Museum Secrets (2011–…): Season 2, Episode 7 - Inside the State Hermitage Museum - full transcript
Vienna, a city of
grandeur and sophistication,
and at it's heart, a museum
with secrets dark and strange.
A family curse, an alchemist's magic,
Medieval special effects,
and the priceless
treasure that disappeared.
Secrets hidden in plain sight,
inside Vienna's Kunsthistorisches museum.
Vienna's Kunsthistorisches museum
is the highest expression
of European architecture.
The perfect complement to
the treasures on display.
The sheer number of
masterpieces is amazing.
What may be more amazing
is that nearly everything
was once owned by one family.
And we can meet them here
in the picture gallery.
These are the Habsburg,
Europe's foremost ruling
family for 500 years.
They appear cultured,
relaxed and all powerful.
But they didn't start out that way.
Back in the age of chivalry,
being a Habsburg emperor wasn't easy.
In this era,
men in armor were not loyal
soldiers but freelance warriors
who swore allegiance
to whomever they chose.
The highest ranking
Habsburg, Maximilian the 1st,
tried to convince knights to follow him;
in part, by impressing
them with his armor.
- Maximilian developed some of the most
amazing armoring techniques,
the fit and finish had
never been seen before.
Not only that, he took
it to a level of fun.
He developed facial
features within the helmets
that had never been seen before.
- Andre Renier is
a historical technologist.
Today he's asked curator,
Matthias Pfaffenbichler,
to show him this piece
of Maximilian's armor.
It is a breastplate like no other,
with prominent gears and levers.
Their function and purpose is unclear.
Andre is fascinated by this
strange mechanical armor
and has a plan to discover its secrets.
- There's never been a successful attempt
to recreate Maximilian's armor.
My dream make that happen.
- Matthias shares this dream.
Today he's giving Andre
unprecedented access
to examine the armor from every angle.
Its exact purpose is still a mystery.
Matthias and Andre believe that purpose
has something to do with jousting.
Jousting was the Middle
Ages' most popular sport.
- This was the
football of its time,
the soccer of the day.
- Yes this was
their only great spectator sport.
- And Maximilian created the
biggest spectacle of all.
- Yes.
- For knights, jousting was a way
to prove their bravery
in front of the crowd.
- Most horses,
combined with their armor,
it's 1,500 kilos.
This is like driving a
small car on a concrete wall
with 100 kilometers per hour.
So it's an enormous force.
- For Maximilian,
the spectacle was a way
to attract potential allies to his court.
- The important thing were not
the sport events in themselves,
but the negotiation which
took place at the same time.
So he tried to get more power
by winning over the knights.
- Problem was,
every duke in the land
held his own jousting tournament.
- So there was a
competition between the dukes,
the middle size rulers and the emperor.
- If Maximilian wanted
to keep the crowds coming,
he needed a way to pimp his joust.
And that might be where
this breastplate comes in.
Matthias believes it once
had a shield attached to it
that was designed to break away on impact.
- If you hit here, nothing happens.
- Nothing happens.
- If you hit here,
nothing happens.
If you hit here, or if you
hit here, nothing happens.
If you hit here, and you have to hit hard,
then this mechanism is unlocked.
- As soon as that was loosed--
- Yes, the shield would
go up into the air.
- Andre intends to test this theory
by recreating the breastplate,
fashioning a shield,
and putting them to the
test in a jousting arena.
His workshop near Detroit, Michigan,
has all the right equipment for the job.
But though he and his team
start the detail schematics,
the inner workings surprise him.
- I'd just assumed that was art.
- No there's not a lot of art here.
Everything you see is the
way it had to be to exist.
I'm really impressed
with ancient technology.
Our ancestors were incredible.
- This is one of the greatest
challenges from a historical
reverse engineering,
that we have encountered.
It is really really very difficult.
- Emperor
Maximilian spent a fortune
developing and perfecting
new types of armor.
And after six weeks of intensive
labor, Andre knows why.
- Since we left Vienna,
we've had four major revisions
where we've scraped everything.
We've had 27 minor versions
which is why we call this Suit Number 27.
We have a thousand man hours
into just building this.
I wonder how many times it took them
to build the same thing.
- The 15th century
design is full of surprises.
- We discovered
that in the spring box,
there are two little ejector
springs that push the arms out.
Other than that, there's
nothing in the spring box.
- The system will be
field tested by Andre himself.
Along with his passion
for historic recreation,
he is a champion modern day jouster.
- This suit really encumbers me.
I can't move at all actually.
- The breastplate is much heavier
than anything Andre has worn before.
- Is that better?
- He gained 28 pounds.
- I'm really concerned about safety, guys.
I'm gonna tell you that right now.
This makes me very front heavy.
If I do come off, our
ringmaster knows to call 911.
- Knights of old used
heavy steel-tipped lances
and were often injured
in high speed collisions.
Andre and his opponent
opt for a safer approach,
using balsa-tipped lances instead.
- And we're ready to rock 'n' roll.
- In a normal jousting match,
a knight scores by hitting
anywhere on the body.
- Here is your lance.
- But to have any chance
to make Andre's shield break away,
his opponent will need to hit
the tiny disc at the center.
- Okay, I'm loaded.
- Play on.
- This turns out to be a challenge.
- Do it again.
- The second hit
releases the shield,
but Andre barely saw it through his visor.
So he wants to see the instant replay.
- There we go, start of the run.
- Yes, that's not--
- Steady up.
- Too much work went into this, for that.
We need to have a go over the head.
- The team tries again.
But the shield flies
no higher than before.
Andre is too exhausted
for another attempt.
- That was the
single hardest thing
I've ever done joust in.
- For Andre,
the riddle is why the
shield didn't fly higher.
- The breastplate worked really well.
The breastplate's only one
third of the entire assembly.
So the next step is to recreate
the shield and the lance.
The challenge is there's none
left in the world to go by.
There's no drawings really of them.
So it'll be an uphill
battle but we'll make it.
Make for it.
- Andre and his
team get back to work
with a new respect for
Maximilian's engineers.
They realized that armed
with all the right
combination of equipment,
Maximilian's knights would
have produced an impact
that looked more like this.
And won Maximilian a
well deserved reputation
as the host with the most.
Next on museum's secrets,
the museum's most valuable
treasure disappears.
At Vienna's Kunsthistorisches museum,
on the morning of May 11th 2003,
security staff reported
that there had been a
break-in during the night.
- I went into the gallery,
I saw this broken showcase,
the empty showcase,
and I just had to burst in tears.
This was an incredible catastrophe.
- Missing was a gold
statue known as the Saliera,
valued at $58 million US.
This museum's secret is
about how to catch a thief.
- It was a huge story public in Austria.
It's a piece of like the
soul of this country.
And it was gone.
- The Vienna
police assigned the case
to their Chief Investigator,
Detective Ernst Geiger.
- The day the crime was committed,
the scaffold was like this.
So the offender could climb
to the window where it was.
