and the Sill-gasse. Ferdinand died the following year, regretted by all the people, but by none more than by Anna Katharina, who passed the remainder of her days in a convent she had founded at Innsbruck. She died in 1621, and desired the following inscription to be put on her tomb:—‘Miserere mei Domine dum veneris in novissimo die.’

The warning of the disastrous years 1572–4 was further turned to practical account by Ferdinand in his desire to relieve the distress of the peasants. In the first months of threatening famine he bought with his own means large stores of grain in Hungary and Italy, and opened depôts in various parts of Tirol, where it was sold at a reasonable price. To provide a means of earning money for those who were shut out of their ordinary labour, he laid out or improved some of the most important high roads; he likewise exerted himself in every way to promote the commerce of the country. His reign conferred many other benefits on the people. Many laws were amended and brought in conformity with the altered circumstances of the age; the principle of self-taxation was established, and other measures enacted which it does not belong to my present province to particularise. He introduced also the use of the Gregorian Calendar, and gave great encouragement to the cultivation of letters. It was by his care that the most authentic MSS. of the Nibelungen poems and other examples of early literature were preserved to us.

The temporal affairs of Tirol received no less attention from Archduke Maximilian than the spiritual. With the foresight of a true statesman, he discovered the coming troubles of the Thirty Years’ War, and resolved that the defences of his country should be in a state to keep the danger at a distance from her borders. The fortified towers, especially those commanding the passes into the country, were all overlooked, and plans of them carefully prepared, all the fortifications being put in repair. The Landwehr, the living bulwarks, the ready defenders of their beloved mountain Vaterland, attracted his still more special attention, and he furnished them with a regulation suited to the needs of the times. He settled also several outstanding disputes with the Venetians, with Count Arco, and with neighbours over the north and west frontiers; and an internal boundary quarrel between the Bishops of Brixen and Trent. The death of Rudolf II., in 1612, had invested him with supreme authority over the country, and simplified his action in all these matters for the benefit of the commonwealth.

The only remaining act of Leopold’s reign which calls for mention in connexion with Innsbruck, was the erection of the monument to Maximilian the Deutschmeister, in the Pfarrkirche, almost the only one that was spared when the church was rebuilt after the earthquakes of 1667 and 1689, the others having been ruthlessly used—the headstones in building up the walls, the bronze ones in the bell-castings.

He was succeeded by his only brother, Sigmund Franz, Bishop of Gurk, Augsburg, and Trent, who seems to have inherited all his mother’s finer qualities without sharing her Italianizing tendencies. With a perhaps too sudden sternness, he purged the court and government of all foreign admixture, and reduced the sumptuous suite of his brother to dimensions dictated by usefulness alone. However popular this may have made him with the German population, the ousted Italians were furious; and his sudden death—which occurred while, after the pattern of his father, applying for a dispensation to marry, in 1665—was by the Germans ascribed to secret poisoning; his Tuscan physician Agricola having, it is alleged, been bribed to perpetrate the misdeed.

Tirol now once more reverted to the Empire. Though Leopold I. came to Innsbruck to receive the homage of the people on his accession, and a gay ceremonial ensued, yet it lost much of its importance by having no longer a resident court. While there, however, Leopold had seen the beautiful daughter of Ferdinand Karl’s widow, Claudia Felicità, who made such an impression upon him, that he married her on the death of his first wife. The ceremony was performed in Innsbruck by proxy only; but the dowager-archduchess provided great fêtes, in which the city readily concurred, and gave the bride thirty thousand gulden for her wedding present. Claudia Felicità, in her state at Vienna, did not forget the good town of Innsbruck; and by her interest with her husband, Tirol received a Statthalter in the person of Charles Duke of Lotharingia, husband of his sister Eleonora Maria, widow of the King of Poland. Charles took up his residence at Innsbruck; and though he was often absent with the army, the presence of his family revived the gaiety of the town; still it was not like the old days of the court. Charles, however, who had been originally educated for the ecclesiastical state, was a sovereign of unexceptionable principles and sound judgment; and he did many things for the benefit of Tirol, particularly in developing its educational establishments. He raised the Jesuit gymnasium of Innsbruck to the character of a university; and the privileges with which he endowed it, added to the salubrity of the situation, attracted alumni from far and near, who amounted to near a thousand in number.

