Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 52. (2007)
LINDQUIST, Thea: Clement von Radolt (1593–1670): A Multifarious Career in the seventeenth-century Imperial Service
Thea Lindquist explain Wallenstein’s fate and raise funds to pay and supply the Imperial army.41 On his trip home, Radolt was to look for four million florins the erstwhile general had purportedly hidden in Venice.42 Radolt’s most illustrious appointment, however, was as extraordinary ambassador to the court of the English King Charles I in 1636, a mission that played a prominent role in Anglo-Imperial diplomatic relations during the Thirty Years’ War. Ferdinand II sent Radolt to promote a settlement with England on the question of the restoration of the Palatinate lands and titles to the son of the deprived elector Frederick V, the Winter King, who had married Elizabeth Stuart, Charles I’s sister.43 Radolt was the first Imperial ambassador to visit England since Count Schwarzenberg’s embassy in 1622.44 After returning from England, Radolt spent much less time on diplomatic missions abroad. The next and final time the court treasury books record that he served as the Emperor’s representative was in Transylvania in 1659.45 Radolt’s talents were not limited to the administrative and diplomatic realm. He also developed technical and artistic skills that helped bring him some rather creative Imperial appointments. He proved a skilled draftsman with a particular knack for architectural structures. During his embassy to England, he commissioned an engraving of his rendering of St. Stephan’s Cathedral from the south from Cornelius van Dalen. Matthäus Merian later copied the engraving and printed it in his classic atlas of the Austrian provinces, Topographia Provinciarum Austriacarum.46 These skills did not escape notice at the Imperial court. In 1654, 41 G1 iub i ch, G., ed.: Gli ultimi successi di Alberto di Waldstein narrati degli Ambasciatori veneti. Archiv für Kunde österreichischer Geschichtsquellen 28 (1863), p. 428: 25 Feb. 1634, Relation of Antonio Antelmi; BA, n.s., pt. 2, vol. 8, p. 540: 1 Mar. 1634, Bartholomäus Richel, Bavarian privy councilor, to Maximilian I. Instructions for this mission are in HHStA, Reichskanzlei, Kriegsakten, fase. 107, f. 143. 42 BA, n.s., pt. 2, vol. 8, p. 653: 15 Mar. 1634, Stücklin to Maximilian I. Radolt’s selection was due in large part to his legal training, which would be useful in explaining the justice of the Emperor’s proscription of Frederick V, and his track record of loyal and able service in the Imperial central administration. 44 For Radolt’s mission to England, see Lindquist, Thea L.: The Politics of Diplomacy: The Palatinate and Anglo-Habsburg Relations in the Thirty Years’ War, University of Wisconsin- Madison, Ph.D. Diss., 2001, chaps. 8-10; and Haan, Heiner: Der Regensburger Kurfürstentag von 1636/1637, Schriftenreihe der Vereinigung zur Erforschung der neueren Geschichte, vol. 3, Münster 1967, pp. 238, 242-243,250, 266-267. 45 HKA, HZAB 105 (1659-1660), f. 443. 46 850 Jahre St. Stephan Symbol und Mitte in Wien 1147-1997: 226. Sonderausstellung, Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien, Dom- und Metropolitankapitel Wien, 24. April bis 31. August 1997, Vienna 1997, pp. 213-214, 450. A reproduction of the engraving “Turris S. Stephani Viennae Austriae” is printed on p. 213 of this exhibition catalog. A cartouche in the upper left-hand comer gives a brief history of the cathedral and information about Radolt as the artist. He dedicated the engraving to Ferdinand 11. Merian printed a copy, without the cartouche, in Zeiller, Martin: Topographia Provinciarum Austriacarum, Austriae, Styriae, Carinthiae, Camiolae, Tyrolis, etc.: das ist Beschreibung und Abbildung der fumembsten Statt und Platz in den österreichischen Länden Under und Ober Österreich, Steyer, Kämdten, Crain und Tyrol, Frankfurt a. M. 1649. 18
