Saturday, March 9, 2019

Saturday's postcard: Greta checks in from Innsbruck


Here's a postcard that my great-grandmother, Greta Miriam Chandler Adams (1894-1988), sent to my mom and uncle in 1958.

It features the Goldenes Dachl building in Innsbruck, Austria. The structure was completed in 1500, its roof adorned with 2,657 fire-gilded copper tiles for Emperor Maximilian I's wedding to Bianca Maria Sforza.1 The Goldenes Dachl had a balcony from which the royals could enjoy festivals and tournaments in the Innsbruck square below.

Here's my best decipherment of Greta's handwriting on the back:
May 16th Friday
This is a pretty city, clean & a nice hotel & have a lovely room. The ride down to it from high mts. was beautiful. Philip Park [?] lived here. Cooler & windy today, shopped some. Leaving after lunch.
Love Grand Mother?
There's definitely a question mark at the end. Don't know why.

Footnote
1. About that marriage, per Wikipedia: "At her wedding, Bianca wore a bodice 'with eighty pieces of the jeweler's art pinned thereon, with each piece consisting of one ruby and four pearls'. She also brought her husband a rich dowry of 400,000 ducats. ... [However] the union was unhappy: shortly after the consummation of the marriage, Maximilian complained that Bianca may have been more beautiful than his first wife but was not as wise. It was impossible for the young bride to win the affection of her husband, who considered her too uneducated, talkative, naive, wasteful with money, and careless. ... Bianca Maria Sforza died at Innsbruck on 31 December 1510. She was buried at Stams. Her husband did not attend her funeral or even dedicate a gravestone to her."

No comments:

Post a Comment