Here's the window.
He activated the alarm system.
From now on every second
counted for the offender,
so he hurried there, smashed the glass,
pulled out the Saliera,
and went back this way,
jumped out through the window,
and escaped outside.
- Geiger noticed that the gallery
was filled with priceless Raphaels.
- We asked ourselves why
didn't he steal them?
Just took out the Saliera.
- The most likely
reason was that the Saliera
is made of gold, easy
to melt down and sell.
- Since we didn't know who he was,
we didn't know how he'd take it in,
so we were very worried
that he might destroy it.
- But Geiger had a hunch
the thief knew the Saliera
was more valuable intact.
- We thought somebody who
knew about the uniqueness
and the importance of the
Saliera had stolen it.
- The Saliera is the only surviving
gold sculpture by Benvenuto Cellini,
a prominent Italian artist
of the 16th century.
Famous for his creative genius
and his impulsive behavior.
During the Sack of Rome,
he was accused of
stealing the Pope's jewels
and hiding them.
But whoever stole Cellini's masterpiece
had something else in mind.
Museum officials received a letter
demanding a ransom of $5.5 million US,
and warning them to keep it hush hush.
- It was clear it was an art epic case.
- But before the police could act,
the thief's letter was
leaked to the press.
- From that moment on, there was nothing,
there was nothing.
He didn't answer.
He didn't write another letter.
All the communication stopped.
- Weeks passed, then months.
- Every single day in such a situation
seems to be a very long time.
I personally thought about that every day.
- It was just gone, no trace.
People believed maybe it's destroyed,
maybe it appears somewhere
on the black market.
And the police said they
are close to a solution,
they are gonna get him soon.
But they did not do it for years.
- In October 2005, nearly two years later,
we heard again from our offender.
- The thief's
second letter offered proof
that he still had the Saliera.
He directed police to a spot
near a statute of Mozart,
just a stone's throw from the museum.
Geiger felt the thief
was playing with him,
and perhaps even watching him.
This time there would be
no leaks to the press.
- We did it very secretly.
Not as many policemen,
only plain clothes men,
that looked around,
they found it here, behind.
- The package contained
a small gold trident.
The thief had pried it
from Neptune's hand.
- All of a sudden we realized
there was a big chance
that we might see the object again.
- A week later, the
thief sent a text message
from a cell phone that had been
modified to be untraceable.
He had doubled the ransom to $12 million
and wanted it delivered by courier,
exchanged the Saliera.
Geiger sent a courier to
the specified location
but with no money in his knapsack.
Police followed at a discreet distance,
ready to pounce.
The thief didn't appear.
He sent another untraceable
message with a new destination.
And then several more.
These actions were a
kind of wild goose chase.
- At the last location,
there was a long interval
before a message arrived.
And when it did, the thief was angry.
- The message said,
against his instruction,
police was involved, and
therefore has stopped it,
and now will destroy the Saliera.
- It seemed that the world
would be robbed of Cellini's genius.
And Geiger would never
catch the brazen thief.
Unfazed by setbacks, Geiger
had the last message analyzed.
This time the thief slipped up.
He used the cell phone
with a traceable ID number.
- He had no more prepared cell phone.
So he had to buy one more cell phone.
- Geiger traced
the phone to this shop.
The store had a camera trained
on the checkout counter.
When these security images
were broadcast by the media,
they elicited an immediate response.
- A man phoned the police and said,
I'm the man on the photo
but it's a mistake.
I didn't have nothing to
do with the Saliera case.
- Robert Mang
had no criminal record
or obvious motive.
But his job was designing
security systems.
So he would have known
how to get past the one in the museum.
At Mang's home, Geiger discovered
the first draft of a ransom note.
Confronted with this evidence,
Mang led police to a wooded area.
Buried underground was a lead box
containing Cellini's masterpiece.
- So the Saliera was back,
a piece of Austria was back,
and Mr Geiger was honored
in the Parliament as a hero.
- Many wondered why
a previously honest man
would commit such an outrageous crime.
- This was a very very strange situation.
Knowing that Cellini was
such an outrageous character,
I had the feeling that maybe the thief
wanted to be the Cellini of our times.
- When Cellini was arrested,
he refused to admit he had
stolen the Pope's jewels
even under torture.
And one night he made a daring escape.
By contrast Robert Mang pleaded guilty
and would not get away.
Instead of achieving
the fame of a Cellini,
he ensured the fame of
a Cellini masterpiece.
- Until this very moment,
only a handful of people in Austria
knew about the Saliera.
But from this day on, everybody know it.
- Up next, the secret
of turning silver into gold.
For hundreds of years, Europe
was on the gold standard.
So if you were a king who
wanted his face on a gold coin,
you had to have some
gold in your treasury.
In 1677, Austria's
Emperor Leopold ran out.
Leopold was in a terrible
financial situation
because of the extremely
expensive war against the Turks.
So he needed a lot of money
just to pay his troops.
- Then one day in November,
a stranger arrived at
the palace with an offer
to solve the king's
money problems for good.
He said he would turn silver into gold,
and then tell the Emperor
the secret for a price.
The cash-strapped Emperor agreed.
According to all accounts,
there was no sleight of hand.
A silver medallion changed
as if by magic into gold.
You might think alchemy can't be real.
But the gold medallion
created by the alchemist
is in the Kunsthistorisches museum.
- It's more than seven kilos of gold.
So it's the biggest gold
medallion ever cast in the world.
- How did the alchemist do it?
This might be our most
valuable museum secret.
The mystery fascinates archeologist,
Marcos Martinon-Torres.
- We know from the text
that this medallion
was transmuted in front
of the very Emperor.
So how was it that he
did the transmutation?
Hopefully we can now find
an answer to that question.
- The first thing
Marcos would like to know
is the purity of the
gold in the medallion.
Museum staff can't provide
a definitive answer
without damaging it.
But a noninvasive X-ray proves
that gold is definitely present.
How did the alchemist do it?
To look for the answer,
Marcos travels 40 kilometers
north of the museum.
Here he meets archeologist,
Sigried von Osten,
who has uncovered evidence
of an alchemist's workshop
in a 16th century church.
Alchemists were Christian mystics,
seekers of the legendary
Philosopher's Stone,
the power to turn base metal into gold.
But in the back room is proof
they did not put their faith in God alone.
- Well shall we do inside,
I can't wait.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Several years ago,
Sigried made an amazing
discovery beneath the floor.
- So this is
where it all happened.
This is where you found this equipment.
- It's only a little
part of the materials.
We have more than a thousand objects.
- 1,000 objects.
They've got an assortment of material.
Everyone of them,
very specialized for a
specific technical function.
You just have to have a look at this
to see they knew a lot
of science, don't they?
- This laboratory was high tech.
- Much of this
equipment would look at home
in a modern chemistry lab.
- When people of this
day think about alchemy,
of course they immediately
think of Harry Porter.
We've tended to regard alchemists
as wizards and obscure philosophers.
