[1] On 20 January 1725, Emperor Charles VI appointed the Frenchman Jacob van Schuppen as Prefect and Director of the Academy, which was refounded as the k.k.

Hofakademie der Maler, Bildhauer und Baukunst (Imperial and Royal Court Academy of painters, sculptors and architecture).

In 1822 the art cabinet grew significantly with the bequest of honorary member Anton Franz de Paula Graf Lamberg-Sprinzenstein.

[2] In 1872, Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria approved a statute making the academy the supreme government authority for the arts.

[3] On 3 April 1877, the present-day building on Schillerplatz in the Innere Stadt district was inaugurated, the interior works, including ceiling frescos by Anselm Feuerbach, continued until 1892.

It is based on the assumption that had the young Adolf Hitler been accepted he might have become a recognized painter and never entered politics, and never become the dictator of Nazi Germany.

The dramatic tension in the book's plot develops from the Academy staff, deliberating whether or not to admit Hitler, thinking of it as an unimportant matter concerning a single unknown student – while the readers are aware that in fact, they are deciding the future of the entire world.