Nothing of note occurred in Tirol till 1703—the Duke of Lotharingia had died in 1696—which is a memorable year. The war of the Spanish Succession, at that time, found Maximilian, Elector of Bavaria, and some of the Italian princes, allied with France against Austria—thus there were antagonists of Austria on both sides of Tirol; nevertheless, no attack on it seems to have been apprehended; and thus, when a plan was concerted for entering Austria by Carinthia (the actual boundaries against Bavaria being too well defended to invite an entrance that way), and it was arranged that the Bavarian and Italian allies should assist the French in overrunning Tirol, everyone was taken by surprise. Maximilian easily overcame the small frontier garrison. At Kufstein he met a momentary check, but an accident put the fortress in his power. Possessed of this base of operations, he was not long in reducing the forts of Rottenburg Scharnitz, and Ehrenberg, and possessing himself of Hall and Innsbruck. He now reckoned the country his, and that it only remained to send news of his success to Vendôme, who had taken Wälsch-Tirol similarly by surprise and advanced as far as Trent, in order to carry out their concerted inroad through the Pusterthal. So sure of his victory was he, that he ordered the Te Deum to be sung in all the churches of Innsbruck.

Maximilian and Vendôme remained perplexed at hearing nothing from each other, and without means of communication; in vain they sent out scouts; money could not buy information from the patriotic Tirolese. Meantime, danger was thickening round each; the Landsturm was out, and every height was beset with agile climbers, armed with their unerring carbines, and with masses of rock to hurl down on the enemy who ventured along the road beneath them. The Bavarian and French leaders in the north and in the south only perceived how critical was their situation just in time to escape from it, and the waste and havoc they had made during their brief incursion was recompensed by the numbers lost in their retreat. The Bavarians held Kufstein for some time longer, but their precipitate withdrawal from all the rest of the country earned for the campaign, in the mouths of the Tirolese, the nickname of the Baierische-Rumpel. While brave arms had been defending the mountain passes, brave hearts of those whose arms were nerved only for being lifted up in prayer, not for war, were day by day earnestly interceding in the churches for the deliverance of their husbands, fathers, and brothers; and when, on the 26th of July, the land was found free of the foe, it was gratefully remembered that it was S. Anne’s Day, and the so-called Annensäule, which adorns the Neustadt—the principal thoroughfare of Innsbruck—was erected in commemoration.

It is composed of the marbles of the country; the lower part red, the column white, the effigy of the Immaculate Conception, which surmounts it and the surrounding rays, in gilt bronze. Round the base stand St. Vigilius and St. Cassian (two apostles of Tirol), and St. Anne and St. George; about them float angels, in the breezy style of the period. The monument was solemnly inaugurated on S. Anne’s Day, 1706; and every year on that day a procession winds round it from the parish church, singing hymns of thanksgiving; and an altar, gaily dressed with fresh flowers, stands before it for eight days under the open sky.

Maria Theresa succeeded her father, Charles VI., in 1742. She seems to have known how to attend to the affairs of every part of the Empire alike; and thus, while the whole country felt the benefit of her wise provisions, all the former splendours of the Tirolean capital revived. Maria Theresa frequently took up her residence at Innsbruck; and while benefiting trade by her expenditure, and by that of the visitors whom her court attracted, she set at the same time an edifying example of piety and a well-regulated life. Her associations with Innsbruck were nevertheless overshadowed by sad events more than once, though this does not appear to have diminished her affection for the place.