But these alchemists
knew a lot more science
than we credit them for.
It was very much about trial
and error, experimentation.
- So alchemists
were really early chemists,
including the alchemist
at Leopold's court.
Marcos thinks he changed silver into gold
using a trick that only
a chemist would know.
He believes the alchemist's
original medallion
was not pure silver but a
material much like this.
Forged in a modern lab
by jeweller, Jamie Hall.
- Well, although it looks entirely silver,
there's 30% gold in this.
I don't think anyone would
realize it was in there.
- So it's roughly 70% silver,
- that's right, yes.
- 30% gold, it looks very silver.
- And if the alchemist started
with silver that contains gold,
Marcos may know what
chemical was in his vat.
- I've been looking into
what may have been available
to a 17th century alchemist
and I think the most plausible
reagent would be nitric acid.
- Alchemists called it aqua fortis.
- The name aqua fortis says it all.
It's so fortis, it's so strong,
that it dissolves anything you put in it.
Anything except for gold.
So we've got everything we
need except for an emperor.
We can see it's turning dark immediately.
It's obviously attacking the silver.
- After about three minutes,
Marcos removes the
medallion from the acid.
- It's gone totally black.
It doesn't look like gold.
Let's hope we can actually
do something to it.
So we have to rinse it quite well
so that the reaction doesn't continue.
It certainly looks different
but not quite gold in this.
We would hope.
- Yeah it still
hasn't taken much off
so what we're gonna have
to do is use a brass brush.
- Now that is
looking very impressive.
- Now that really just starting
to look gold, doesn't it?
- I think we've
transmuted our medallion.
- Yep, then we
could be millionaires.
- Marcos is sure
that the alchemist performed
this same chemistry trick for the emperor.
And because it really was just a trick,
it couldn't solve
Leopold's money problems.
Regaining the Habsburg family fortune
would be up to his
granddaughter, Maria Theresa,
who employed an even more
magical way to get rick quick.
She printed paper money.
Next on museum's secrets,
how a falcon brought the
Dark Ages into the light.
Inside the Kunsthistorisches museum,
what Medieval artifacts are made of,
reveals the era's pecking order.
For the lowly foot soldier,
wood and iron.
For noble knights, the finest steel.
Kings are worthy of gold.
And so it seems, is a falcon.
Hunting game with birds of prey,
was the noblest of past times.
- It's very noble because
you put your vittles through
a living animal, and he's
doing the hunting for yourself.
- A knight might
hunt with a Harris's hawk,
while barons favor the Eurasian owl.
But only this bird is fit for a king.
And modern falconer,
Dan Frankian, knows why.
- Gyrfalcons are
basically the epitome of falcon.
They are by far, the
top end of the top end.
They're like driving a Ferrari.
They are unbelievably quick and fast.
- No king in history
enjoyed falconry more
than Frederick the Second,
who was crowned Holy
Roman Emperor in 1220.
Frederick's love for falcons
would help to bring an
end to the Dark Ages.
The reason why is a museum secret.
Frederick came to power in an era
when the Church decreed that
the sun went around the Earth
and science was akin to heresy.
Asking questions about the universe
could get you burned at the stake.
Even emperors were advised
to follow the old ways
even in the sport of falconry.
Like all Medieval Falconers,
Frederick calmed his captured birds
by sealing up their eyes.
- Using a needle they would take
the bottom lid of the
falcon and the top lid,
put a little tiny hole in it,
and put the two lids together.
Now these days it's totally unnecessary
and a lot of people consider it barbaric.
- The same might
be said for the way
Frederick trained his
falcons to hunt for him.
He lured them with live
birds tied to a string.
- And that's where you would tie it up
and then you could swing it.
And the falcon would see
that it's a bird in distress
and they will go right for it.
- After months of training,
the falcon would attack on command.
In 1226, Frederick was pulled
away from his favorite sport
when the Pope ordered
him to lead a Crusade.
There had been several previous attempts
to take Jerusalem for Christendom.
All had failed.
But as Holy Roman Emperor,
it was Frederick's duty to try again.
- He landed with an army in Palestine
but didn't fight any battle.
He started to negotiate.
- During the diplomatic talks,
Frederick became fascinated
by what the Arabs showed him.
Astronomy and engineering far in advance
of anything in Europe.
Frederick soon realized
why they were ahead.
They asked questions and then tested them.
What we would call the scientific method.
Frederick also discovered
a shared interest.
- In the Arabic culture,
falcon hunting played an important role
and still plays an important role.
If you go to the Emirates,
you'd see lots of sultans
hunting with falcons.
- For both
Frederick and the sultan,
falconry was much more than a sport.
- The bond that you have
between a bird of prey
and yourself, is very similar
that you have with the dog
but you can't hug this.
But once both of those eyes lock onto you,
they're beautiful.
- Frederick noticed that
the Arabs train their birds
a little differently.
For one thing, they didn't
seal their eyes with thread.
- Originally, the Arab developed
the hood to replace the sealing
because they thought it
wasn't such a wonderful idea.
- Frederick tried the Arab method
and he tried the Arab way
of questioning things.
- So it goes on in this way.
I'm going to one, two, three do it.
Like that.
- He tested the hood
and found it to be superior.
Frederick also noticed that Arabs
didn't need live birds for bait.
Making a lure from the
wings and meat of the prey,
worked just as well.
- That's supposed to follow what it is
that the falcons going to be chasing
in the natural environment.
Come on, girl.
- Frederick tested
this Arab technique
and many others.
His interest in Arab falconry and science
created an atmosphere of mutual respect
between the two leaders.
- And this enabled them
to negotiate a solution
which was good for both sides.
And this was that the sultan of Egypt
would give Jerusalem to the emperor
and the emperor wouldn't attack Egypt.
- With the sultan's blessing,
Frederick was crowned
the King of Jerusalem.
His was the first and
only bloodless Crusade.
When he returned to Europe,
he published the results
of his falcon experiments.
- It's the first treatise on falconry,
it's kind of what we refer back to.
That's very important,
I mean, it's the Bible.
- Frederick's book
revolutionized European falconry
and transmitted the scientific method
from the Islamic world to Christendom
where it would influence visionaries
like Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci.
The Church was not pleased
but it was too late.
Frederick and his beloved falcons
had already helped to bring
light into the Dark Ages.
Next on museum secrets,
the forbidden dance
that changed the world.
Inside the Kunsthistorisches museum
is a violin that was
made to play the music
that Vienna is famous for,
the waltz.
This sublime waltz melody,
the Blue Danube by Johann Strauss,
has become a familiar fixture
in many formal occasions.
Today we rarely dance the waltz
except to observe archaic traditions.
But if you think the
waltz is tame or boring,
it isn't.
The truth about the waltz
and how it changed the world,
is our museum's secret.
The story begins at the
end of the 18th century
when all of Europe was engulfed by war.
And Austria had fallen on hard times.
- It was a poor time, a very poor time.
People lost a lot of
members of their family.
