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.
[1] ‘Now he knows how the just monarch is beloved of Heaven; his beaming countenance yet testifies his joy.’
[2] Nork, Mythologie der Volkssagen, p. 419.
[3] Exactly the story of the fisherman and the Genius in the copper vessel of the Arabian Nights. It is found also in Grimm’s story of the Spirit in the bottle, in the Norse tale of the Master Smith; in that of the Lad and the Devil (Dasent); and in the Gaelic tale of the Soldier (Campbell).
[4] Von Alpenburg, Mythen u. Sagen Tirols.
[5] See pp. 194, 270, 324–5.