There is hardly an uncrowned person who had a greater influence on the history of Europe until the 20th century than Jakob Fugger (1459 - 1525). Not only did his lifetime coincide with that of Emperor Maximilian, the fates of the two men were closely linked. The history of Tyrol was also shaped by the most important financial magnate of his time.

Jakob Fugger came from a family of merchants in Augsburg. The arrival of the progenitor of the family was recorded in the Augsburg tax book under "Fucker advenit". In the 15th century, a Fugger trading network of factories gradually developed. The merchants founded factories in Venice, Bolzano, Milan, Nuremberg, Frankfurt, Bruges and Antwerp for their textile business. Factories were a multifunctional mix of sales area, financial branch, horse station, warehouse, post and news centre and diplomatic representation. This system had spilled over the Alps from northern Italy. An early form of financial capitalism had emerged in the region between Florence, Venice and Milan. Banking began its triumphal march through Europe here in the late Middle Ages. Merchants who did not want to carry vast amounts of cash with them needed so-called bills of exchange to carry out their transactions. They therefore began to set up branch offices in the major trading cities. Italian financial institutions also had branches in Innsbruck from the High Middle Ages onwards.

Jakob and his brothers also initially traded cotton with the wealthy northern Italian cities in the good family tradition. In Venice, the financial centre of the eastern Mediterranean, Jakob Fugger became acquainted with the art of double-entry bookkeeping and the intricacies of progressive Italian finance. He realised that there was more to be earned from money transactions and loans than from cotton. The monarchs and aristocrats of Europe financed their courts and wars in the Middle Ages through the Tithe. This tax was paid by the peasants within the feudal system. Warfare in particular had become increasingly expensive in the 15th century, fuelled by modern firearms. As a result, the tithe was often no longer sufficient. The legitimisation as God's representative on earth had worked for monarchs up to this point, but around 1500, the sounding coin and interest in the form of financial capitalism slowly but surely began to replace God as the ultimate authority.

Jakob Fugger's relationship with the House of Habsburg, and in particular with Tyrol, began to intensify in 1487. The Tyrolean sovereign Siegmund was defeated in a military conflict with the Republic of Venice. In order to pay his debt of 100,000 guilders to the Mediterranean power, he borrowed money from the Fuggers. In return, he issued promissory notes, which he covered by pledging the Schwaz silver mine to his lenders. Schwaz was the largest silver mine in the world before the development of the American silver mines. The Fuggers sold the Schwaz silver to the Hall mint, which they also operated, and in turn lent these coins to Duke Siegmund. A special kind of cycle was born.

However, this was not the end of the Fuggers' political influence on world politics. When the Tyrolean estates deposed Siegmund in 1490 due to his disastrous business behaviour, Maximilian I succeeded him as Prince of Tyrol. Fugger was clever enough to back the new sovereign. The word credit, which goes back to the Latin credereThe choice shows that he believed in Maximilian. Fugger believed in a powerful Maximilian as his best asset. He financed Maximilian's election as Holy Roman Emperor in 1493, thereby securing his influence and elevation to the nobility. It was also Fugger who sponsored the double wedding in Vienna, Maximilian's masterpiece of marriage policy, which made Hungary part of the Habsburg Empire. When Maximilian died in 1519, Fugger repeated this and used his financial power to have Maximilian's grandson Charles V elected emperor. A loan of 540,000 guilders went from the Fuggers to the Habsburgs to pay for advertising and bribes. In return, Charles V granted Fugger rights to mines in Spain and South America, where slaves worked under inhumane conditions to keep this wheel of exploitation and corruption turning

The Fuggers granted the Habsburgs an estimated two million guilders in loans between 1487 and 1525 alone. One florin was equivalent to 60 crowns. A day labourer earned around 6 crowns at that time. This sum could have been used to employ almost 55,000 people a day for a year. A large part of this debt was paid off with rights of use to Tyrolean assets and increased taxes. It is estimated that at the time of his death, Fugger's financial empire handled around 50% of the Tyrolean state budget and 10% of the Tyrolean state's assets. Heiligen Römischen Reiches possessed. His officials managed mines in Tyrol, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Spain, financed trading expeditions throughout the then known world and numerous wars in Europe. Some historians consider Jakob Fugger to be the richest man in world history. How high his fortune was is difficult to convert to today's standards. When the FAZ made an attempt in 2016, it came up with 300 billion dollars. Like Maximilian I, Jakob Fugger was both a man of power and an educated, devout Catholic. Corruption, exploitation, the financing of wars and, out of fear of God and purgatory, the FuggereiThe idea of founding the world's first social housing estate in Augsburg was not out of the question.

In Innsbruck, the Palais Fugger-Taxis and a small alley between Maria-Theresien-Straße and Landhausplatz commemorate the Fuggers. No reference is made to the way in which the merchant dynasty became wealthy.