Jakob Fugger

Who was Jakob Fugger?

Jakob Fugger of the Lily, also known as Jakob Fugger the Rich or sometimes Jakob II, was a major merchant, mining entrepreneur and banker of Europe. He was a descendant of the Fugger merchant family located in the Free Imperial City of Augsburg, where he was also born and later also elevated through marriage to Grand Burgher of Augsburg. Within a few decades he expanded the family firm to a business operating in all of Europe. He began his education with the age of 14 in Venice, which also remained his main residence until 1487. At the same time he was a cleric and held several prebendaries, even though he never lived in a monastery.

The foundation of the family's wealth was created mainly by the textile trade with Italy. The company grew rapidly after the brothers Ulrich, Georg and Jakob began banking transactions with the House of Habsburg as well as the Roman Curia, and at the same time began mining operations in Tyrol, and from 1493 on the extraction of silver and copper in Bohemia and the Kingdom of Hungary. As of 1525 they also had the right to mine quicksilver and cinnabar in Almadén.