FUGGER, the name of a famous German family of mer chants and bankers. The founder of the family was Johann Fugger, a weaver at Graben, near Augsburg, but its real greatness was established by his grandsons, Andreas and Jakob, who greatly extended the business in Augsburg, which they inherited from their father. Andreas, called the "rich Fugger," had several sons, among them being Jakob, who was granted the right to bear arms in 1452, and who founded the family of Fugger vom Reh, which died out in 1583. Jakob Fugger died in 1469, and three of his seven sons, Ulrich (1441-1510), Georg (1453-1506) and Jakob (1459-1525), men of great resource and industry, inherited the family business and added enormously to the family wealth. In 1473 Ulrich obtained from the emperor Frederick III. the right to bear arms for himself and his brothers, and about the same time he began to act as the banker of the Habsburgs, a connection destined to bring fame and fortune to his house. Under the lead of Jakob the Fuggers were interested in silver mines in Tirol and copper mines in Hungary, while their trade in spices, wool and silk extended to almost all parts of Europe. Their wealth enabled them to make large loans to the German king, Maximilian I., who pledged to them the county of Kirchberg, the lordship of Weissen horn and other lands, and bestowed various privileges upon them. Jakob built the castle of Fuggerau in Tirol, and erected the Fuggerei at Augsburg, a collection of 106 dwellings, which were let at low rents to poor people and which still exist. Jakob Fugger and his two nephews died without direct heirs, and the family was continued by Georg's sons, Raimund and Anton under whom the Fuggers attained the summit of their wealth and influence.
Jakob Fugger's florins had contributed largely to the election of Charles V. to the imperial throne in 1519, and his nephews and heirs maintained close and friendly relations with the great emperor. In addition to lending him large sums of money, they farmed his valuable quicksilver mines at Almaden, his silver mines at Guadalcanal, the great estates of the military orders which had passed into his hands, and other parts of his revenue as king of Spain; receiving in return several tokens of the em peror's favour. In 1530 Raimund and Anton were granted the imperial dignity of counts of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn, and obtained full possession of these mortgaged properties; in they were given the right of coining money; and in 1541 received rights of jurisdiction over their lands. Continuing their mercan tile career, the Fuggers brought the new world within the sphere of their operations, and also carried on an extensive and lucrative business in farming indulgences. Both brothers found time to acquire landed property, and were munificent patrons of literature and art. Before this time the total wealth of the family had been estimated at 63,000,00o florins. The Fuggers were devotedly attached to the Roman Catholic Church. Jakob had been made a count palatine (P f alzgra f) and several members of the family had entered the church; one, Raimund's son, Sigmund, becoming bishop of Regensburg.
In addition to the bishop, three of Raimund Fugger's sons attained some degree of celebrity. Johann Jakob (1516-1575), was the author of IValirha f tige Beschreibung des osterreichischen toed habsburgisclien Nahmens, which was largely used by S. von Bircken in his Spiegel der Ehren des Erzhauses bsterreich (Nuremberg, 1668), and of a Geheim Ernbuch des Fuggerischen Geschlechtes. He was also a patron of art, and a distinguished counsellor of Duke Albert IV. of Bavaria. Another of Raimund's sons was Ulrich (1526-1584), who became a Protestant and took refuge in the Rhenish Palatinate; greatly interested in the Greek classics, he occupied himself in collecting valuable manuscripts, which he bequeathed to the university of Heidelberg. Raimund's other son was Georg (d. 1579), who inherited the countships of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn, and founded a branch of the family which still exists, its present head being Georg, Count Fugger of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn (b. 185o).
Anton Fugger left three sons, Marcus (1529-1597), Johann (d. 1598) and Jakob (d. 1598), all of whom left male issue. Marcus was the author of a book on horse-breeding, Wie and wo man ein Gestut von guten edeln Kriegsrossen aufrichten soil (1578), and of a German translation of the Historia ecclesiastica of Niceph orus Callistus.
Johann Fugger had three sons, Christoph (d. 1615) and Marcus (d. 1614), who founded the families of Fugger-Glott and Fugger Kirchheim respectively, and Jakob, bishop of Constance from 1604 until his death in 1626. The family of Kirchheim died out in 1672. That of Glott was divided into several branches by the sons of Otto Heinrich and of his brother Johann Ernst (d. 1628). These lines, however, have gradually become extinct except the eldest line, represented in 19o9 by Karl Ernst, Count Fugger of Glott (b. 1859). Anton Fugger's third son Jakob, the founder of the family of Wellenburg, had two sons who left issue, but in i777 the possessions of this branch of the family were again united by Anselm Joseph (d. 1793), Count Fugger of Babenhausen. In 1803 Anselm's son, Anselm Maria (d. 1821), was made a prince of the Holy Roman Empire, the title of Prince Fugger of Baben hausen being borne by his direct descendant Georg (b. 1889). On the fall of the empire in 1806 the lands of the Fuggers, which were held directly of the empire, were mediatized under Bavaria and Wurttemberg. The heads of the three existing branches of the Fuggers are all hereditary members of the Bavarian Upper House.
Augsburg has many interesting 'mementoes of the Fuggers, in cluding the family burial-chapel in the church of St. Anna; the Fugger chapel in the church of St. Ulrich and St. Af ra ; the Fuggerhaus, still in the possession of one branch of the family; and a statue of Johann Jakob Fugger.
In 1593 a collection of portraits of the Fuggers, engraved by Dom inique Custos of Antwerp, was issued at Augsburg. Editions with 127 portraits appeared in 1618 and 162o, the former accompanied by a genealogy in Latin, the latter by one in German. Another edition of this Pinacotheca Fuggerorum, published at Vienna in 1754, includes portraits. See Chronik der Familie Fugger vom Jahre 1J99, edited by C. Meyer (Munich, 1902) ; A. Geiger, Jakob Fugger, (Regensburg, 1895) ; A. Schulte, Die Fugger in Rom, 1495-1523 (Leip zig, 5904) ; R. Ehrenberg, Das Zeitalter der Fugger (Jena, 1896) ; K. Habler, Die Geschichte der Fuggerschen Handlung in Spanien (Wei mar, 1897) ; A. Stauber, Das Haus Fugger (Augsburg, 1900) ; and M. Jansen, Die Anfdnge der Fugger (Leipzig, 1907) ; R. Ehrenberg, Capi tal and Finance in the Age of the Renaissance: A Study of the Fuggers and their Connexions (Eng. trans. by H. Lucas, 1928).