Maximilian I (1459–1519)

A portrait by Dürer of the German king and Holy Emperor Maximilian I in 1512.

German king from 1486, Holy Roman Emperor from 1493. He was the son of the emperor Frederick III (1415–93). Through a combination of dynastic marriages and diplomacy backed up by military threats, Maximilian was able to build up the Habsburg inheritance. He married Mary of Burgundy in 1477, and after her death in 1582 held onto Burgundian lands. He married his son, Philip the Handsome, to Joanna, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, and undertook long wars with Italy and Hungary in attempts to extend Habsburg power. The eventual legatee of these arrangements was Maximilian's grandson, Charles V.

Maximilian was keen to promote his glory and did so in part in his own writings. He encouraged the writing of chivalric literature and wrote an autobiography including information on tournaments. His entourage provided patronage for Germans with humanist interests, like Willibald Pirckheimer and Konrad Peutinger (1465–1547); he also attracted dedications from other scholars like Ulrich von Hutten. It was probably through Pirckheimer that Albrecht Dürer was provided with imperial artistic commissions, including a portrait (one among many) of Maximilian.

In Italy Maximilian lost Milan to Louis XII of France (1462–1515). In Germany he agreed the Perpetual Edict, forbidding private war and private armies, but this proved difficult to enforce. The Treaty of Basel (1499) granted independence to the Swiss.

Maximilian I (1573–1651)

German ruler. He was Duke of Bavaria from 1597. He became the leading Catholic ruler in Germany after 1600. In 1620 his troops under Tilly were instrumental in defeating the Bohemian revolt. Maximilian received as reward the electoral title of his cousin, Frederick V, and part of the latter's territory.

Educated by the Jesuits, he succeeded on his father's abdication. His seizure of the free city of Donauwörth (1608) provoked the Protestants to form a political union, to which Maximilian replied by organizing a Catholic league. During the Thirty Years' War his shrewd policies, with conditional backing for the Habsburgs balanced by overtures towards France, laid the foundations of future Bavarian expansion.