In the days when Columbus sailed the ocean and Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, a German banker named Jacob Fugger became the Richest man in history. "
The tale of Fugger's aspiration, ruthlessness, and greed is riveting" (The Economist)..
It is a story about palace intrigue, knights in battle, family tragedy and triumph, and a violent clash between the one percent and everybody else.
The Richest Man Who Ever Lived is more than a tale about the most influential businessman of all time.
And he took Austria's Habsburg family from being second-tier sovereigns to rulers of the first empire where the sun nEver set.
His creation of a news service gave him an information edge over his rivals and customers and earned Fugger a footnote in the history of journalism.
He also helped trigger the Reformation and likely funded Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe.
Before Fugger came along it was illegal under church law to charge interest on loans, but he got the Pope to change that.
It was this coolness and self-assurance, along with his inexhaustible ambition, that made him not only the Richest man ever, but a force of history as well.
In an era when kings had unlimited power, Fugger dared to stare down heads of state and ask them to pay back their loans, with interest.
By the time he died, his fortune amounted to nearly two percent of European GDP.
Fugger Lived in Germany at the turn of the sixteenth century, the grandson of a peasant.
In the days when Columbus sailed the ocean and Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, a German banker named Jacob Fugger became the Richest man in history
