In the town of Hohenems, in the Austrian province of Vorarlberg, a Renaissance palace records the rise of a local noble family from imperial border guards to counts with a direct family connection to a pope.
From border guards to counts
The Ems family is documented from around 1170 to 1180 as ministeriales, imperial vassals loyal to the Guelph and Hohenstaufen causes, responsible for guarding the strategic route into Italy from their fortress of Alt-Ems. Their fortunes rose sharply under Marx Sittich I von Ems (1466–1533), a military commander who led forces for the Swabian League and arranged advantageous marriages for his sons. One of those sons, Wolf Dietrich von Ems, married Clara de' Medici, of the Medici di Marignano family of Milan. Her brother Giovanni Angelo de' Medici was elected pope as Pius IV in 1559, and on 27 April 1560 the emperor elevated Wolf Dietrich's sons, together with their cousin Marx Sittich II, to the rank of Counts Imperial – a direct consequence of the family's new papal connection.
Building the palace, 1562 to 1567
It was in the years immediately following this elevation that the family built its palace, constructed between 1562 and 1567 to a design by the architect Martino Longhi. The result, a three-storey rectangular building with mansard roofs arranged around an inner courtyard, is considered the most significant Renaissance building in western Austria, a scale and sophistication that reflected the counts' newly confirmed status. Kaspar von Hohenems (1573–1640), who also acquired the county of Vaduz and the lordship of Schellenberg in 1613, extended the family's holdings further in the early seventeenth century.
Extinction and succession
The direct male line of the Counts of Hohenems at Lustenau died out in 1759 with Franz Wilhelm III. The property passed by inheritance through Maria Rebecca von Harrach-Hohenems, and by 1790 had come into the hands of the Waldburg-Zeil family through marriage, beginning the connection that continues to the present day.
The palace today
Hohenems Palace remains the property of the Waldburg-Zeil family. It is used partly as a private residence and partly for hospitality and events, and stands connected to the neighbouring parish church by a covered passage, a physical link between the counts' former seat and the town's religious life. The building's Renaissance facade and courtyard, largely unaltered since the 1560s, still mark it out as one of Vorarlberg's most significant historic structures.
The town of Hohenems that grew up around the palace still carries the family's imprint in its street plan and in the parish church linked to the building by its covered passage, giving the palace a continuing relationship with the town rather than standing as an isolated monument.
The Renaissance courtyard at the palace's centre, arranged around the same footprint Martino Longhi laid out in the 1560s, remains one of the clearest surviving examples of the style in the region.