ABSTRACT
John Cicero was a far milder ruler than his father, “Achilles” of Ansbach, to whom the rattle of harness and the clank of mail on mail was the sweetest of music. John was the first of his House to care for the Mark of Brandenburg, and he was the first to be buried there; he rests in Berlin Cathedral beneath an artistic monument in bronze, the work of Peter Vischer. John actually did more for his country than merely wring taxes from it, as previous Hohenzollern rulers had done. The Elector John was not unpopular in his domains, largely because he centred his interests in the Mark, and had as little as possible to do with foreign affairs. As a landlord himself John usually took the part of his Markish nobility; he made them his councillors in preference to the Frankish officials his father and grandfather had imported into the country, and even created some of them doctors of jurisprudence.
