Innsbruck

Innsbruck, the bridge over the Inn, grew from a market founded by the Counts of Andechs in 1133 and received town rights around 1200. Everything that crossed the eastern Alps by the Brenner road to Italy passed over its bridge, and the tolls brought wealth. After the last Andechs count died in 1248 the town fell to the Counts of Tyrol, and in 1363 Margarete Maultasch, the last countess of Tyrol, gave her land to the Habsburgs and Innsbruck became Austrian. Duke Frederick IV, Frederick of the Empty Pockets, made it his residence in 1420 and laid out the arcades and the court garden.

Under Maximilian I, who often stayed with his court, Innsbruck became a political and artistic centre of the Empire. The Golden Roof was built between 1497 and 1500, and the arsenal around 1500 held one of the greatest stocks of weapons in Europe. His grandson Ferdinand I built the Court Church between 1553 and 1563 for Maximilian's empty tomb, with the bronze Black Men cast between 1509 and 1550. In 1629 and 1630 Leopold V built the Dogana, the first permanent opera and theatre house in the German-speaking world. When the Tyrolean Habsburg line ended in 1665 the court left, which kept the Gothic old town unchanged. Emperor Leopold I founded the university in 1669.

From 1806 Innsbruck belonged to Bavaria, and in April 1809, during the Tyrolean rising, Tyroleans under Andreas Hofer fought the Bavarians fiercely around the town.