Anton Fugger

Anton Fugger was a German merchant, mining magnate, banker and member of the Fugger family. He was a nephew and heir of Jacob Fugger the Rich.

Anton was the third and youngest son of George Fugger and Regina Imhof, but as one of his brother died and the other showed no interest in business, his uncle Jacob Fugger the Rich decided that Anton is the one to continue the family business. Anton met with difficulties in running the business, most of which were connected to his European mining operations, but he overcome them successfully and established new trade ties with Peru and Chile, engaged in mining ventures in Sweden and Norway, as well as in the slave trade from Africa to America.

Anton Fugger was also active in high finances and was one of the most important creditors of the Habsburg family and especially of the Emperor Charles V. From roughly 28 million ducats borrowed by the Spanish crown during the reign of Charles V, the Fuggers provided 5.5 million ducats, or almost one-fifth, of the total credit provided to the crown.

Anton was well aware of the business climate of his age and he started to invested more and more in land in order to safeguard the firm's assets. He acquired large estates, for instance Babenhausen, Glött and Kirchheim, as future sources of the family's livelihood. In his will he even stipulated that mercantile activities be dissolved six years after his death. However, the Fugger mercantile firm did not actually cease its activities until almost a century later.