Jour fixe des IEFN (Institut für die Erforschung der Frühen Neuzeit) in Kooperation mit Geschichte am Mittwoch des Instituts für Geschichte
Vortragende: Neža Lukančič (Ljubljana)
Vortragstitel: Between Protocol and Prestige: Charles VI’s Hereditary Homage in Ljubljana and Inner Austrian Cities (1728)
Moderation: Nelly Eisenreich
Ort: Hörsaal 30 im Hauptgebäude der Universität Wien, linker Seitentrakt, Stiege 7, 1. Stock (1010 Wien, Universitätsring 1)
Zeit: Mittwoch, 17. Juni 2026, 18:30
Abstract: The hereditary homage (Erbhuldigung) to Emperor Charles VI was a central political and ceremonial event in Inner Austrian lands in 1728. Held in Graz, Klagenfurt, Ljubljana, Gorizia, Trieste, and Rijeka, it marked the formal inauguration of the ruler as provincial prince and functioned as a codified ritual of loyalty and public representation. By the early eighteenth century, this originally legal act had developed into a Baroque ceremony relying on ritual practices, urban settings, and visual forms. This lecture examines the 1728 hereditary homage from a comparative, urban-centred perspective. Focusing on Ljubljana within a broader Inner Austrian framework, it analyses how various actors (the emperor, the estates, the city) were presented and negotiated across different urban contexts. The study draws on ceremonial protocols, archival correspondence, and contemporary descriptions by Johann Adam von Heintz and Karl Seyfrid Perizhoff, alongside visual material such as Franz Ignaz Flurer’s sketches and prints. Particular attention is paid to tensions between imperial instructions limiting lavish display and local representational ambitions expressed through processional routes, ephemeral architecture, interior decoration, and post-festum commemorative media. By comparing several cities, the lecture demonstrates how hereditary homage functioned as symbolic communication shaped by both central authority and local conditions.
Zur Person: Neža Lukančič is a historian and art historian working as a research assistant at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, and the National Museum of Slovenia. Her research focuses on early modern visual culture, with particular attention to Baroque architecture and use of urban space in Ljubljana. She is currently working on a PhD on the Inner Austrian hereditary homage to Charles VI (1728).