The Emperor Ferdinand I (1503-1564) - Childhood and Youth
   
 
Ferdinand was born in 1503 in Alcala de Henares. He was brought up in Castile as a Prince of Spain under the watchful eyes of his grandparents - the Catholic Kings - Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon. About a year after he was born, Ferdinand's mother, Joanna, left the baby with her own mother, Queen Isabella, to join her husband, Philipp the Handsome, in the Netherlands. Queen Isabella died only a few months later.

Illustr.:
Prince Ferdinand of Spain, c. 1520
Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna		  
   
 
In the Spring of 1506, Ferdinand's parents returned to Spain. Philipp the Handsome died shortly afterwards; however his widow, Joanna, the heiress of Castile, was melancholic and confused and thus considered unable to govern.
   
 
  This meant that Ferdinand and his elder brother Charles were from an early age pawns in the political games of their grandfathers, the Emperor Maximilian I and King Ferdiand of Aragon. After the death of King Ferdinand I in 1516, Charles, with the confidence of the first-born, also laid claim to the Spanish crown in order to concentrate power in his hands. He therefore ordered his brother, Ferdinand, to leave Spain and remove himself to the Netherlands.

Illustr.:
Charles V as a Boy, c. 1516
Neapel, Museo e Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte
   
  Ferdinand's stay in the Netherlands had originally been intended as a mere stop-over on his way to join Maximilian I in Austria. However the Emperor died in January 1519, which meant that the succession in the Austrian Hereditary Lands had to be settled and that the fight for the crown of the Holy Roman Empire was underway.
   
 

Ferdinand therefore stayed in the Netherlands where his aunt, Margaret of Austria, acted as regent. She was the first member of the Habsburg family to assemble a Renaissance collection of art. Ferdinand's artistic sensibilities were much influenced by the works of painters and sculptors patronised by her - artists from France, Italy, and Germany - as well as by the love of literature and music that prevailed at her court. Here, his tutor was Erasmus of Rotterdam, the tolerant cleric and sceptical humanist.

Illustr.:
Archduchess Margaret as a Widow, after 1506
Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna

  
   
 
In 1521, the eighteen-year old Ferdinand left the Netherlands to attend the Imperial Diet summoned at Worms by his brother Charles, who had by now been crowned as Roman King. Ferdinand was thus present when Luther made history by refusing to recant. From Worms, Ferdinand travelled to Linz where he celebrated his marriage to Anne Jagiello, Princess of Bohemia and Hungary.