Goldenballs: Not for Nothing Was Jacob Fugger Known as “Jacob the Rich”

economist.com

20 points·diodorus··9 comments

The influence and importance of the Fuggers can still be seen in Augsburg and the surrounding area today:

- endless houses and castles [0]

- the Fugger foundations [1]: existing continuously since the 16th century

- the Fuggerei, the oldest social housing complex of the world [2], financed by the Fugger foundations: qualifying (catholic) people in need live there for less than a euro a year

[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugger_von_der_Lilie#Baudenkm....

[1] http://www.fugger.de/en/singleview/article/quick-guide-5/33....

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuggerei

'Fugger teamed up with another Habsburg client, for whom he had bought the archbishopric of Mainz, and the pair began to sell indulgences (a forgiveness of sins, which provided, for a fee, a short cut to heaven), splitting the proceeds with Pope Leo, who used the cash to build St Peter’s Basilica. In 1517 Martin Luther was sufficiently outraged by this scheme that he wrote the “95 Theses” that damned Rome, sparking the Protestant Reformation.'

paywall

edit: workaround = load the URL in incognito-mode.

I don't see one.

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OK, got it.

There's a richest person that dies every time after the last richest person died. The idea that he was the richest person in history sounds very euro-centric.

There are lists of same:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_historical_...

Direct comparisons are, of course, difficult.

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