When Marshal Daun took a whole division of the Prussian army captive at Maxen in 1758, the officers, nine in number, were sent to Innsbruck for safe custody. Here they remained till the close of the war, five years later. This, and the furnishing some of its famous sharpshooters to the Austrian contingent, was the only contact Tirol had with the Seven Years’ War. Two years after (1765) Maria Theresa arranged that the marriage of her son (afterwards Leopold II.) with Maria Luisa, daughter of Charles III. of Spain, should take place there. The townspeople, sensible of the honour conferred on them, responded to it by adorning the city with the most festive display; not only with gay banners and hangings, but by improving the façades of their houses, and the roads and bridges, and erecting a triumphal arch of unusual solidity at the end of the Neustadt nearest Wilten, being that by which the royal pair would pass on their way from Italy; for Leopold was then Grand Duke of Tuscany. The theatre and public buildings were likewise put in order. Maria Theresa, with her husband Francis I., and all the Imperial family, arrived in Innsbruck on July 15, attracting a larger assemblage of great people than had been seen there even in its palmiest days. Banquets and gay doings filled up the interval till August 5, when Leopold and Maria Luisa made their entrance with unexampled pomp. The marriage was celebrated in the Pfarrkirche by Prince Clement of Saxony, Bishop of Ratisbon, assisted by seven other bishops. Balls, operas, banquets, illuminations, and the national Freischiessen, followed. But during all these fêtes, an unseasonable gloom, which is popularly supposed to bode evil, overclouded the August sky, usually so clear and brilliant in Innsbruck. On the 18th, a grand opera was given to conclude the festivities; on his way back from it Francis I. was seized with a fit, and died in the course of the night in the arms of his son, afterwards Joseph II.

Though Maria Theresa’s master mind had caused her to take the lead in all public matters, she was devotedly attached to her husband, and this sudden blow was severely felt by her. She could not bear that the room in which he expired should ever be again used for secular purposes, and had it converted into a costly chapel; at the same time she made great improvements and additions to the rest of the Burg. She always wore mourning to the end of her life, and always, when state affairs permitted, passed the eighteenth day of every month in prayer and retirement. A remarkable monument remains of both the affection and public spirit of this talented princess. Driving out to the Abbey of Wilten in one of the early days of mourning, while some of the tokens of the rejoicing, so unexpectedly turned into lamentation, were still unremoved, the sight of the handsome triumphal arch reminded her of a resolution suggested by Francis I. to replace it by one of similar design in more permanent materials. Her first impulse was to reject the thought as a too painful reminder of the past; but reflection on the promised benefit to the town prevailed over personal feelings, and she gave orders for the execution of the work; but to make it a fitting memorial of the occasion, she ordered that while the side facing the road from Italy should be a Triumphpforte, and recall by its bas-reliefs the glad occasion which caused its erection, the side facing the town should be a Trauerpforte, and set forth the melancholy conclusion of the same. The whole was executed by Tirolean artists, and of Tirolean marbles. She founded also a Damenstift, for the maintenance of twelve poor ladies of noble birth, who, without taking vows, bound themselves to wear mourning and pray for the soul of Francis I. and those of his house. Another great work of Maria Theresa was the development she gave to the University of Innsbruck.

One religious house which Joseph II. did not suppress was the Damenstift of Innsbruck, of which his sister, the Archduchess Maria Elizabeth, undertook the government in 1781; and during the remainder of her life held a sort of court there which was greatly for the benefit of the city. Pius VI. visited her on his way back from Vienna on the evening of May 7, 1782. The whole town was illuminated, and all the religious in the town went out to meet him, followed by the whole body of the people. Late as was the hour (a quarter to ten, says a precise chronicle) he had no sooner reached the apartment prepared for him in the Burg, than he admitted whole crowds to audience, and the enthusiasm with which the religious Tirolese thronged round him surpasses words. Many, possessed with a sense of the honour of having the vicar of Christ in their very midst, remained all night in the surrounding Rennplatz, as it were on guard round his abode. In the morning, after hearing mass, he imparted the Apostolic Benediction from the balcony of the Burg, and proceeded on his way over the Brenner.

In the meantime the Archduchess had returned to Innsbruck, and all went on upon its old footing, as if there were no enemy to fear. So little was another disturbance expected, that the Archduchess devoted herself to the promotion of local improvements, including that of the Gottesacker. This is one of the favourite Sunday afternoon resorts of the Innsbruckers, and is well worthy of a visit. The site was first destined for the purpose by the Emperor Maximilian. It was gifted with all the indulgences accorded to the Campo Santo of Rome by the Pope, and in token of the same some earth from San Lorenzo fuori le mura was brought hither at the time of its consecration by the Bishop of Brixen in 1510. It has, according to the frequent German arrangement, an upper and a lower chapel; the former, dedicated to S. Anne; the latter, as usual, to S. Michael, though the people commonly call it die Veitskapelle, on account of some cures of S. Vitus’ dance wrought here. The arcades which now surround the cemetery were the result of the introduction of Italian customs later in the sixteenth century. Some of the oldest and noblest names of Tirol are to be found upon the monuments here, some of which cannot fail to attract attention. The bas-reliefs sculptured by Collin for that of the Hohenhauser family, and those he prepared for his own, may be reckoned among his masterpieces. Some which are adorned with paintings would be very interesting if the weather had spared them more. The Archduchess had prepared her own resting-place here also, but was not destined to occupy it. The disastrous defeat of Austerlitz filled her with alarm, and she once more fled from Innsbruck, this time not to return.

