»As a princely pastime«

Small Armoury

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From an armoury of hunting to an exhibition gallery

In Archduke Ferdinand II’s plans, the so-called ‘kleine Rüstkammer’ (Small Armoury) formed a whole with the Library and the Hall of Antiquities, from each of which two arched passageways led to the Small Armoury. The entire ensemble was solely designed for the personal entertainment and pastime of the classically educated prince. All fields were covered: from training the mind by studying antiquity and literature to exercising at the Small Armoury, also called the Armoury of Hunting. The Small Armoury was originally filled with weapons for hunting and war: crossbows, hunting daggers, hunting knives, swords, daggers, pistols, and rifles. There were also edged and pole arms, which still decorate the walls of the Small Armoury.

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Ornamented sabre of Archduke Ferdinand II, c.1560, Upper Italy

Small Armoury

Today’s Small Armoury is also home to two samurai suits of armour – extremely rare objects with hardly any comparable artefacts preserved in original condition worldwide – from the turn of the sixteenth to the seventeenth century. They are modelled after the traditional type of the so-called Moji odoshi dōmaru, common in Japan since the fourteenth century (European calendar). 

The frame is composed of horizontal iron and horn plates, tied tightly together by a special mesh (odoshi) of silk ribbons both length- and crosswise.

Also chest and back plates are held by ribbons that may be opened or closed at the right-hand side. 

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Samurai armour (Moji odoshi dōmaru Gusoku), Japan (Nara?), late 16th / early 17th cent.
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Samurai armour (Iroito odoshi), Japan (Nara?), late 16th / early 17th cent.

The two sets of armour most probably found their way to Europe as gifts of Shogun Ieyasu around 1600. Previously owned by the governor of the Habsburg Netherlands in Brussels, they were then sent to Vienna in the course of the French Revolution in 1794. The armour was subsequently stored at Schloss Laxenburg, before it was sent to Ambras Castle, when the collections were once again put on display in the late nineteenth century. 

Another highlight of the Small Armoury is the draft cenotaph of Emperor Maximilian I.

The stately painting of the artist from Prague, Florian Abel, is one of the largest and best-preserved of its kind. The emperor’s grandson, Ferdinand I, had encouraged a sarcophagus to be placed in the – at the time still incomplete – sepulchral monument for Maximilian I. Abel’s brothers, Bernhard and Arnold, started working on the cenotaph in marble; Alexander Colin continued after their death. As the marble reliefs at the cenotaph in today’s Court Church in Innsbruck show, the draft design for the cenotaph as presented here was not executed. Although the format does not correspond to the actual dimensions, it is almost as big as the sepulchral monument.   

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Draft concept for the cenotaph of Emperor Maximilian I, Florian Abel, Prague, 1561 (?)

As a unique documentation of an imperial monument, this draft concept probably ended up in the hands of the Tyrolean prince, Archduke Ferdinand II, by means of inheritance. He had the ‘Abriß Kaiser Maximilian des Ersten Grab’ (Sketch of the Tomb of Emperor Maximilian I) stored in the Ambras Library (cited in KK 6652, fol. 684r).

Small Armoury

Ambras Castle Innsbruck
Schlossstraße 20
6020 Innsbruck

Daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Closed in november

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