| Abstrakt: |
Abstract: This presented study focuses on determining the causes of the illness, courses of treatment, the preparation for the death and symbolic messages conveyed at the funerals of Ferdinand I, based on the dispatches of envoys, personal correspondence of the Imperial family, official correspondence of court dignatories and an iconographical analysis of the sources. Attention is also paid to the impact of the gradually deteriorating general health of the biological body of this Central European ruler in terms of a weakening of the sovereign’s grip on power and the exercise of his everyday regal duties between 1563 and 1564. At the same time, the chosen historical-anthropological approaches and concepts of symbolic communication make it possible to observe the creation of the image of the social body of the deceased emperor at the moment of his death on 25th July 1564 and during the final obsequies which took place thirteen months later, namely on 6th and 7th of August 1565 in Vienna and on 21th and 22nd August 1565 in Prague. During the display of his remains at a castrum doloris, the ceremonial funeral procession and the requiem mass, Ferdinand I entered the collective memory as a Christian knight, a wise and righteous ruler of extensive territories in Central Europe, where, after his biological death, his bereaved sons took over the ruling power by the grace of God. The dramaturgy of final farewells and the use of symbols in speeches celebrated loudly the continuous tradition of the Christian rule of the Habsburg dynasty. |