Soldiers who died in the
battles, or very injured.
- Peter Widholz
is a professional tenor
and President of the
Johann Strauss Society.
- There was no time in Austrian history
which was too sad for the
people to forget music
and to forget to dance.
Music helped the Austrians
always to survive.
- To take their
minds off the carnage,
Austrian nobles danced the minuet,
bowing and curtsying to each other
as they had done for centuries.
But in the countryside,
commoners were inventing
some brand new dance moves.
To understand what was new about them,
we need to take it step-by-step.
- Now you will see the way
they are standing all ready.
The lady is slightly to the left,
and she looks to the left,
that's very important.
And then all you have to do
is repeat six steps all the time.
- Thomas Schafer-Elmayer runs
Vienna's top dance academy.
Vanessa and Peter have never
danced the waltz before.
- Gentlemen
starts right foot forward,
the lady, left foot back.
- In contrast to the minuet,
waltzing couples never change partners
and they stay much closer together.
- The men must touch the women,
not only with the fingers on their hand,
but also at their waist, yeah?
There's a small contact
with the body of the woman.
When you dance very quickly at waltz,
then could be that the dress of the lady
comes a little bit up.
And then could be that you can see
her ankle or maybe her calf.
- In the 18th century,
such wanton displays were frowned on.
- And to that time, it
was nearly a scandal.
- So the Church was not in favor of it
and the rulers were not in favor of it.
The Church very often was against things
that gave the people a lot of fun.
- And so Europe's
straight-laced nobles
stuck with the minuet,
throughout the long war and into an era
when all of Europe longed for peace.
In 1814, Emperor Francis
the First of Austria
decided to try something new.
- He invited all the princes and kings
and also the Tzar of Russia,
to come to Vienna to find a treaty
and to draw new borders for Europe.
As the nobles negotiated in this palace,
the halls echoed with
shouts of accusations.
After long days of acrimony,
they were eager to unwind.
The plan of the Emperor
during the Viennese Congress
was to make a lot of amusements
for the European kings and princes.
There were a lot of balls and concerts
and different events in Vienna.
- It so happened that Vienna
was the only European capital
where dance halls allowed the waltz.
When the nobles saw it,
they wanted to try it.
- The kings, some of the princes,
and all the aristocratic society,
finds the love for that dance.
They enjoyed it.
- And once they started waltzing,
they felt a new sensation.
- So what sensation do you
get when you were waltzing.
- I mean it's the going very fast
and you see all around moving.
It's like it's really like
you feel in another place.
- You remember on the playgrounds
when you were very young,
you had those things where
you put yourself onto it
and turn around turn around?
Pretty much like this.
- Yeah pretty much like this.
- It is the most exciting experience
that you can have when you are dancing
because you are floating across the floor.
And it's really giving you some feeling
like you are a little bit high.
- After the nobles
experienced the waltz,
the mood of the negotiations changed.
- The Prince de Ligne was asked
how is the Congress going,
and he said, Congress is
not going, it's dancing.
Dancing certainly
contributed to an atmosphere
where the people were able to
make decisions without hatred.
- The Congress of Vienna
produced a peace agreement
and the nobles went home to
teach their nations the waltz.
- The waltz became a
dance which was accepted
by the noble society and
could be danced by everyone.
- In the decades to come,
the Vienna Waltz would become
wildly popular throughout Europe,
propelled by the seductive waltz
melodies of Johann Strauss.
- Once a journalist
attended a ball and he saw
how much the young people were excited
by the music of Johann Strauss.
How they danced.
And he went home and wrote and
the next day in the journal,
how many children must be
grateful to Johann Strauss
that they exist, because
after such a ball,
young babies were produced
by the excited parents.
- So the Church
had it right all along.
You never know what will happen
when a couple starts to waltz.
Up next, a royal family's darkest secret.
It is often said that family
is the most important thing.
But to the family whose wealth and power
are on display in the
Kunsthistorisches museum,
it was everything.
The Habsburg family, with
branches in Austria and Spain,
believed they were God's gift.
- They can track their genealogies
back the Julius Caesar,
of course, but also back to
the ancient Jewish kings,
to David and Solomon and so on.
- Historian Karl Vocelka
believes the Habsburg
used religious relics
to cement their hold on power.
They laid claim to this lance,
said to have pierced Christ on the cross.
To prove to themselves and others
that their family was blest by the Lord.
- Perhaps they themselves
were very convinced
that they are the best ruling
family ever, full stop.
- But as everyone knows,
pride comes before a fall.
In the heart of Vienna,
underneath an ancient monastery,
is a vast crypt containing 13 generations
of Habsburg emperors.
All of us have to go sometime,
but the dates on these coffins
reveal something surprising.
Many are from the 18th century.
Few were from the 19th.
And only a handful date
from the 20th century.
What happened to the Habsburgs?
That is our museum's secret.
Francisco Ceballos
believes there are clues
in the picture gallery.
Starting with this likeness
of King Carlos the Second.
The King's priests
thought he was bewitched.
As a geneticist, Francisco
thinks otherwise.
Today we know that inbreeding can cause
unhealthy traits to build up in DNA.
But the Habsburgs didn't.
In fact, they thought
marrying within their family
would strengthen the royal bloodline.
- The Habsburgs had a very strict rule
who is possible partner for
a female or male Habsburg.
They have to come out of
a former ruling family
or of some clearly defined
aristocratic families
that were seen as equal.
- As their family
tree grew in on itself,
genetic problems became visible
in the facial deformity now
known as the Habsburg jaw.
But their most severe
problem cannot be seen.
In the family crypt, tracing
the genealogy reveals
that many Habsburgs died
without producing children.
The family was dying out and they knew it.
They prayed to God to lift the
curse that had befallen them.
And then in 1651, this
little girl was born.
- Here we have three portraits
of Margarita Theresa.
She was a perfectly normal girl.
She was intelligent and beautiful.
- At the age of 15,
Margarita married
another healthy Habsburg,
her uncle, Emperor Leopold the First.
The family was certain these noble equals
will produce a healthy heir.
Her first child lived just one year.
Her second child survived but died young.
Her next two children were born
with serious genetic abnormalities.
Both died in infancy.
Margarita herself would die in pregnancy
when she was only 21.
In the centuries that followed,
the Habsburgs would avert extinction
when a few broke with tradition
to marry outside the family.
The last claimant to the
throne, Otto von Habsburg,
was just a child during World War One.
But Habsburg power was
crushed on the battlefield.
He died in 2011 as a private citizen
at the ripe old age of 98.
His funeral procession through Vienna
attracted 100,000 people,
a testament to the abiding power
of the Habsburg name in
the Austrian imagination.
500 years after their empire began,
Otto was laid to rest among his ancestors.
Perhaps in the hereafter,
he'll wear a crown.
In this museum filled
with the Habsburg's greatest treasures,
for every mystery we reveal,
far more must remain unspoken.
Secrets of wealth
and power
and of the human heart.
