The Flemish physician Samuel Quiccheberg (1529–63), engaged as an artistic consultant at the court of Albert V (r. 1550–79), was instructed to organize the Bavarian duke's collection of paintings, court portraits, antiquities, sculpture, jewelry, and exotic objects imported from the Americas, Africa, and Portuguese Asia. Quiccheberg's museological treatise, Inscriptiones vel tituli theatri amplissimi (1565), defines for the first time an encyclopedic collection, instructing his readers as to the arrangements of a Kunstkammer. For Quiccheberg, a collection represented the outside world symbolically possessed, controlled, and understood by its owner, in which objects were organized according to specific categories and selected to exemplify status, power, and knowledge. This tradition of collecting, particularly in Central Europe, is best outlined in E. Scheicher's Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Habsburger (1979); and the Origins of Museums: The Cabinets of Curiosities in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth Century Europe, ed. O. Impey and A. MacGregor (1981).

This study forms part of a series edited by Johannes Burkhardt, dedicated to investigating the Fuggers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As the leading bankers and mercantile agents in Renaissance Europe, based in Augsburg, the Fuggers controlled a vast network that by the 1580s extended as far as Goa and Cochin in India. Royal collectors at the Habsburg courts of Spain, the Netherlands, and Austria (Charles V, Philip II, Mary of Hungary, Maximilian II, Ferdinand II of Tyrol, Rudolf II) took advantage of Fugger contacts to obtain the best and the rarest, from diamonds to live animals; these acquisitions they financed with Fugger credit. The younger generations from a secondary branch, Fugger von der Lilie — Marx III (1529–1597); his younger brother, Hans (1531–1598); and Philipp Eduard Fugger (1546–1618) — are the principal protagonists of this book and the subject of Sylvia Wölfle's 2005 dissertation. Their collections and architectural patronage — palaces and private chapels — are studied here for the first time; this well-illustrated book advances research on the Fugger family and the arts.

As their rank and status increased, the recently ennobled Fuggers competed with princely patrons, tapping into their own spheres of influence and mobilizing contacts based in Rome, and the factor, David Ott, in Venice to purchase antique coins, sculptures, and Latin inscriptions. The art dealer Jacopo Strada (1515–88), who worked for Albert V in Munich and Maximilian II in Vienna, was recruited, and encouraged by Marx to write his numismatic treatise, Epitome thesauri antiquitatum (Lyon, 1553). Fugger ties cultivated with Italy, in particular the Medici court, form a cornerstone of Fugger patronage after 1560; letters found in the Archivio di Stato of Florence support this exchange and document Hans Fugger's visit there in 1565. Marx's construction of a family chapel in St. Ulrich and Afra, his Schloss Niederalfingen — and his brother Hans's representative reception rooms in Augsburg, decorated according to Florentine prototypes by painters from the circle of Friedrich Sustris — and his sculptural program for Schloss Kirchheim reflect the impact of Medicean art and architecture.

In his influential treatise, Quiccheberg praised the Fuggers for their erudite patronage and the creation of outstanding numismatic collections and libraries that surpassed those in Munich. Marx strove to promote himself as an antiquarian, bibliophile, and expert horseman, allowing renowned visiting scholars and painters, Abraham Ortelius and Joris Hoefnagel, access to his treasures. The prestige of his library augmented his reputation and that of his family, both in Augsburg and abroad. Marx simultaneously acted as an indispensable agent and art advisor for Albert V and his son, Wilhem V (1548–1626), organizing in 1565 Asian rarities for the Kunstkammer in the Residenz, though his factor in Lisbon, Nathaniel Jung (J. Stockbauer, Die Kunstbestrebungen am Bayersichen Hofe unter Herzog Albrecht V. und seinem Nachfolger Wilhelm V. [1874]). He guided both Dukes in expanding the Munich collection of ancient coins, even lending books from his personal library to better improve its quality. The Bavarian court benefitted from Marx's discerning eye and refined tastes, and without his intervention superior paintings, Flemish tapestries, and books would never have reached Munich. This book methodically examines the ambitious patronage and artistic commissions of three Fuggers, whose shared aim was to promote the honor, status, and memoria of their family, while serving and competing with the Habsburg and Bavarian courts.