Original subtitles

- [Colm] 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.

(suspenseful music)

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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

(crackling of lightning and thunder)

Jousting was the Middle Ages' most popular sport.

- [Andre] 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.

- [Matthias] Yes.

- [Colm] For knights, jousting was a way

to prove their bravery in front of the crowd.

(jeering of crowd)

- [Matthias] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

(horse neighing)

- [Colm] Problem was, every duke in the land

held his own jousting tournament.

- [Matthias] So there was a competition between the dukes,

the middle size rulers and the emperor.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Andre] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] The 15th century design is full of surprises.

- [Andre] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] The breastplate is much heavier

than anything Andre has worn before.

- [Woman] Is that better?

- [Man] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

(horse's hooves clip clopping)

- [Man] And we're ready to rock 'n' roll.

- [Colm] In a normal jousting match,

a knight scores by hitting anywhere on the body.

- [Woman] Here is your lance.

- [Colm] But to have any chance

to make Andre's shield break away,

his opponent will need to hit the tiny disc at the center.

- [Andre] Okay, I'm loaded.

(horse neighing)

- [Woman] Play on.

(dramatic music)

(thundering hooves)

- [Colm] This turns out to be a challenge.

- [Andre] Do it again.

- [Colm] 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--

- [Woman] Steady up.

- Too much work went into this, for that.

We need to have a go over the head.

(breaking of wood)

- [Colm] The team tries again.

But the shield flies no higher than before.

Andre is too exhausted for another attempt.

- [Andre] That was the single hardest thing

I've ever done joust in.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

(clashing contact)

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.

(breaking glass)

(dramatic music)

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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

(glass breaking)

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.

- [Colm] Geiger noticed that the gallery

was filled with priceless Raphaels.

- We asked ourselves why didn't he steal them?

Just took out the Saliera.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

(breaking glass)

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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] Up next, the secret of turning silver into gold.

(dramatic music)

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.

(battle cries over thundering hooves)

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] Several years ago,

Sigried made an amazing discovery beneath the floor.

- [Marcos] 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.

- [Marcos] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] And if the alchemist started

with silver that contains gold,

Marcos may know what chemical was in his vat.

- [Marcos] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] After about three minutes,

Marcos removes the medallion from the acid.

- [Marcos] 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.

- [Jamie] Yeah it still hasn't taken much off

so what we're gonna have to do is use a brass brush.

- [Marcos] Now that is looking very impressive.

- [Jamie] Now that really just starting

to look gold, doesn't it?

- [Marcos] I think we've transmuted our medallion.

- [Jamie] Yep, then we could be millionaires.

(chuckling)

- [Colm] 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.

(dramatic music)

Next on museum's secrets,

how a falcon brought the Dark Ages into the light.

(dramatic music)

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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Dan] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] Frederick noticed that the Arabs train their birds

a little differently.

For one thing, they didn't seal their eyes with thread.

- [Dan] Originally, the Arab developed

the hood to replace the sealing

because they thought it wasn't such a wonderful idea.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

(dog whimpering)

- [Colm] 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.

(dramatic music)

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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] Thomas Schafer-Elmayer runs

Vienna's top dance academy.

Vanessa and Peter have never danced the waltz before.

- [Thomas] Gentlemen starts right foot forward,

the lady, left foot back.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

(dramatic music)

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.

- [Colm] 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.

- [Colm] 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.

(dramatic drumming)

Francisco Ceballos believes there are clues

in the picture gallery.

Starting with this likeness of King Carlos the Second.

(speaking in a foreign language)

The King's priests thought he was bewitched.

As a geneticist, Francisco thinks otherwise.

(speaking in a foreign language)

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.

- [Colm] 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.

(crackling thunder)

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.

- [Colm] 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.

(dramatic music)

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.

(dynamic music)

(electronic whoosh)