Ambras Collection The nucleus of the Imperial Armoury is the Ambras Collection (
k.u.k. Ambraser Sammlung), which was transferred from Ambras Castle to the
Lower Belvedere palace in 1806. There is evidence of a princely armoury in
Tyrol as early as 1480 under Archduke Sigismund. His nephew, Emperor
Maximilian I, inherited this collection and greatly expanded it. After a significant part was transferred to Spain for
Emperor Charles V (now in the
Real Armería, Madrid), Charles's younger brother, King Ferdinand I (later
Emperor Ferdinand I), took over the Tyrolean armoury. The most significant contributions came from
Archduke Ferdinand II, who established an independent Tyrolean princely line. After 1547, as regent of Bohemia, Ferdinand II amassed an extensive collection of military, sporting, and ceremonial weapons as part of his lavish court culture. Thus, upon his appointment to Tyrol in 1565, he transported around 17-18 tons of personal arms from
Prague to Innsbruck, storing them in the
Hofburg. In Innsbruck, Ferdinand not only continued to commission personal pieces but also conceived a unique vision for a "Armoury of Heroes." Here, he brought together arms and armour associated with renowned European and non-European warriors of the past and present, together with their portraits and biographies, thereby claiming their legacy as his own. Archduke Ferdinand's armoury is well documented in inventories from 1555, 1583, 1593 and 1596. The most important testimony is Jakob Schrenck von Notzing's
Armamentarium Heroicum, which contains 125 engravings of the archduke's "heroes" in their respective armours alongside their printed biographies. The Latin edition of this illustrated inventory of the "Armoury of Heroes" was published in Innsbruck in 1601, the German edition following two years later. This work is considered to be the world's first museum catalogue. In 1606,
Emperor Rudolph II acquired the Ambras collection from Ferdinand II's illegitimate son, Margrave Charles of Burgau, for the enormous sum of 170,000 guilders. He intended to unite it with his
Kunstkammer in Prague, but this plan was never realized. Ferdinand's successors as independent rulers of Tyrol added their personal arms to the Ambras armoury. In 1806, ten armours and weapons associated with prominent Frenchmen were confiscated and taken to Paris by inspecteur général
Jacques-Pierre Orillard de Villemanzy on behalf of
Napoleon, including the field and equestrian armour of
Francis I of France. That same year,
Emperor Francis II had the remaining collection evacuated to Vienna after Tyrol was ceded to Bavaria. Initially stored in the
Kaisergarten in Vienna's third district, the collection was later installed in the Lower Belvedere—the former summer residence of
Prince Eugene of Savoy—during the
Congress of Vienna in 1814. There it was opened to the public as entertainment. In 1888, it was merged with the imperial arms collection from Vienna. Wendelin Boeheim reorganized the remaining holdings at Ambras Castle, incorporating objects from Vienna and
Laxenburg. The newly arranged armoury at Ambras, featuring two galleries, was opened in 1882. In 1952, its administration was joined with the Imperial Armoury (
Waffensammlung) at the
Kunsthistorisches Museum.
Imperial Arsenal In the fifteenth century, the Habsburgs‘ holdings of arms and armour in Vienna were housed in the so-called Ungarische Hof on the corner of Augustinerstraße and Dorotheergasse.
Emperor Maximilian I kept his personal arms in the medieval castle. In addition, a royal armoury was housed in the "Öden Kirchen" of St. Paul near St. Michael's Church. In 1598, this was moved to the top floor of the
Stallburg, which was built for
Maximilian II after 1558. In 1750, this collection was moved from the Stallburg to the imperial arsenal in Renngasse (
Kaiserliches Zeughaus).
