[1] Born in Cölln on the Spree, now a central part of Berlin, into the ruling House of Hohenzollern, Albert was the younger son of John Cicero, Elector of Brandenburg and Margaret of Thuringia.

Albert also did not meet the requirements for taking over any diocese, since he had not yet reached the age, and he didn't have a college degree; therefore he received a study dispensation in 1513.

It cost him the considerable sum of ten thousand ducats,[5] and Albert employed Johann Tetzel for the actual preaching of the indulgence.

Luther sent these to Albert on 31 October 1517, and according to a disputable[7] tradition, nailed a copy to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg.

Recent research assumes that he lived in a marriage-like relationship at first with Elisabeth "Leys" Schütz from Mainz and then with the Frankfurt widow Agnes Pless, née Strauss.

[10] Albert's large and liberal ideas, his correspondence with leading humanists, his friendship with Ulrich von Hutten whom he drew to his court, and his political ambitions, appear to have raised hopes that he could be won over to Protestantism; but after the German Peasants' War of 1525 he ranged himself definitely among the supporters of Catholicism, and was among the princes who joined the League of Dessau in July 1525.

However, these precious treasures, known as Hallesches Heilthum (the Halle sanctuary), indirectly related to the sale of indulgences which had triggered the Reformation a few years before because it should attract pilgrims willing to pay.

Then, the cardinal and the Catholic members of the town council wanted to repress the growing influence of the Reformation by holding far grander Masses and services in a new church dedicated solely to the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose excessive worship Luther disliked.

New doctrines nevertheless made considerable progress in his dominions, and he was compelled to grant religious liberty to the inhabitants of Magdeburg in return for 500,000 florins.

Albert left the town permanently after the estates in the city had announced that they would take over his enormous debt at the bank of Jakob Fugger.

Albert also ordered paintings from Hans Baldung Grien and a cycle of 18 life-size statues of saints from Peter Schro in Mainz, which can still be admired in Halle Cathedral today.

He sold parts of the treasure of relics in order to be able to settle claims of the cathedral chapters of Magdeburg and Halberstadt; the sanctuaries are scattered today.