Hidden in plain site,
inside the Kunsthistorisches museum.
grandeur and sophistication,
and at it's heart, a museum
with secrets dark and strange.
A family curse, an alchemist's magic,
Medieval special effects,
and the priceless
treasure that disappeared.
Secrets hidden in plain sight,
inside Vienna's Kunsthistorisches museum.
Vienna's Kunsthistorisches museum
is the highest expression
of European architecture.
The perfect complement to
the treasures on display.
The sheer number of
masterpieces is amazing.
What may be more amazing
is that nearly everything
was once owned by one family.
And we can meet them here
in the picture gallery.
These are the Habsburg,
Europe's foremost ruling
family for 500 years.
They appear cultured,
relaxed and all powerful.
But they didn't start out that way.
Back in the age of chivalry,
being a Habsburg emperor wasn't easy.
In this era,
men in armor were not loyal
soldiers but freelance warriors
who swore allegiance
to whomever they chose.
The highest ranking
Habsburg, Maximilian the 1st,
tried to convince knights to follow him;
in part, by impressing
them with his armor.
- Maximilian developed some of the most
amazing armoring techniques,
the fit and finish had
never been seen before.
Not only that, he took
it to a level of fun.
He developed facial
features within the helmets
that had never been seen before.
- Andre Renier is
a historical technologist.
Today he's asked curator,
Matthias Pfaffenbichler,
to show him this piece
of Maximilian's armor.
It is a breastplate like no other,
with prominent gears and levers.
Their function and purpose is unclear.
Andre is fascinated by this
strange mechanical armor
and has a plan to discover its secrets.
- There's never been a successful attempt
to recreate Maximilian's armor.
My dream make that happen.
- Matthias shares this dream.
Today he's giving Andre
unprecedented access
to examine the armor from every angle.
Its exact purpose is still a mystery.
Matthias and Andre believe that purpose
has something to do with jousting.
Jousting was the Middle
Ages' most popular sport.
- This was the
football of its time,
the soccer of the day.
- Yes this was
their only great spectator sport.
- And Maximilian created the
biggest spectacle of all.
- Yes.
- For knights, jousting was a way
to prove their bravery
in front of the crowd.
- Most horses,
combined with their armor,
it's 1,500 kilos.
This is like driving a
small car on a concrete wall
with 100 kilometers per hour.
So it's an enormous force.
- For Maximilian,
the spectacle was a way
to attract potential allies to his court.
- The important thing were not
the sport events in themselves,
but the negotiation which
took place at the same time.
So he tried to get more power
by winning over the knights.
- Problem was,
every duke in the land
held his own jousting tournament.
- So there was a
competition between the dukes,
the middle size rulers and the emperor.
- If Maximilian wanted
to keep the crowds coming,
he needed a way to pimp his joust.
And that might be where
this breastplate comes in.
Matthias believes it once
had a shield attached to it
that was designed to break away on impact.
- If you hit here, nothing happens.
- Nothing happens.
- If you hit here,
nothing happens.
If you hit here, or if you
hit here, nothing happens.
If you hit here, and you have to hit hard,
then this mechanism is unlocked.
- As soon as that was loosed--
- Yes, the shield would
go up into the air.
- Andre intends to test this theory
by recreating the breastplate,
fashioning a shield,
and putting them to the
test in a jousting arena.
His workshop near Detroit, Michigan,
has all the right equipment for the job.
But though he and his team
start the detail schematics,
the inner workings surprise him.
- I'd just assumed that was art.
- No there's not a lot of art here.
Everything you see is the
way it had to be to exist.
I'm really impressed
with ancient technology.
Our ancestors were incredible.
- This is one of the greatest
challenges from a historical
reverse engineering,
that we have encountered.
It is really really very difficult.
- Emperor
Maximilian spent a fortune
developing and perfecting
new types of armor.
And after six weeks of intensive
labor, Andre knows why.
- Since we left Vienna,
we've had four major revisions
where we've scraped everything.
We've had 27 minor versions
which is why we call this Suit Number 27.
We have a thousand man hours
into just building this.
I wonder how many times it took them
to build the same thing.
- The 15th century
design is full of surprises.
- We discovered
that in the spring box,
there are two little ejector
springs that push the arms out.
Other than that, there's
nothing in the spring box.
- The system will be
field tested by Andre himself.
Along with his passion
for historic recreation,
he is a champion modern day jouster.
- This suit really encumbers me.
I can't move at all actually.
- The breastplate is much heavier
than anything Andre has worn before.
- Is that better?
- He gained 28 pounds.
- I'm really concerned about safety, guys.
I'm gonna tell you that right now.
This makes me very front heavy.
If I do come off, our
ringmaster knows to call 911.
- Knights of old used
heavy steel-tipped lances
and were often injured
in high speed collisions.
Andre and his opponent
opt for a safer approach,
using balsa-tipped lances instead.
- And we're ready to rock 'n' roll.
- In a normal jousting match,
a knight scores by hitting
anywhere on the body.
- Here is your lance.
- But to have any chance
to make Andre's shield break away,
his opponent will need to hit
the tiny disc at the center.
- Okay, I'm loaded.
- Play on.
- This turns out to be a challenge.
- Do it again.
- The second hit
releases the shield,
but Andre barely saw it through his visor.
So he wants to see the instant replay.
- There we go, start of the run.
- Yes, that's not--
- Steady up.
- Too much work went into this, for that.
We need to have a go over the head.
- The team tries again.
But the shield flies
no higher than before.
Andre is too exhausted
for another attempt.
- That was the
single hardest thing
I've ever done joust in.
- For Andre,
the riddle is why the
shield didn't fly higher.
- The breastplate worked really well.
The breastplate's only one
third of the entire assembly.
So the next step is to recreate
the shield and the lance.
The challenge is there's none
left in the world to go by.
There's no drawings really of them.
So it'll be an uphill
battle but we'll make it.
Make for it.
- Andre and his
team get back to work
with a new respect for
Maximilian's engineers.
They realized that armed
with all the right
combination of equipment,
Maximilian's knights would
have produced an impact
that looked more like this.
And won Maximilian a
well deserved reputation
as the host with the most.
Next on museum's secrets,
the museum's most valuable
treasure disappears.
At Vienna's Kunsthistorisches museum,
on the morning of May 11th 2003,
security staff reported
that there had been a
break-in during the night.
- I went into the gallery,
I saw this broken showcase,
the empty showcase,
and I just had to burst in tears.
This was an incredible catastrophe.
- Missing was a gold
statue known as the Saliera,
valued at $58 million US.
This museum's secret is
about how to catch a thief.
- It was a huge story public in Austria.
It's a piece of like the
soul of this country.
And it was gone.
- The Vienna
police assigned the case
to their Chief Investigator,
Detective Ernst Geiger.
- The day the crime was committed,
the scaffold was like this.
So the offender could climb
to the window where it was.
Here's the window.
He activated the alarm system.
