Rudolf II's court had relocated to Prague by the 1580s, but Hall in Tirol remained the principal silver-striking facility for the Austrian Habsburgs, fed directly by the Schwaz mines upstream in the Inn valley — at the time still among the most productive silver sources in central Europe, though well past their sixteenth-century peak. The 1604–1605 dating places this piece in the final difficult years of Rudolf's reign, when his refusal to govern effectively had already triggered the Bruderzwist, the fraternal conflict with his brother Matthias that would ultimately strip him of Hungary in 1608 and Bohemia shortly after.
MT#357 and MT#359 represent distinct die marriages within this emission, a granularity the KM reference does not capture.
Rudolf II's court had relocated to Prague by the 1580s, but Hall in Tirol remained the principal silver-striking facility for the Austrian Habsburgs, fed directly by the Schwaz mines upstream in the Inn valley — at the time still among the most productive silver sources in central Europe, though well past their sixteenth-century peak. The 1604–1605 dating places this piece in the final difficult years of Rudolf's reign, when his refusal to govern effectively had already triggered the Bruderzwist, the fraternal conflict with his brother Matthias that would ultimately strip him of Hungary in 1608 and Bohemia shortly after.
MT#357 and MT#359 represent distinct die marriages within this emission, a granularity the KM reference does not capture.