This was the year 1805, and a sad one it was for Tirol. The treaty of Pressburg had given Tirol to Bavaria, and Bavaria and Tirol had never in any age been able to understand each other. Willingly would the Tirolese have opposed their entrance; but the Bavarians, who knew every pass as well as themselves, were enabled to pour in the allied troops under Marshal Ney in such force, that they were beyond their power to resist. The fortresses near the Bavarian frontier were razed, and Innsbruck occupied. On February 11, 1806, Marshal Ney left, and the town was formally delivered over to Bavarian rule. The most unpopular changes of government were adopted, particularly in ecclesiastical matters and in forcing the peasants into the army; the University also was once more made into a Lyceum. But the Landsturm was not idle, and the Archduke Johann, Leopold’s brother, came into Tirol to encourage them. Maturing their plans in secret, the patriots, under Andreas Hofer, who had been to Vienna in January to declare his plans and get them confirmed by his government, and Speckbacher, broke into Innsbruck on April 13, 1809, where the townspeople received them with loud acclamations; and after a desperate and celebrated conflict at Berg Isel, succeeded in completely ridding it of the invaders. The Bavarian arms on the Landhaus were shattered to atoms, and when the Eagle replaced them, the people climbed the ladders to kiss it. This was the first great act of the Befreiungskämpfe which have made ‘the year Nine’ memorable in the annals of Tirol, and, I may say of Europe, for it was one of the noblest struggles of determined patriotism those annals have to boast, and at the same time the most successful effort of volunteer arms. Hofer accepted the title of Schützenkommandant, and was lodged in the imperial Burg, while his peasant neighbours took the office of guards; but he altered nothing of his simple habits, nor his national costume. His frugal expenses amounted to forty-five kreuzers a day, and he lost no opportunity of expressing that he did nothing on his own account, but all in the name of the Emperor. On May 19 the Bavarians laid siege to the town; but the defenders of the country, supported by a few regular Austrian troops, obliged them by the end of a fortnight to decamp. On June 30 they returned with a force of twenty-four thousand men; but other feats of arms of the patriots in all parts of Tirol showed that its people were unconquerable, and for the third time Hofer took possession of Innsbruck. In the meantime, however, the Peace of Schönbrunn, of October 25, had nullified their achievements, though the memory of their bravery could never be blotted out, and always asserted its power. Nor could the brave people, even when bidden by the Emperor himself to desist, believe that his orders were otherwise than wrung from him, nor could their loyalty be quenched. Hofer’s stern sense of subordination made him advise abstention from further strife, but the more ardent patriots refused to listen, and ended by leading him to join them. A desultory warfare was now kept up, with no very effectual result, but yet with a spirit and determination which convinced the Bavarians that they could never subdue such a people, and predisposed them to consent to the evacuation of their country in 1814; for they saw that

Freedom from every hut

Sent down a separate root,

And when base swords her branches cut,

With tenfold might they shoot.