From now on every second
counted for the offender,
so he hurried there, smashed the glass,
pulled out the Saliera,
and went back this way,
jumped out through the window,
and escaped outside.
- Geiger noticed that the gallery
was filled with priceless Raphaels.
- We asked ourselves why
didn't he steal them?
Just took out the Saliera.
- The most likely
reason was that the Saliera
is made of gold, easy
to melt down and sell.
- Since we didn't know who he was,
we didn't know how he'd take it in,
so we were very worried
that he might destroy it.
- But Geiger had a hunch
the thief knew the Saliera
was more valuable intact.
- We thought somebody who
knew about the uniqueness
and the importance of the
Saliera had stolen it.
- The Saliera is the only surviving
gold sculpture by Benvenuto Cellini,
a prominent Italian artist
of the 16th century.
Famous for his creative genius
and his impulsive behavior.
During the Sack of Rome,
he was accused of
stealing the Pope's jewels
and hiding them.
But whoever stole Cellini's masterpiece
had something else in mind.
Museum officials received a letter
demanding a ransom of $5.5 million US,
and warning them to keep it hush hush.
- It was clear it was an art epic case.
- But before the police could act,
the thief's letter was
leaked to the press.
- From that moment on, there was nothing,
there was nothing.
He didn't answer.
He didn't write another letter.
All the communication stopped.
- Weeks passed, then months.
- Every single day in such a situation
seems to be a very long time.
I personally thought about that every day.
- It was just gone, no trace.
People believed maybe it's destroyed,
maybe it appears somewhere
on the black market.
And the police said they
are close to a solution,
they are gonna get him soon.
But they did not do it for years.
- In October 2005, nearly two years later,
we heard again from our offender.
- The thief's
second letter offered proof
that he still had the Saliera.
He directed police to a spot
near a statute of Mozart,
just a stone's throw from the museum.
Geiger felt the thief
was playing with him,
and perhaps even watching him.
This time there would be
no leaks to the press.
- We did it very secretly.
Not as many policemen,
only plain clothes men,
that looked around,
they found it here, behind.
- The package contained
a small gold trident.
The thief had pried it
from Neptune's hand.
- All of a sudden we realized
there was a big chance
that we might see the object again.
- A week later, the
thief sent a text message
from a cell phone that had been
modified to be untraceable.
He had doubled the ransom to $12 million
and wanted it delivered by courier,
exchanged the Saliera.
Geiger sent a courier to
the specified location
but with no money in his knapsack.
Police followed at a discreet distance,
ready to pounce.
The thief didn't appear.
He sent another untraceable
message with a new destination.
And then several more.
These actions were a
kind of wild goose chase.
- At the last location,
there was a long interval
before a message arrived.
And when it did, the thief was angry.
- The message said,
against his instruction,
police was involved, and
therefore has stopped it,
and now will destroy the Saliera.
- It seemed that the world
would be robbed of Cellini's genius.
And Geiger would never
catch the brazen thief.
Unfazed by setbacks, Geiger
had the last message analyzed.
This time the thief slipped up.
He used the cell phone
with a traceable ID number.
- He had no more prepared cell phone.
So he had to buy one more cell phone.
- Geiger traced
the phone to this shop.
The store had a camera trained
on the checkout counter.
When these security images
were broadcast by the media,
they elicited an immediate response.
- A man phoned the police and said,
I'm the man on the photo
but it's a mistake.
I didn't have nothing to
do with the Saliera case.
- Robert Mang
had no criminal record
or obvious motive.
But his job was designing
security systems.
So he would have known
how to get past the one in the museum.
At Mang's home, Geiger discovered
the first draft of a ransom note.
Confronted with this evidence,
Mang led police to a wooded area.
Buried underground was a lead box
containing Cellini's masterpiece.
- So the Saliera was back,
a piece of Austria was back,
and Mr Geiger was honored
in the Parliament as a hero.
- Many wondered why
a previously honest man
would commit such an outrageous crime.
- This was a very very strange situation.
Knowing that Cellini was
such an outrageous character,
I had the feeling that maybe the thief
wanted to be the Cellini of our times.
- When Cellini was arrested,
he refused to admit he had
stolen the Pope's jewels
even under torture.
And one night he made a daring escape.
By contrast Robert Mang pleaded guilty
and would not get away.
Instead of achieving
the fame of a Cellini,
he ensured the fame of
a Cellini masterpiece.
- Until this very moment,
only a handful of people in Austria
knew about the Saliera.
But from this day on, everybody know it.
- Up next, the secret
of turning silver into gold.
For hundreds of years, Europe
was on the gold standard.
So if you were a king who
wanted his face on a gold coin,
you had to have some
gold in your treasury.
In 1677, Austria's
Emperor Leopold ran out.
Leopold was in a terrible
financial situation
because of the extremely
expensive war against the Turks.
So he needed a lot of money
just to pay his troops.
- Then one day in November,
a stranger arrived at
the palace with an offer
to solve the king's
money problems for good.
He said he would turn silver into gold,
and then tell the Emperor
the secret for a price.
The cash-strapped Emperor agreed.
According to all accounts,
there was no sleight of hand.
A silver medallion changed
as if by magic into gold.
You might think alchemy can't be real.
But the gold medallion
created by the alchemist
is in the Kunsthistorisches museum.
- It's more than seven kilos of gold.
So it's the biggest gold
medallion ever cast in the world.
- How did the alchemist do it?
This might be our most
valuable museum secret.
The mystery fascinates archeologist,
Marcos Martinon-Torres.
- We know from the text
that this medallion
was transmuted in front
of the very Emperor.
So how was it that he
did the transmutation?
Hopefully we can now find
an answer to that question.
- The first thing
Marcos would like to know
is the purity of the
gold in the medallion.
Museum staff can't provide
a definitive answer
without damaging it.
But a noninvasive X-ray proves
that gold is definitely present.
How did the alchemist do it?
To look for the answer,
Marcos travels 40 kilometers
north of the museum.
Here he meets archeologist,
Sigried von Osten,
who has uncovered evidence
of an alchemist's workshop
in a 16th century church.
Alchemists were Christian mystics,
seekers of the legendary
Philosopher's Stone,
the power to turn base metal into gold.
But in the back room is proof
they did not put their faith in God alone.
- Well shall we do inside,
I can't wait.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Several years ago,
Sigried made an amazing
discovery beneath the floor.
- So this is
where it all happened.
This is where you found this equipment.
- It's only a little
part of the materials.
We have more than a thousand objects.
- 1,000 objects.
They've got an assortment of material.
Everyone of them,
very specialized for a
specific technical function.
You just have to have a look at this
to see they knew a lot
of science, don't they?
- This laboratory was high tech.
- Much of this
equipment would look at home
in a modern chemistry lab.
- When people of this
day think about alchemy,
of course they immediately
think of Harry Porter.
We've tended to regard alchemists
as wizards and obscure philosophers.
But these alchemists
knew a lot more science
than we credit them for.
