Jakob Fugger became so rich that he loaned money to the Catholic Church to build the St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. The Catholic church was panicking on how to repay those loans, that they started selling indulgences, and this lead to Martin Luther protesting, and launching Protestanism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_Fugger

> In the year 1500, Jakob Fugger loaned the Vatican the money necessary to build the new St. Peter's Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, as well as other buildings within the Vatican. To repay Jakob the massive amount of money owed, Pope Leo X had to heavily tax the German people as well as sell indulgences, which was heavily unpopular with a large group of monks, including Martin Luther. Partly because of the corruption within the church, Martin Luther was prompted to write his Ninety-five Theses.

What is interesting (and maybe also telling to a degree) is that this "first public housing" isn't actually "public" housing, as in government-owned. It's private.

And I would obviously fail all three requirements to get housing there: Be an Augsburg resident, a Catholic, and a respectable person.

It is still in operation and is a nice place (sometimes a bit crowded...).

PS: the old purely mechanical doorbells are also still operational (can be seen in the photograph, the forged metal rod to the left/right of the entrances)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuggerei

You goto pray 3 father-ours for the old fugger, so that he is released from purgatory.. and kukas iwa gets cheaper..

There's one in the Netherlands that dates back to 1395: https://hofjesinhaarlem.nl/hofjes-in-haarlem/hofje-de-bakene...

One of my favourite subjects :)

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40754737

Interesting that they still discriminate based on religion.

Now I wonder whether the rent changed.

Really unfortunate name...