JAKOB FUGGER

1459–1525

Jakob Fugger played a pivotal role in his family’s domination of European banking and commerce during the 15th and 16th centuries. A successful financier and one of the first to lend money in exchange for shares in profits, he wielded more influence and power than some monarchs. He aptly came to be known as “Jakob the Rich.”

The 10th of 11 children, Jakob Fugger was born in Augsburg, Germany, where his family had established themselves as successful textile merchants. As a young man, Fugger went to work in Venice and learned bookkeeping. He remained in Italy for seven years, then moved to Innsbruck to take charge of the Austrian wing of the family business. Fugger quickly proved his business acumen by negotiating a lucrative deal with the Habsburgs, an influential royal dynasty in central Europe. He advanced them long-term loans in exchange for a share of the profits from their copper and silver mines in the Tyrol region of the Alps.

These credit arrangements enabled the Fugger family to expand their own mining interests into Silesia (now Poland) and Neusohl (present-day Slovakia). They soon established a copper monopoly in these areas, generating huge profits by distributing the metal across Europe. Following the death of his elder brother Ulrich in 1510, Jakob became head of the Fugger family’s business operations. A shrewd and hardworking leader, he launched the Fuggers into a variety of new business ventures, including trading spices, purchasing land, and moneylending; they loaned huge sums to crowned heads across Europe.

By the time Fugger died in 1525, his family were the most powerful financiers in Europe. Having had no children of his own, Fugger bestowed the family business on his nephew Anton, under whose equally enterprising leadership it reached peak levels of wealth in the mid-16th century.