Emperor Ferdinand I had acquired the Salzburger Hof there in 1559 and it was converted into an armoury by
Emperor Rudolph II between 1584 and 1587. In 1672, under
Emperor Leopold I, Raimund Montecuccoli extended the building to a surface of over 8500 m2, including a courtyard of over 6000 m2. Between 1759 and 1771, under
Empress Maria Theresa, Nikolaus Unterriedmüller created a museum on the site, which was a combination of an Habsburg hall of fame and an armoury for practical use. The conceptual centre was a museum of the
Seven Years' War (1756-1763) between Austria and
Prussia. In 1765, with
Joseph II‘s accession, the arms and armour of the Styrian-Hungarian line of the Habsburgs, which had been independent between 1546 and 1619, were transferred from
Graz to the imperial arsenal in Vienna. After the
Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, the French confiscated precious pieces of artillery and armour, which were transferred to the
Musée de l'Armée in Paris. The resulting gaps were filled during the
Congress of Vienna in 1814 and an important illustrated inventory was subsequently created by Paul Löbhardt and Mathias Waniek in 1817/19. Friedrich Otto von Leber's published inventory of 1846 is the first scholarly catalogue of the imperial arsenal. Applying art-historical methods to the objects, he arrived at new and largely correct dates. Shortly after, the arsenal suffered considerable losses through looting in the revolutionary year of
1848.
K.K. Hofwaffensammlung The imperial arsenal was cleared out in 1856, just before
Emperor Francis Joseph decreed the enlargement of Vienna on 20 December 1857. The building was demolished. After considerable sales of obsolete mass-produced military goods, its contents were joined with the Ambras Collection from the Lower Belvedere at the newly built
Imperial Arsenal on the outskirts of the city.
Theophil von Hansen’s plans for a display organized along decorative criteria was rejected by the emperor in 1863. Instead, the ‘Imperial and Royal Court Arms Collection’ was displayed according to scholarly criteria. It was curated by
Quirin von Leitner and was presented in the halls on either side of the Hall of Fame on the main floor.
Kunsthistorische Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses In 1888, the
Hofwaffensammlung was transferred to the new building of the
Kunsthistorisches Museum on Burgring in connection with the founding of the
Kunsthistorische Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses. In 1885, the
k. u. k. Heeresmuseum was simultaneously founded at the Imperial Arsenal. Known as
Museum of Military History today, this museum still presents the recent history of the Austrian military from the sixteenth century onwards. The Arms Collection (
Waffensammlung) was opened to the public on the mezzanine in 1889. Curated by Wendelin Boeheim, the collection centered on older holdings from the period up to the
Thirty Years' War, especially the personal arms of the Habsburg family. The new
Waffensammlung also included large parts of the collections of the court hunting or rifle chamber, the court saddle chamber and parts of the collection of weapons that
Emperor Francis II had established around 1800 in the neo-Gothic
Franzensburg castle at Laxenburg to the south of Vienna. In 1918, the "Art Historical Collections of the Most High Imperial House" became the property of the
Republic of Austria. In 1922, the
imperial carriage collection, tack room (
Monturdepot), and the significant remainder of the fire arms collection, which had remained in the imperial stables in 1889, were added to the
Waffensammlung. The carriage collection and tack room only became independent collections of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in 1947.
Neue Hofburg After numerous sales of "duplicates" in 1925/26, almost 100 objects were ceded to the
Hungarian National Museum, Budapest, as a result of the peace settlement with Hungary after
World War I (for instance, the boy's armour of
Sigismund II Augustus of Poland). In 1934, the
Waffensammlung was moved from the Kunsthistorisches Museum on Burgring to the first floor of the
Ringstrasse wing of the Neue Hofburg. As part of the establishment of a "Central Depot for Confiscated Collections" in the Neue Hofburg in 1938, looted works of art from Jewish ownership were also housed in what was then Gallery IX of the Arms Collection (today:
Sammlung Alte Musikinstrumente). For example, in the year of the so-called
Anschluss, the
Gestapo confiscated the important Jewish art collections of Alphonse and Clarice Rothschild and Louis Rothschild, from which over 30 valuable weapons and pieces of armour were allocated to the Arms Collection. In 1946, further reorganization work began. The
Leibrüstkammer (500 CE to the death of
Emperor Matthias, 1619) and the
Hofjagdkammer (1619-1916, from
Emperor Ferdinand II to
Francis Joseph) were only opened in 1967. In 1990, the
Waffensammlung was renamed
Hofjagd- und Rüstkammer. On 11 February 1999, the Austrian Art Restitution Advisory Board recommended the return of the objects from the Viennese Rothschild Collections. The restitution took place on 11 March 1999. == Exhibitions ==