Archduke awes attentive audience

Author: Mallika Rao

This past Friday's lecture, "Art and Politics under the Habsburgs 1450 to 1650," was not only well-attended and well-received, but conducted by a man well-suited for the task. Archduke Géza von Habsburg, grandson of King Frederick Augustus III of Saxony and great-great grandson of Emperor Franz-Joseph of Austria, presented what Professor of Political Science Alison Stanger called a "tour de force." With the help of slides and his own comprehensive knowledge, von Habsburg detailed the interdependency of art and politics under his family's rule in an accessible and humorous style.

"The sun never set on the Habsburg Empire," the Archduke stated at the beginning of the talk. Indeed, the magnitude of wealth and power shown on the screen as a visual counterpoint to his presentation proved the point. The art depicted ranged from elaborate gold urine dishes to automated clocks that moved to music, and fired an arrow at the music's end. "If the arrow hit you, you had to open the clock and drink from the contents inside," von Habsburg explained. "This is how they had fun."

The Archduke's dry sense of humor carried the lecture, as he traced the famous Habsburg nose and lip from the Holy Emperor Rudolph to Ferdinand I, King of Austria, Bohemia and Hungary. Aside from his illustrious features, Ferdinand also possessed what was thought to be the Holy Grail, owing to the supposedly supernaturally-occurring presence of the word "Christos" in the stone. But as the Archduke pointed out, "nobody's been able to read that since the Age of Enlightenment."

Von Habsburg's tracking of his ancestral nose and lip did not limit itself to the Habsburgs. He described how vital it was for the royal family to assert the length of its span as far back as Noah. "Did you know," von Habsburg asked playfully, pointing to the lip on a statue - one of the many in a rather wishful version of the Habsburg line, "that King Arthur was a Habsburg?"

While he did not ignore their quirks, von Habsburg gave due credit to the royal family's appreciation for art. Their collection includes some of the greatest pieces ever conceived - mountains of corals worked into animal shapes and deftly molded bronze statuettes. This aesthetic awareness affected all facets of their way of life. In recounting his favorite historical Habsburg, Ferdinand II, the Archduke asserted that the castle he built is among "the most charming castles ever." It featured an open-air dining room, complete with a revolving table powered by water.

Ferdinand II also instituted the first organized museum, a building intended to mirror the entire world. Sharks floated in the rooms, suspended from ceilings and walls spotted with enormous dead lizards. The museum housed a wide range of curiosities - the earliest cases of Chinese and Japanese art in Europe sat alongside stunning pieces from the Aztec civilization in Mexico. Even humans made up the exhibitions, with hairy men, dwarves and cripples all on display.

Von Habsburg's lecture covered a large and overlapping set of characters. He moved expertly through the material, stopping rarely to readjust a date or name. "I get confused," he said once, after correcting himself. "They intermarry so much."

The talk ended with an opportunity for audience members to speak with von Habsburg. Many students and professors thanked him for the lecture. Susanna Merrill '09 found the objects to be "impressive." "It was cool to meet a Habsburg," she said. "It added force to the presentation." David Murphy Haglund '06 thought the talk itself was "very informative."

Intended as a complement to Stanger's first-year seminar on empires, as well as to the various other classes that touch on the Habsburgs, the lecture served as a broad window for the general public into a historically important family. "The scope of his talk was sweeping," Stanger said, "so I would not consider this a specialized talk." Around 110 people attended the talk, a fact Stanger pointed to as an indicator of the wide scope of interest. "The large turnout on a rainy Friday afternoon suggests there is significant demand for talks of this sort."

Von Habsburg is speaking at the Metropolitan Museum of Art this week. His "delightful" sense of humor struck Paul Monod, a History Professor, as one of the lecture's most compelling facets. "He has a very good sense of humor about his own family," Monod said. "How many of us can make jokes like that about ourselves?"