Alexius Johann

Alexius Johann (* 11. November 1753 in Steinach (Bad Bocklet) as Johannes Nikolaus Johann ; † 28. June 1826 in Mainz ) was a German Augustinian - Father (OSA), high school teacher, musician and composer as well as a major designer of astronomical clocks .

Life

He was the son of the bricklayer Nikolaus Michael Johann and Anna Heckel . The parents only seem to have immigrated to Steinach. A younger brother was Baptist Johann (1765-1826), a sister was named Salome . As “spiritual father people”, the parents often had Augustinian hermits from Münnerstadt as guests on their wanderings ( dates ), so they had excellent contacts with the order.

At the age of 15, his son Johann came to the Johann-Philipp-von-Schönborn-Gymnasium in Münnerstadt, which was run by the Augustinian order . His musical talent soon showed up here. He joined the Marian Congregation ( Congregatio Mariae Virginis de Consolatione ), of which he later became Prefect . After completing his school education, he joined the Augustinian Order, took his vows on August 14, 1774 and has called himself Father Alexius ever since .

First, Alexius studied philosophy in Würzburg . On September 21, 1777 he was ordained a priest there . To study theology , he then moved to the monastery in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1779 , which, like Münnerstadt and Mainz, belonged to the Rhenish-Swabian religious province . In 1781 the order transferred him to the monastery in Mainz, where Alexius was among excellent musicians, to which Father Alexius Molitor had previously belonged.

After passing the teaching examination in October 1782 by the electoral school commission, Alexius became a language teacher at the electoral high school in Mainz. His salary was 175 guilders , but he had only 25 guilders left for personal "amusement", which is why he was again able to earn 20 guilders as an organist in the church services at the grammar school. As a teacher, the two prefects judged him less positively in the following year (1783): “Professor Johann is too dead and shy. Since he interferes with too many pauses in his explanations, he kills the mindfulness of the students. " The second prefect judges: " The professors .... Johann in the second .... class do their best to the best of their ability, seem but having very little talent for teaching. .... Some professors don't think twice about reading and studying German language every day, some not at all like Johann .... “ Nevertheless, Johann continued his teaching until 1791, when the armed conflict with the French began .

After the introduction of the Republic of Mainz by the French, many clergymen refused to take the oath and were expelled from the country. So on March 8, 1793, Father Alexius was accompanied by eleven horsemen to Hochheim am Main with eleven other fathers and two Augustinian brothers , just before the Prussian outposts . From there he moved to Münnerstadt, where he and two other Augustinians arrived at the monastery on March 15th. Alexius enjoyed a high reputation in Münnerstadt, which is why he took over the post of prefect and professor as his successor on June 29, 1793 from his former teacher, Father Possidius Zitter . But soon after the capitulation of the French (July 23, 1793), Alexius returned to the monastery in Mainz at the end of the school year and to the school there, which had started teaching on August 13, 1793 - initially in the monastery rooms.

In retirement and as an ex-Augustinian, Johannes Nikolaus Johann accepted a position as pastor of the parish of St. Philippus and Jakobus in Heidesheim am Rhein on May 1, 1809 . His younger brother became his vicar there . Both stayed until 1821. On 20 August 1821 asked John the Episcopal Vicar General for his final retirement because of "increasing daily Leibs- and limb weakness and frailty that maketh him not only the progress extremely difficult, ..." On 15th Both brothers retired together in October 1821.

Thereupon they moved back to Mainz to the house of their friend Mathias Metternich , a mathematics professor in the Große Pfaffengasse . In Mainz Cathedral both worked as vicars. Five years later , Father Alexius Johann, who was born in Steinach as Johannes Nikolaus Johann, died on July 28, 1826 at 7:30 a.m. in Mainz. An obituary stated: "He lived in the quiet seclusion of the arts and sciences and thus produced works that posterity will admire even later on."

He was buried in the main cemetery in Mainz . The red sandstone grave slab is adorned with the emblems of the watchmakers' guild next to the inscription. In October 1993, at the instigation of the diocese archivist and local researcher Heinz Gauly, with the support of the then Steinach mayor Helmut Schuck , the now weathered grave slab was transferred to Johann's birthplace, restored there and has since been in the chapel of the Steinach cemetery in memory of the great clergyman and universal scientist displayed.

Musician and composer

Alexius has been the organist there from the beginning of his high school days in Münnerstadt . He also took part in the annual play and in the choirs. Even during his later years of study he worked as an organist and began to compose. His masses , Vespers and operas gave him public prestige in Freiburg. The high point of his work in Freiburg was the premiere of his Requiem , composed for the city administration on the death of the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa († November 29, 1780) , which he performed himself at the funeral mass in Freiburg Minster . Chroniclers reported after this performance of "great appreciation" and "jubilant applause".

Watchmaker

Will certainly need in his Freiburg period, Alexius has operated as a watchmaker and the astronomical clock to build the necessary knowledge of mathematics and cosmology , as a design engineer, mechanics and technicians autodidactically have acquired. Because in 1782 his Mainz ordinariate received a complaint - probably from circles of the craftsmen or the school - against him for illegal trade or craft. Alexius, on the other hand, asserted "that he was only concerned with making clocks for his own change and not for foreigners" . He has been dealing with this matter for some time. In the following years he became - like other clergymen of that time - a well-known " priest mechanic ".

