The Age of Enlightenment
Signs of social responsibility: enlightened absolutism
A visual manifestation of what empress Maria Theresia and her son Joseph II understood as the responsibilities of their reign embodies their residence in the Tyrolean capital Innsbruck.
As a result of enlightened reforms a process of secularising society began, while on the other hand, the forthcoming wealth was necessary to guarantee Austria’s leading role in the belligerent European politics of power. A visual manifestation of what empress Maria Theresia and her son Joseph II understood as the responsibilities of their reign embodies their residence in the Tyrolean capital Innsbruck. There in the ceremonial hall, which is decorated in a moderate but noble way, the ceiling fresco illustrates the economic basis of Habsburg political success: the economy of Tyrol and also its resources, especially the fruits of the peasants’ labours.
Hofburg

1754–1756 and 1766–1776
Innsbruck, Tyrol, Austria
Architecture: Johann Martin Gumpp the younger (1686–1765), Konstantin Johann von Walther zu Pfeilsberg (1720–1781), Niccolò Pacassi (1716–1790) attributed; frescos: Franz Anton Maulbertsch (1724–1796)
After 1754, for the traditional Hofburg in Innsbruck, empress Maria Theresia commissioned a new stretched façade which was upheld in a modest Roman Baroque style because the building had to serve as an imperial residence in the capital of her dominion Tyrol.