It was very much about trial
and error, experimentation.
- So alchemists
were really early chemists,
including the alchemist
at Leopold's court.
Marcos thinks he changed silver into gold
using a trick that only
a chemist would know.
He believes the alchemist's
original medallion
was not pure silver but a
material much like this.
Forged in a modern lab
by jeweller, Jamie Hall.
- Well, although it looks entirely silver,
there's 30% gold in this.
I don't think anyone would
realize it was in there.
- So it's roughly 70% silver,
- that's right, yes.
- 30% gold, it looks very silver.
- And if the alchemist started
with silver that contains gold,
Marcos may know what
chemical was in his vat.
- I've been looking into
what may have been available
to a 17th century alchemist
and I think the most plausible
reagent would be nitric acid.
- Alchemists called it aqua fortis.
- The name aqua fortis says it all.
It's so fortis, it's so strong,
that it dissolves anything you put in it.
Anything except for gold.
So we've got everything we
need except for an emperor.
We can see it's turning dark immediately.
It's obviously attacking the silver.
- After about three minutes,
Marcos removes the
medallion from the acid.
- It's gone totally black.
It doesn't look like gold.
Let's hope we can actually
do something to it.
So we have to rinse it quite well
so that the reaction doesn't continue.
It certainly looks different
but not quite gold in this.
We would hope.
- Yeah it still
hasn't taken much off
so what we're gonna have
to do is use a brass brush.
- Now that is
looking very impressive.
- Now that really just starting
to look gold, doesn't it?
- I think we've
transmuted our medallion.
- Yep, then we
could be millionaires.
- Marcos is sure
that the alchemist performed
this same chemistry trick for the emperor.
And because it really was just a trick,
it couldn't solve
Leopold's money problems.
Regaining the Habsburg family fortune
would be up to his
granddaughter, Maria Theresa,
who employed an even more
magical way to get rick quick.
She printed paper money.
Next on museum's secrets,
how a falcon brought the
Dark Ages into the light.
Inside the Kunsthistorisches museum,
what Medieval artifacts are made of,
reveals the era's pecking order.
For the lowly foot soldier,
wood and iron.
For noble knights, the finest steel.
Kings are worthy of gold.
And so it seems, is a falcon.
Hunting game with birds of prey,
was the noblest of past times.
- It's very noble because
you put your vittles through
a living animal, and he's
doing the hunting for yourself.
- A knight might
hunt with a Harris's hawk,
while barons favor the Eurasian owl.
But only this bird is fit for a king.
And modern falconer,
Dan Frankian, knows why.
- Gyrfalcons are
basically the epitome of falcon.
They are by far, the
top end of the top end.
They're like driving a Ferrari.
They are unbelievably quick and fast.
- No king in history
enjoyed falconry more
than Frederick the Second,
who was crowned Holy
Roman Emperor in 1220.
Frederick's love for falcons
would help to bring an
end to the Dark Ages.
The reason why is a museum secret.
Frederick came to power in an era
when the Church decreed that
the sun went around the Earth
and science was akin to heresy.
Asking questions about the universe
could get you burned at the stake.
Even emperors were advised
to follow the old ways
even in the sport of falconry.
Like all Medieval Falconers,
Frederick calmed his captured birds
by sealing up their eyes.
- Using a needle they would take
the bottom lid of the
falcon and the top lid,
put a little tiny hole in it,
and put the two lids together.
Now these days it's totally unnecessary
and a lot of people consider it barbaric.
- The same might
be said for the way
Frederick trained his
falcons to hunt for him.
He lured them with live
birds tied to a string.
- And that's where you would tie it up
and then you could swing it.
And the falcon would see
that it's a bird in distress
and they will go right for it.
- After months of training,
the falcon would attack on command.
In 1226, Frederick was pulled
away from his favorite sport
when the Pope ordered
him to lead a Crusade.
There had been several previous attempts
to take Jerusalem for Christendom.
All had failed.
But as Holy Roman Emperor,
it was Frederick's duty to try again.
- He landed with an army in Palestine
but didn't fight any battle.
He started to negotiate.
- During the diplomatic talks,
Frederick became fascinated
by what the Arabs showed him.
Astronomy and engineering far in advance
of anything in Europe.
Frederick soon realized
why they were ahead.
They asked questions and then tested them.
What we would call the scientific method.
Frederick also discovered
a shared interest.
- In the Arabic culture,
falcon hunting played an important role
and still plays an important role.
If you go to the Emirates,
you'd see lots of sultans
hunting with falcons.
- For both
Frederick and the sultan,
falconry was much more than a sport.
- The bond that you have
between a bird of prey
and yourself, is very similar
that you have with the dog
but you can't hug this.
But once both of those eyes lock onto you,
they're beautiful.
- Frederick noticed that
the Arabs train their birds
a little differently.
For one thing, they didn't
seal their eyes with thread.
- Originally, the Arab developed
the hood to replace the sealing
because they thought it
wasn't such a wonderful idea.
- Frederick tried the Arab method
and he tried the Arab way
of questioning things.
- So it goes on in this way.
I'm going to one, two, three do it.
Like that.
- He tested the hood
and found it to be superior.
Frederick also noticed that Arabs
didn't need live birds for bait.
Making a lure from the
wings and meat of the prey,
worked just as well.
- That's supposed to follow what it is
that the falcons going to be chasing
in the natural environment.
Come on, girl.
- Frederick tested
this Arab technique
and many others.
His interest in Arab falconry and science
created an atmosphere of mutual respect
between the two leaders.
- And this enabled them
to negotiate a solution
which was good for both sides.
And this was that the sultan of Egypt
would give Jerusalem to the emperor
and the emperor wouldn't attack Egypt.
- With the sultan's blessing,
Frederick was crowned
the King of Jerusalem.
His was the first and
only bloodless Crusade.
When he returned to Europe,
he published the results
of his falcon experiments.
- It's the first treatise on falconry,
it's kind of what we refer back to.
That's very important,
I mean, it's the Bible.
- Frederick's book
revolutionized European falconry
and transmitted the scientific method
from the Islamic world to Christendom
where it would influence visionaries
like Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci.
The Church was not pleased
but it was too late.
Frederick and his beloved falcons
had already helped to bring
light into the Dark Ages.
Next on museum secrets,
the forbidden dance
that changed the world.
Inside the Kunsthistorisches museum
is a violin that was
made to play the music
that Vienna is famous for,
the waltz.
This sublime waltz melody,
the Blue Danube by Johann Strauss,
has become a familiar fixture
in many formal occasions.
Today we rarely dance the waltz
except to observe archaic traditions.
But if you think the
waltz is tame or boring,
it isn't.
The truth about the waltz
and how it changed the world,
is our museum's secret.
The story begins at the
end of the 18th century
when all of Europe was engulfed by war.
And Austria had fallen on hard times.
- It was a poor time, a very poor time.
People lost a lot of
members of their family.
Soldiers who died in the
battles, or very injured.
