Jakob Fugger

Kajetan had promised to hear him out, and he was a smart man, an intellectual, and most importantly, an honest man.

Luther arrived on October 7th and took up lodgings with the Carmelite friars at Sant'Anna, Sant'Anna being the church that housed the Fugger Chapel, the architectural miracle we discussed in episode 194.

Frederick himself had already left the city.

That's quite a typical Frederick move.

He had made the arrangements, but he could not risk standing next to a man accused of heresy.

And he would even later rarely ever meet with Martin Luther.

Now, five days later, on October 12th, Luther went to see the Leggett, who was staying in the palatial houses of the Fugger family on the Weinmarkt in Augsburg.

This building was then the largest and the most lavish dwelling in the entire empire.

And I'm not just saying financially.

So like I read a book about, uh, Jacob Fugger.

He was the richest man in the created the, uh, Hansa German traders of Northern Germany back in the day.

I mean, he basically financed the Holy Roman empire.

He also owned 58 other businesses.

He was primarily a banker, but he had a, a good nose for, for risk and, uh, just thought about money all the time to the exclusion of just about anything else, and he ended up being very wealthy.

And because of his wealth, Warren Harding thought, "Well, anyone who's that rich has the qualifications to make a first-rate treasury secretary." And Harding made him treasury secretary, and he survived the Harding scandals, went on to become treasury secretary for Calvin Coolidge and then for Herbert Hoover.

So he actually served 11 years, which is the second longest anyone's ever, uh, held that position.

Um, he, of course, is a member of the Mellon family.

Uh, his, uh, his...

Was it his great-grandfather or his grandfather was a banker.

Uh, I don't wanna turn this into another boring conversation on, on Donald Trump, but a lot of people criticize Trump because they say he didn't really make his money himself.