In the meantime a terrible wrong had been committed; the French, knowing the value of Hofer’s influence in encouraging the country-people against them, set a price on his head sufficient to tempt a traitor to make know his hiding-place. He was taken, and thrown into prison at the Porta Molina at Mantua. Tried in a council of war, several voices were raised in honour of his bravery and patriotism; a small majority, however, had the cowardice to condemn him to death. He received the news of the sentence with the firmness which might have been expected of him, the only favour he condescended to ask being the spiritual assistance of a priest. Provost Manifesti was sent to him, and remained with him to the end. An offer was made him of saving his life by entering the French service, but he indignantly refused to join the enemies of his country. To Provost Manifesti he committed all he possessed, to be expended in the relief of his fellow-countrymen who were prisoners. He spent the early hours of the morning of the day on which he was to die, after mass, in writing his farewell to his wife, bidding her not to give way to grief, and to his other relations and friends, in which latter category was comprehended the population of the whole Passeyerthal, not to say all Tirol; recommending himself to their prayers, and begging that his name might be given out, and the suffrages of the faithful asked for him, in the village church where he had so often knelt in years of peace. He was forbidden to address his fellow-prisoners. He bore a crucifix, wreathed in flowers, in his hand as he walked to the place of execution, which he was observed repeatedly to kiss. There he took a little silver crucifix from his neck, a memorial of his first Communion, and gave it to Provost Manifesti. He refused to kneel, or to have his eyes bandaged, but stood without flinching to receive the fire of his executioners. His signal to them was first a brief prayer; then a fervently uttered ‘Hoch lebe Kaiser Franz!’ and then the firm command, ‘Fire home!’ His courage, however, unmanned the soldiers; ashamed of their task, they durst not take secure aim, and it took thirteen shots to send the undaunted soul of the peasant hero to its rest. It was February 20, 1810; he was only forty-five. The traditions of his courage and endurance, his probity and steadfastness, are manifold; but in connexion with Innsbruck we have only to speak of his brief administration there, which was untarnished by a single unworthy deed, a single act of severity towards prisoners of war, of whom he had numbers in his power who had dealt cruel havoc on his beloved valleys.

The Emperor for whom he had fought so nobly returned to Innsbruck, to receive the homage of the Tirolese, on May 28, 1816, amid the loud rejoicings of the people, preceded by a solemn service of thanksgiving in the Pfarrkirche. Illuminations and fêtes followed till June 5, when the ceremony was wound up by a grand shooting-match, at which the Emperor presided and many prizes were distributed. The number who contended was 3,678, and 2,137 of them made the bull’s-eye; among them were old men over eighty and boys of thirteen and fourteen.

The claims of Hofer on his country’s remembrance were not forgotten when she once more had leisure for works of peace. His precious remains, which had been carefully interred by the priest who consoled his last moments at Mantua, were brought to Innsbruck in 1823, and laid temporarily in the Servitenkloster. On February 21 they were borne in solemn procession by six of his brothers in arms, all the clergy and people following. The Abbot of Wilten sang the requiem office. The Emperor ordered the conspicuous and appropriate monument to mark the spot where they laid him, which is one of the chief ornaments of the Hofkirche. The pedestal bears the inscription—

Seinen in den Befreiungskämpfen gefallenen Söhnen das dankbare Vaterland,

and the sarcophagus the words—

Absorbta est mors in victoria.

Tirol had no reason to regret the restoration of the dynasty for which she had suffered so much. Most of her ancient privileges were restored to her, and in 1826 Innsbruck again received the honour of a University, and many useful institutions were founded. Francis came to Innsbruck again this year, and while there, received the visit of the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia. Another shooting-match was held before them, at which the precision of the Tirolese received much praise; and again for a short time in 1835. The Archduke John, who came in 1835 to live in Tirol, was received with great enthusiasm; his hardy feats of mountain climbing, and hearty accessible character, endearing him to all the people.

The troubles of 1848 gave the Tirolese again an opportunity of showing that their ancient loyalty was undiminished. The Emperor Ferdinand, driven out of his capital, found that he had not reckoned wrongly in counting on a secure refuge in Tirol. It was the evening of May 16 that the Imperial pair came as fugitives to Innsbruck. Though there was hardly time to announce their advent before their arrival, the people went out to meet them, took their horses from the carriage, and themselves drew it into the town; and all the time they remained the towns-people and Landes-schützen mounted guard round the Burg. More than this, the Tirolese Kaiser-Jäger-Regiment volunteered for service against the insurgents, and fought with such determination that Marshal Radetsky pronounced that every man of them was a hero. With equal stout-heartedness the Landes-schützen repelled the attempted Italian invasion at several points of the south-western frontier, and kept the enemy at bay till the imperial troops could arrive. These services were renewed with equal fidelity the next year. A tablet recording the bravery of those who fell in this campaign—one of the officers engaged being Hofer’s grandson—is let into the wall of the Hofkirche opposite Hofer’s monument.

