The translator and poet Hans Ludwig von Kuffstein played an important role as an intermediary between the courtly literature of Golden Age Spain (circa 1500-1680) and the early baroque writers who had fallen behind cultural and literary developments in western Europe in the wake of the Reformation and who, around 1600, attempted to lay a new foundation for German literature. Building on the Spanish tradition flourishing at the Hapsburg Court in Vienna, Kuffstein contributed significantly to the so-called Linzer Humanismus (Linz Humanism), Protestant literature in Upper Austria by writers such as Katharina Regina von Greiffenberg and Johann Wilhelm von Stubenberg. Of equal significance were Kuffstein's contributions as a diplomat who tried to settle differences among the emperor, the Protestant estates, and the peasants during the Thirty Years' War.

Kuffstein was born on 11 June 1582 in Linz, Upper Austria. Under his father, Johann Georg Kuffstein III, the Kuffsteins started their rise...