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The Old World’s Medieval Untouchables and Other Random Historical Facts

Khalid Elhassan March 17, 2020 33 min

Pancho Villa - Mexican Revolution — General Pancho Villa before a firing squad in 1912. Wikimedia

10. The King Who Bankrupted Himself Building Fairytale Castles

Ludwig II of Bavaria, better known as “Mad King Ludwig” (1845 – 1886), reigned from 1864 until his death in 1886. A generous benefactor of the arts, he was an admirer and patron of the composer Richard Wagner. During his reign, Ludwig devoted himself to artistic and architectural projects, including opulent fairytale castles and palaces, whose construction he lavishly funded to the point of bankrupting himself.

After Bavaria joined the German Empire in 1871, Ludwig withdrew from governance. Concerning himself only intermittently with affairs of state, he went into morbid seclusion and devoted himself to his true passion: the arts. He worshipped the theater and the opera, especially the works of Richard Wagner, whose lifelong patron he became. He also developed a mania for extravagant building projects in the Bavarian mountains.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.