It was this Emperor from whom the name of Ferdinandeum was given to the Museum, but it was rather out of compliment, and while he was yet Crown-Prince, than in memory of any signal co-operation on his part. It was projected in 1820 by Count Von Chotek, then Governor of Tirol. It comprises an association for the promotion of the study of the arts and sciences. The Museum contains several early illuminated MSS., in the production of which the Carthusians of Schnals and the Dominicans of Botzen acquired a singular pre-eminence. At a time when the nobles of other countries were occupied with far less enlightened pursuits, the peaceful condition of Tirol enabled its nobles, such as the Edelherrn of Monlan, Annaberg, Dornsberg, Runglstein, and others, to keep in their employment secretaries, copyists, and chaplains, busied in transcribing; and often sent them into other countries to make copies of famous works to enrich their collections. It has also some of the first works produced from the printing-press of Schwatz already mentioned. This press was removed to Innsbruck in 1529; Trent set one up about the same time. In the lower rooms of the Ferdinandeum is a collection of paintings by Tirolean artists, and specimens of the marbles, minerals, and other natural productions of the country. The great variation in the elevation of the soil affords a vast range to the vegetable kingdom, so that it can boast of giving a home to plants like the tobacco, which only germinates at a temperature of seventy degrees, and the edelweiss, which only blossoms under the snow. There is also a small collection of Roman and earlier antiquities, dug up at various times in different parts of Tirol, and specimens of native industries. Among the most singular items are some paintings on cobweb, of which one family has possessed the secret for generations, specimens of their works may be found in most of the museums of South Germany; these almost self-taught artists display great dexterity in the management of their strange canvas, and considerable merit in the delicate manipulation of their pigments; sometimes they even imitate fine line engravings in pen and ink without injuring the fragile surface. They delight specially in treating subjects of traditional interest, as Kaiser Max on the Martinswand, the beautiful Philippine Welser, the heroic Hofer, and the patron saints and particular devotions of their village sanctuaries. Kranach’s Mariähilf is thus an object of most affectionate care. The ‘web’ is certainly like that of no ordinary spider; but it is reported that this family has cultivated a particular species for the purpose, and an artist friend who had been in Mexico mentioned to me having seen there spiders’-webs almost as solid as these. I was not able, however, to learn any tradition of the importation of these spiders from Mexico. In the first room on the second floor are to be seen the characteristic letter written, as I have said, by Hofer, shortly before his end, and other relics of him and the other patriots, such as the hat and breviary of the Franciscan Haspinger. Also an Italian gun taken by the Akademische Legion—the band of loyal volunteer students of Innsbruck university, in the campaign of 1848—and I think some trophies also of the success of Tirolese arms against the attempted invasion of the later Italian war, in which as usual the skill of these people as marksmen stood them in good stead. Anyone who wishes to judge of their practice may have plenty of opportunity in Innsbruck, for their rifles seem to be constantly firing away at the Schiess-stand; so constantly as to form an annoyance to those who are not interested in the subject.

This Schiess-stand, or rifle-butt, was set up in 1863, in commemoration of the fifth centenary of Tirol’s union with Austria and its undeviating loyalty. No history presents an instance of a loyalty more intimately connected with religious principle than the loyalty of Tirol; the two traditions are so inseparably interwoven that the one cannot be wounded without necessarily injuring the other. The present Emperor and Empress of Austria are not wanting to the devout example of their predecessors, but the modern theory of government leaves them little influence in the administration of their dominions. Meantime the anti-Catholic policy of the Central Government creates great dissatisfaction and uneasiness in Tirol. Other divisions of the empire had been prepared for such by laxity of manners and indifferentism to religious belief—the detritus, which the flood of the French revolution scattered more or less thickly over the whole face of Europe. But the valleys of Tirol had closed their passes to the inroads of this flood, and laws not having religion for their basis are there just as obnoxious in the nineteenth as they would have been in any former century.

In concluding my notice of the capital of Tirol, it may be worth while to mention that the census of January 1870 gives it a population (exclusive of military) of 16,810, being an increase of 2,570 over the twelve preceding years.