In the years 1796 to 1804 - these dates are named on the chronogram of his watch - Alexius built his first large astronomical clock, his first "world machine". He himself described the clock as follows: “A four-sided frame with a diameter of 12 inches and a height of 16 inches rests on a meter-high commode, which forms the case of the clock.” Jürgen Abeler , owner of the Wuppertal Clock Museum , later described it: “The The base measures exactly 96 cm in height and has a square plan of 58 × 58 cm. The middle part is almost cubic with a height of 42 cm and a square 37 cm. The bell finally has a height of 38 cm, so that the total height of the clock is 1.76 cm. ” Alexius kept this first world clock in his own possession until his death and then bequeathed it to his brother Michael Baptist , who took it after his Death left to the city of Mainz. Today this clock - no longer functional - is kept in the Cathedral and Diocesan Museum (Mainz) .

In 1837, Charles V. Incledon wrote in his travelogue about Alexius' first large astronomical clock: “Here (in Mainz) you can also find one of the most remarkable pieces of watchmaking that was ever made by human hands, namely by Nikolaus Alexius Johann, a Monk from one of the forbidden monasteries. This watch, in addition to showing the exact time in hours, minutes and seconds, has a hand that shows the day of the week, week, month and year; the movement of the earth, sun, moon, and planets is clearly shown, as is any solar and lunar eclipse that can potentially occur within the next century. Perhaps one of the most perfect pieces of watchmaking mechanics ever completed by a human, this is as remarkable for the inventor's skill as a mechanic as it is for his talent as a top mathematician which he showed in its construction. Napoleon offered a very large sum of money for the watch to be able to bring it to Paris , but the patriotic monk preferred to leave it to his hometown without any fee or remuneration. "

A second large world clock, which Alexius constructed in part at the same time as his first from 1802, but not completed until 1809, is described by Christoph Aretz in 1830 (see references). This second clock was last in the Municipal Museum of Antiquities until it was destroyed in a bomb attack in July 1942.

A total of eight astronomical clocks from Alexius' workshop are known today.

literature

To person

• Heinz Gauly: The Johann brothers from Steinach , page 18, Sendner & Neubauer publishing house, Bad Neustadt (Saale) 2010
• Adam Gottron : Mainz Music History from 1500 to 1800 , page 120, in: Contributions to the history of the city of Mainz, Volume 18, 1959
• Heinrich Schrohe: Nikolaus Alexius Johann. Augustinian monk, school man, musician and stabilizer of astronomical clocks (1753-1826) , 1929
• Nikolaus Alexius Johann , in: Hessische Biographien , Volume 3, Verlag M. Sendet, 1973, ISBN 3500268307
• Jürgen Abeler: The Johann brothers, Augustinian monks and watchmakers , in: Mainzer Zeitschrift , 69th year (1974), page 197f.

To the clocks

• Christoph Arentz : Description of the astronomical clock which was calculated and manufactured by Mr. Nicolaus Alexius Johann, member of the former Augustinian order in Mainz, 1807 , Verlag Simon Müller, Mainz 1830
• Jakob Kraetzer: A short Description of the astronomical clock, exposed in the museum at Mentz and performed in the year 1807 by Nicholas Alexius Johann , Verlag Wirth, Mainz 1849
• Adolar Zumkeller: Manuscripts of works by the authors of the Augustinian Order of Hermits in Central European libraries , in: Cassiciacum, Volume 20, Augustinus-Verlag, Würzburg 1966
• Heinz Gauly: "Mainzer Zeitmaschinen" have no problems with the date 2000 , in: Vierteljahreshefte für Kultur, Politik, Wirtschaft, Geschichte , Volume 19 (1999), Issue 4, Pages 12-22, Mainz 1999
• Clemens Kissel : Reports in the Mainzer Tagblatt from January 18, 1876 and Mainzer Journal from May 23 about his repair of the second Johann clock

Web links

• Literature by and about Alexius Johann in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The godparents of both sons came from Waldfenster , which is why the assumption is allowed that at least one parent comes from Waldfenster.
2. ↑ Desiderius Gesterkamp: Liber Mortuorum, the deceased of the Rhenish-Swabian Augustinian Province and the new German Order Province 1650-1950 , page 250, Augustinus-Verlag, Würzburg 1972
3. ↑ The assessment concerning him after completing the teaching examination was: “... from Steinach in Franconia, studied philosophy in Münnerstadt Inferiora and in Würzburg, is 29 years old. His German and Latin essays are very good. The translations are good, also has a good lecture. ” - Source: Hermann Schmitt: The Augustinians as language teachers at the Kurfürstliches Gymnasium , in: Das Mainzer Gymnasium. Building Blocks of a 375-Year History (1561-1936) , page 69.
4. ^ The Mainzer Gymnasium , page 71
5. ↑ “They were allowed to take with them what they could always have carried without being visited.” - Source: Protokollum Conventus Augustinianorum Munnerstadii , tom. II (1699–1810), Historical Archive of the German Augustinian Province, Augustinian Monastery Würzburg.
6. ↑ Stadtarchiv Mainz , death register of the city of Mainz 1826, serial no.544
7. ^ New Nekrolog der Deutschen , Volume 2 (1826), Page 935 No. 196.
8. ↑ At that time Freiburg belonged to Upper Austria , so Maria Theresa had been the sovereign.
9. ^ The Mainzer Gymnasium , page 69/70
10. ^ Report on research by the Wuppertal Clock Museum , in: Mainzer Zeitschrift , Volume 69 (1974), page 199
11. ↑ Charles V. Incledon: The Taunus or Doings and Undoings , in: The Taunus , Publisher Schott & Thielmann, 1837, page 363