Ernst II (Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg)
Ernst II. Ludwig von Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg (born January 30, 1745 in Gotha ; † April 20, 1804 ibid) was Prince of the Thuringian Duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg from 1772 until his death and came from the Saxon-Gotha line. Altenburg of the Ernestine Wettins . He was influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment .
Life
Ernst was a son of Duke Friedrich III. von Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg (1699–1772) and the Duchess Luise Dorothea (1710–1767) from the House of Sachsen-Meiningen . After the death of his older brother, Hereditary Prince Friedrich Ludwig , who died in 1756 at the age of 21, the Duchess took great care of the education of Princes Ernst and August (1747–1806). They were taught by selected tutors in literary, scientific and cameral fields.
1768–1769 both princes went on an educational trip that also took them to the Netherlands, England and France. Ernst got to know important personalities in politics, science and art.
As a liberal and enlightened ruler, Duke Ernst II had a wide range of artistic and scientific interests and developed a determined regime. He promoted the education system, the economy, the theater, the art collections, the library and the natural sciences in his country, which thus achieved the top position of the Saxon duchies in Thuringia. In his private life he was particularly interested in astronomy and physics . He called on competent specialists in all these areas. In 1783, after Goethe's mediation, he granted the painter Tischbein (Goethe-Tischbein) a scholarship for his second stay in Rome, the result of which was a historical painting ( Konradin von Schwaben and Friedrich von Oesterreich hear their death sentence while playing chess ) at the Gotha court.
For his special interests he won the important astronomer Franz Xaver von Zach for Gotha. With him he built the Gotha observatory , which developed into a European center of astronomy.
According to his ideas, from 1769, at the same time as the Dessau-Wörlitz Garden Realm , the Ducal Park in the south of the Gotha residence Schloss Friedenstein , one of the earliest examples of an English garden on the continent, was created. For the planning, he was able to win over his aunt Augusta von Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg, her gardener John Haverfield from Kew Gardens , through family relationships . His plans were implemented by the court gardener Christian Heinrich Wehmeyer until 1813 .
In this way he succeeded in making Gotha a highly regarded city despite its small size, which was visited several times by many important representatives of the time (including Goethe).
From 1774 he was a Freemason in the Great State Lodge of Germany and a member of the Gotha lodge 'Zum Rautenkranz', in 1775 State Grand Master of the Great State Lodge of Germany ( Zinnendorf system ), and in 1784 brought the Gotha Lodge into the Eclectic League . He became a member of the Illuminati in 1783 under the order name 'Quintus Severus' or ' Timoleon ', in 1784 'Inspector' of 'Abyssinia' (that was the name for Upper Saxony in the Order) and coadjutor of the National Superior, in 1785 'National' of the Order in Germany and 'Docet'. Since 1787 he promoted the plan for the 'Bund der Deutschen Freemaurer' and granted Adam Weishaupt asylum in Gotha after his escape from Ingolstadt.
Under Duke Ernst II, the Gotha mint had to cease operations. The enormous volume of small Thuringian coins and the inflow of foreign money as a result of the unsuccessful coinage policy of his father was a major reason for the shutdown of his mint from 1776 to 1828. In 1799 the Duke had the old mint torn down.
funeral
Ernst II had decreed "to be wrapped in a linen cloth in ordinary everyday clothing and buried in the bare earth in this form." He found his final resting place on the island in the great pond of the castle park , where he in without a coffin and in a simple equestrian uniform was buried in a pit lined with turf. In addition, he had stated in his will: “I expressly forbid any monument to be erected in my memory, be it a mortuary stone, grave inscription or any monument near or on my grave. If you want to plant a tree on it, I have no objection to it, so that my complete dissolution is not stopped, but rather promoted and useful by the last thought increased vegetation ”According to this wish, an acacia, symbolic tree of the Freemasons, was planted on his grave.
Apart from that, only the Seeberg observatory built at his instigation in 1787 was supposed to remind of him as the “only visible sign” of his existence. After the original construction of the observatory had to be canceled in 1904 due to dilapidation, the Gotha high school director and amateur astronomer Carl Rohrbach had a memorial plaque attached to one of the remaining instrument pillars with a reference to the observatory and Duke Ernst II. This monument is still in the outdoor area of the "Alte Sternwarte" restaurant that was built at the time.
reception
The Duke, who was interested in the sciences as well as in Freemasonry and Illuminati, was regarded by his subjects as a man with magical abilities. The legend that Ernst II was able to “ban” the fire has survived in Gotha to this day. In the event of a fire, he is said to have ridden around the fireplace three times on a white horse and muttered secret incantations to prevent the fire from spreading further. Immediately after the fire was “banished”, however, he had to reach the opposite bank of the nearest body of water as quickly as possible so that the flames did not follow him.
progeny
In March 1769, Ernst married Princess Charlotte of Saxony-Meiningen (1751-1827), daughter of Duke Anton Ulrich of Saxony-Meiningen . From this marriage there were four sons, two of whom reached adulthood:
- Ernst (1770–1779), Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg
- August (1772–1822)
- Frederick IV (1774-1825)
- Ludwig (* / † 1777)
literature
- August Beck: Ernst II. Ludwig, Duke of Saxe-Gotha and Altenburg . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, pp. 308-313.
- Christoph Köhler, Andreas Klinger, Werner Greiling: Ernst II of Saxony-Gotha-Altenburg . Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2005, ISBN 3-412-19905-2
Individual evidence
- ↑ Wolfgang Streguweit: History of the Gotha Mint from the 12th to the 19th Century , Weimar 1987, p. 135
- ^ Günter Thimm: The ducal park in Gotha , in: Gardens of the Goethe time , ed. by Harri Günther, Leipzig 1993, p. 116
- ↑ ibid.
- ^ Andreas M. Cramer, Die Gothaer Sagen , Gotha 2005, p. 66
- ↑ Duke Ernst banishes the fire on www.echt-gothsch.de
Web links
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Friedrich III. |
Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg 1772–1804 |
August |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ernst II |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Ernst Ludwig |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, scientist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 30, 1745 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Gotha |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 20, 1804 |
| Place of death | Gotha |