- Peter Widholz
is a professional tenor
and President of the
Johann Strauss Society.
- There was no time in Austrian history
which was too sad for the
people to forget music
and to forget to dance.
Music helped the Austrians
always to survive.
- To take their
minds off the carnage,
Austrian nobles danced the minuet,
bowing and curtsying to each other
as they had done for centuries.
But in the countryside,
commoners were inventing
some brand new dance moves.
To understand what was new about them,
we need to take it step-by-step.
- Now you will see the way
they are standing all ready.
The lady is slightly to the left,
and she looks to the left,
that's very important.
And then all you have to do
is repeat six steps all the time.
- Thomas Schafer-Elmayer runs
Vienna's top dance academy.
Vanessa and Peter have never
danced the waltz before.
- Gentlemen
starts right foot forward,
the lady, left foot back.
- In contrast to the minuet,
waltzing couples never change partners
and they stay much closer together.
- The men must touch the women,
not only with the fingers on their hand,
but also at their waist, yeah?
There's a small contact
with the body of the woman.
When you dance very quickly at waltz,
then could be that the dress of the lady
comes a little bit up.
And then could be that you can see
her ankle or maybe her calf.
- In the 18th century,
such wanton displays were frowned on.
- And to that time, it
was nearly a scandal.
- So the Church was not in favor of it
and the rulers were not in favor of it.
The Church very often was against things
that gave the people a lot of fun.
- And so Europe's
straight-laced nobles
stuck with the minuet,
throughout the long war and into an era
when all of Europe longed for peace.
In 1814, Emperor Francis
the First of Austria
decided to try something new.
- He invited all the princes and kings
and also the Tzar of Russia,
to come to Vienna to find a treaty
and to draw new borders for Europe.
As the nobles negotiated in this palace,
the halls echoed with
shouts of accusations.
After long days of acrimony,
they were eager to unwind.
The plan of the Emperor
during the Viennese Congress
was to make a lot of amusements
for the European kings and princes.
There were a lot of balls and concerts
and different events in Vienna.
- It so happened that Vienna
was the only European capital
where dance halls allowed the waltz.
When the nobles saw it,
they wanted to try it.
- The kings, some of the princes,
and all the aristocratic society,
finds the love for that dance.
They enjoyed it.
- And once they started waltzing,
they felt a new sensation.
- So what sensation do you
get when you were waltzing.
- I mean it's the going very fast
and you see all around moving.
It's like it's really like
you feel in another place.
- You remember on the playgrounds
when you were very young,
you had those things where
you put yourself onto it
and turn around turn around?
Pretty much like this.
- Yeah pretty much like this.
- It is the most exciting experience
that you can have when you are dancing
because you are floating across the floor.
And it's really giving you some feeling
like you are a little bit high.
- After the nobles
experienced the waltz,
the mood of the negotiations changed.
- The Prince de Ligne was asked
how is the Congress going,
and he said, Congress is
not going, it's dancing.
Dancing certainly
contributed to an atmosphere
where the people were able to
make decisions without hatred.
- The Congress of Vienna
produced a peace agreement
and the nobles went home to
teach their nations the waltz.
- The waltz became a
dance which was accepted
by the noble society and
could be danced by everyone.
- In the decades to come,
the Vienna Waltz would become
wildly popular throughout Europe,
propelled by the seductive waltz
melodies of Johann Strauss.
- Once a journalist
attended a ball and he saw
how much the young people were excited
by the music of Johann Strauss.
How they danced.
And he went home and wrote and
the next day in the journal,
how many children must be
grateful to Johann Strauss
that they exist, because
after such a ball,
young babies were produced
by the excited parents.
- So the Church
had it right all along.
You never know what will happen
when a couple starts to waltz.
Up next, a royal family's darkest secret.
It is often said that family
is the most important thing.
But to the family whose wealth and power
are on display in the
Kunsthistorisches museum,
it was everything.
The Habsburg family, with
branches in Austria and Spain,
believed they were God's gift.
- They can track their genealogies
back the Julius Caesar,
of course, but also back to
the ancient Jewish kings,
to David and Solomon and so on.
- Historian Karl Vocelka
believes the Habsburg
used religious relics
to cement their hold on power.
They laid claim to this lance,
said to have pierced Christ on the cross.
To prove to themselves and others
that their family was blest by the Lord.
- Perhaps they themselves
were very convinced
that they are the best ruling
family ever, full stop.
- But as everyone knows,
pride comes before a fall.
In the heart of Vienna,
underneath an ancient monastery,
is a vast crypt containing 13 generations
of Habsburg emperors.
All of us have to go sometime,
but the dates on these coffins
reveal something surprising.
Many are from the 18th century.
Few were from the 19th.
And only a handful date
from the 20th century.
What happened to the Habsburgs?
That is our museum's secret.
Francisco Ceballos
believes there are clues
in the picture gallery.
Starting with this likeness
of King Carlos the Second.
The King's priests
thought he was bewitched.
As a geneticist, Francisco
thinks otherwise.
Today we know that inbreeding can cause
unhealthy traits to build up in DNA.
But the Habsburgs didn't.
In fact, they thought
marrying within their family
would strengthen the royal bloodline.
- The Habsburgs had a very strict rule
who is possible partner for
a female or male Habsburg.
They have to come out of
a former ruling family
or of some clearly defined
aristocratic families
that were seen as equal.
- As their family
tree grew in on itself,
genetic problems became visible
in the facial deformity now
known as the Habsburg jaw.
But their most severe
problem cannot be seen.
In the family crypt, tracing
the genealogy reveals
that many Habsburgs died
without producing children.
The family was dying out and they knew it.
They prayed to God to lift the
curse that had befallen them.
And then in 1651, this
little girl was born.
- Here we have three portraits
of Margarita Theresa.
She was a perfectly normal girl.
She was intelligent and beautiful.
- At the age of 15,
Margarita married
another healthy Habsburg,
her uncle, Emperor Leopold the First.
The family was certain these noble equals
will produce a healthy heir.
Her first child lived just one year.
Her second child survived but died young.
Her next two children were born
with serious genetic abnormalities.
Both died in infancy.
Margarita herself would die in pregnancy
when she was only 21.
In the centuries that followed,
the Habsburgs would avert extinction
when a few broke with tradition
to marry outside the family.
The last claimant to the
throne, Otto von Habsburg,
was just a child during World War One.
But Habsburg power was
crushed on the battlefield.
He died in 2011 as a private citizen
at the ripe old age of 98.
His funeral procession through Vienna
attracted 100,000 people,
a testament to the abiding power
of the Habsburg name in
the Austrian imagination.
500 years after their empire began,
Otto was laid to rest among his ancestors.
Perhaps in the hereafter,
he'll wear a crown.
In this museum filled
with the Habsburg's greatest treasures,
for every mystery we reveal,
far more must remain unspoken.
Secrets of wealth
and power
and of the human heart.
Hidden in plain site,
inside the Kunsthistorisches museum.