Gabriel von Salamanca-Ortenburg

Who was Gabriel von Salamanca-Ortenburg?

Gabriel von Samalanca-Ortenburg was a Spanish nobleman who was general treasurer and archchancellor of the Austrian archduke Ferdinand I of Habsburg from 1521 to 1526.

Descending from a rich family from Burgos in Castile, Gabriel von Salamanca in 1514 was already chancellor under Emperor Maximilian I of Habsburg, who had forged an alliance with King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile by marrying his son Philip the Handsome off to their daughter Joanna. In this period Salamanca made friends with Maximilian's grandson Archduke Ferdinand I, who after the Emperor's death in 1519 received the Habsburg "hereditary lands" of Austria with the duchies of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola as well as Tyrol and Further Austria from his elder brother Emperor Charles V in 1521. Gabriel acted as Ferdinand's treasurer and archchancellor, his economic measures however largely failed as his self-serving manners met with fierce opposition by the Austrian aristocracy.

In 1523 he was elevated to the rank of an Imperial Freiherr and Lord of Ehrenberg Castle in Tyrol as well as of Freyenstein and Karlsbach in Austria. On 10 March 1524 he further received the possessions of the former Counts of Ortenburg in Carinthia, which were last held by Count Ulrich II of Celje, and also the Ortenburg comital title. As early as in 1526, Gabriel von Salamanca was forced to resign from his positions, but was able to maintain his fiefs. He retired to Carinthia and took his residence at Spittal an der Drau, where he had a luxuriant Renaissance palace built by Italian architects from 1533, today known as Schloss Porcia.