Current Exhibits

The quality of the silver from the mines in medieval Leogang was excellent and it was used for minting gold and silver coins by the Salzburg archbishops, whose archbishopric was both imperial estate and mint estate of Bavaria.

Salzburg coins from around 1500 are closely connected with one name in particular, Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach. When he came to power shortly before 1500, the domestic coinage and monetary system was in a state of disrepair.

Salzburg was in possession of huge amounts of gold and silver deposits, among the largest in Europe. But since nearly all the noble metal had been sold to Venice by a trading company there was a state-wide lack of coinage. Not a single coin had been minted for over 30 years.

Foreign money was coming into Salzburg but this was not enough to fulfil the demands of the economy. Leonhard von Keutschach had to act. Against the will of the powerful trading companies, he put a stop to the export of gold and silver and from then on had Salzburg’s noble metal made into its own coinage.

In earlier centuries it was almost exclusively small silver coins, called pfennigs, that were minted. If somebody wanted to pay a large sum they would have to use hundreds or even thousands, which was very impractical. The well-off were known to use silver bars or foreign gold coins for such payments.

Leonhard von Keutschach put a stop to all this. He introduced a modern system with different sizes and values of coin in gold and silver. Pfennigs remained, as the currency of the average Joe.

Batzen were favoured for medium-sized payments. They were worth 16 pfennigs. For larger payments it was possible to use gold gulden. They were worth the same as 240 pfennigs, a week’s salary for a paid mine worker. Only a few people would ever hold one of these in their hand.

Leonhard von Keutschach’s most famous coin was the turnip thaler, the first Salzburg silver coin to be worth the same as a gulden. The archbishop used the turnip thalers as presents rather than payments. Why were they called turnip thalers? Because of the turnip in the archbishop’s coat of arms. The same turnip could be found on all of Leonhard von Keutschach’s coins.

From the Middle Ages on, high quality medals and coins, desired throughout the empire, were created at the Salzburg mint. Renowned medallists such as Peter and Paul Seel, Philipp Heinrich Müller, Philipp Christoph Becker, Georg Raphael Donner and various generations of the Matzenkopf family created medals and coins which acquired an excellent reputation beyond the borders of Salzburg and still go for top prices at auction today.

From the beginning of the 16th century until the end of the 18th century, Leogang was famous throughout Europe for its abundance of cobalt and nickel ores.

From the mid-16th century, cobalt ores were of particular importance. In blue colouring works’, safflorite was first produced by heating cobalt ore. This served as the raw material for the production of smalt, a powdery blue glass pigment. Since both safflorite and smalt are fireproof, they were used for colouring glass, porcelain, ceramics and oil paints.

Coloured Venetian glass was seen as a special luxury in the German-speaking countries of Europe from the mid-15th century. German merchants such as the Welser and Fugger families had already founded the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (‘the Germans’ warehouse’) in Venice in 1225. Situated on the Canale Grande right next to the famous Rialto Bridge, the building became the trading centre for luxury export goods from Venice to the German-speaking countries.

As the use of safflorite and smalt for colouring glass increased, cobalt from Salzburg became an indispensable raw material for the production of luxury Venetian glass from the mid-16th century.

Its extraction and use in glassware is mentioned in Georg Agricola’s De re metallica Libri XII from 1556, a masterpiece of mining literature which can also be admired at the Leogang Mining and Gothic Museum.

There was an unprecedented increase in the use of blue in painting too. From as early as the 12th century, what was at first a dark and lacklustre colour was redefined as the symbol of Heaven and the virginity of the Blessed Mother. Glassmakers and illuminators strove to reconcile this new kind of blue with church architects’ altered perception of light adopted from theologians. The radiance of cobalt blue oil paint opened up a completely new set of possibilities in the visual arts.

Today, smalt, or cobalt blue glass powder, is mostly used for restoring old masterpieces.

The exact origins of Lichtenberg Castle near Saalfelden are obscure. It was first mentioned in a document in 1281. The castle stands imposingly on a rock promontory above the Steinernes Meer (‘rocky sea’), 60 m above Saalfelden, and served from the end of the 13th century as the seat of the archbishop’s official who, from here, managed the Saalfelden-Lichtenberg administrative courts.

In 1526 the castle was destroyed during the Salzburg peasants’ revolt and rebuilt in subsequent decades by the Saalfelden municipality. In the course of rebuilding, the castle acquired its mighty round tower to the southwest.

After the archiepiscopal officials moved their seat of power to the valley in the early 18th century, the castle served only as the home of a senior forestry official. It fell noticeably into disrepair and was auctioned and sold for 8,340 guilders (just over 50,000 euros) to Adolf Ritter Weiß von Teßbach in 1870. Lichtenberg Castle owes its current appearance to the noble Weiß von Teßbach family; it is still in their possession today.

Behind Lichtenberg Castle, Michael Hofer’s painting shows the Leogang Valley and towering Leogang Mountains to the west and Zeller Basin to the south, with the Hohe Tauern beyond. The view to the east of the Urslautal and pilgrimage site of Maria Alm completes this tremendous panorama. Above the castle, at the foot of a high limestone cliff, we find the hermitage of St. George am Palfen which is still inhabited today.

Michael Hofer, who proves his masterful handling of colour, light, shadow and perspective here too, again with oil on cardboard, signed the picture ‘M. Hofer’ on the bottom right. The painting is on loan from a private collection in Salzburg.