Charles V (1500-1558) was the ruler of an empire on which the sun never sets. Apart from being Holy Roman Emperor he was also Archduke of Austria, King of Spain (Castile and Aragon) and Duke of Burgundy. As King of Spain he was also ruler of the southern Italian kingdoms of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia and the Spanish colonies in the Americas. He was a proponent of the idea of an universal monarchy and tried to unify the European princes against the Ottoman enemy. His plans however were undermined by both the Reformation and the opposition of France. In 1557 Charles retired to the Monastery of Yuste in Extremadura. His Empire was divided between his son (Spanish Habsburgs) and brother (Austrian Habsburgs).
500 years ago Charles V became Archduke of Austria. To commemorate this jubilee and the Multilaterale stamp exhibition both Austria and Luxembourg issued a beautiful miniature sheet on 8th November 2019. The sheet shows a painting of Emperor Charles V by Jakob Seisenegger shown in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Beside the years of his reign and life the sheet also include the quote "Quot linguas calles, tot homines vales" ("How many languages you speak, that many people you are worth") and the flags of the countries, which took part in the Multilaterale stamp exhibition. The text is printed with gold plating.
Luckily I was able to get the Austrian sheet on a matching postcard. While looking at both back and front side of this card, I noticed an interesting difference between the original painting as shown on the card and the sheet. Do you see it?
In the blank space at the upper right corner of the original painting the sheet shows a map. Since I saw it I was wondering where this map comes from. At first I thought that the sheet might show a different version of the painting, but all versions I found on the Internet lacked the map as well. A closer look at the map reveals that it is probably not from the 16th century as the painting. At the end I finally found the map that was used on the sheet on Wikimedia Commons (here). It originates from the Historischer Schulatlas (historic atlas for schools) from the late 19th century. With this question answered there is now actually another one: Why was this map chosen? Especially as this part of the map does not show Luxembourg? The answer probably only knows the designer of the sheet, but I guess they just did not wanted to keep the blank space on the sheet.
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