June 2026

The Austrian Consulate General, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, and Villa Aurora are pleased to present a book talk with author Monika Czernin, highly acclaimed author of The Emperor Incognito: Joseph II’s Journey Through Enlightenment in conversation with Claudia Gordon, director of the Villa Aurora.
The Emperor Incognito is the story of an extraordinary man in an age of upheaval: a ruler who spent a quarter of his twenty-five-year reign not on his throne, but on the road. His efforts were titanic, his ambitions radical, his frustrations immense. “Here lies Joseph, who failed in everything he undertook,” was his self-written epitaph, and yet the modern Austrian monarchy was his achievement in a Europe in which progress was no longer
determined solely by its rulers.
As author Czernin notes, “Today, we are once again living in a time of crises. Societies are drifting apart and good governance is at stake. When elites distance themselves from the masses, when inequality grows, and when those who govern lose contact with the grassroots, things go wrong. The fact that an absolute monarch in the 18th century recognizes ‘where the shoe pinches’ is truly astonishing, and thus Joseph II can serve as a role model even today.”