Welser was a
German banking and
merchant family, originally a
patrician family from
Augsburg, that rose to great prominence in international high
finance in the 16th century as financiers of
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. Along with the
Fugger family, the Welser family controlled large sectors of the
European economy, and accumulated enormous
wealth through
trade and the
German colonization of the Americas. The family received colonial rights of the
Province of Venezuela from the
Charles I King of Spain in 1528, becoming owners and rulers of the South American colony of
Klein-Venedig (within modern
Venezuela), but were deprived of their rule in 1556.
Philippine Welser (1527–1580), famed for both her learning and her beauty, was married to
Archduke Ferdinand,
Emperor Ferdinand I's son.