Baptist Johann

Baptist Johann (* 12. April 1765 in Steinach (Bad Bocklet) as John Michael John ; † 26. September 1826 ) was a German Augustinian - Father (OSA) and constructor 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. An older brother was the Augustinian Father Alexius Johann (1753-1826), 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.

As a younger Michael Baptist was probably always overshadowed by his better-known older brother Nikolaus Alexius , which is why the sources are poorer. But he was also musically gifted and, like his brother, worked as a designer of astronomical clocks.

As a 14-year-old Michael came in 1779 - ten years after his older brother - also to the Johann-Philipp-von-Schönborn-Gymnasium in Münnerstadt , directed by the Augustinian order . On April 23, 1780 he becomes a member of the Marian Congregation ( Congregatio Mariae Virginis de Consolatione ). After completing his high school education, he began studying theology at the University of Würzburg on November 26, 1784 .

He then entered the Augustinian monastery in Munich as a novice . But as early as 1786 his superiors sent him to their brothers in the monastery in Speyer , which, like those in Münnerstadt and Mainz, belonged to the Rhenish-Swabian order province . There he took the religious vows on October 21, 1786 and chose the name Johannes Baptista . In the following year 1787 he was sent to the monastery in Uttenweiler to complete his theological studies , where he was ordained a priest on September 27, 1789 and he is mentioned as a confessor , preacher and organist . Five years later (1794) Baptist was transferred to Mainz, where his brother was already working as a high school professor again. From then on, both were to stay together until the end of their lives.

In retirement and as an ex-Augustinian, his brother Nikolaus Alexius accepted a position as pastor of the parish of St. Philippus and Jakobus in Heidesheim am Rhein on May 1, 1809 , where Michael Johann accompanied him as vicar . Both stayed until 1821. On August 20, 1821, Nicholas asked the Episcopal Vicariate General for his final retirement, which the two brothers were then approved on October 15, 1821.

Then they moved back to Mainz together to the house of their friend Mathias Metternich , a math professor in the Große Pfaffengasse . In Mainz Cathedral were both then as vicars. Five years later, the older brother died on July 28th, 1826. He bequeathed his first large world clock to the younger one with the stipulation that after his own death the city of Mainz handed it over. Alone, Michael Johann spent the last days he had left in his birthplace Steinach from mid-August, apparently already ill, lived with the widow Neugebauer, since the parents' property was no longer in the family, and was looked after by her. But on September 26th of the same year 1826 he died - almost exactly two months after his older brother. The medical officer had it noted in the church register: “Father Johannes Michael Johann, retired Augustinian and cathedral vicar of Mainz, Steinach No. 4, single, cystitis - Dr. Schmitt. ” The funeral took place on October 2nd in the old Steinach cemetery around the parish church of St. Nicholas. Only two days before his death, on September 24th, Johann had written his will that the mayor passed on to the Royal Bavarian Regional Court of Münnerstadt . The opening of the will was set for October 3, 1826. Here he decreed in the spirit of his brother: “4. The large astronomical clock is to be given to the episcopal seminar in Mainz. "

Watchmaker

At the latest in his years in Mainz, Baptist Johann acquired extensive autodidactic knowledge in mathematics and cosmology as well as as a mechanic and technician in order - like his brother - to construct several astronomical clocks as a so-called " priest mechanic ". Today, according to Jürgen Abeler , six wall clocks designed by Baptist in the Empire style with the designation Jean Baptiste Johann à Mayence are known, of which at least four were still privately owned in the 1970s. One was in the possession of the Mainz music publisher Ludwig Strecker senior. (1853-1943). Another belonged to the diocese archivist Franz Falk (1840–1909), a third to the curator of the Mainz Gemäldegalerie , Dr. phil. Rudolf Busch .

Abeler wrote about a fourth astronomical pendulum clock , originally in the possession of the Mainz bishop Johann Jakob Humann (1771–1834): “It surpasses the other clocks in its indication, because apart from the hours, minutes and seconds, it has the perpetual calendar with date and month , also indicates the sunrise and sunset during the year, the course of the moon , the spring and autumn equinox , as well as the summer and winter solstice . ” Two of the six clocks are now in Abeler's Wuppertal clock museum .

literature

• Heinz Gauly : The Johann brothers from Steinach , page 18, Sendner & Neubauer publishing house, Bad Neustadt (Saale) 2010
• Jürgen Abeler : The Johann brothers, Augustinian monks and watchmakers , in: Mainzer Zeitschrift , 69th year (1974), page 197f.

Web links

• Literature by and about Baptist 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. ↑ Liber Morutorum of the Rhenish-Swabian Augustinian Province and the new German Order Province 1650-1950 , page 251, no. 654
3. ↑ Today this first large clock by Alexius Johann - meanwhile no longer functional - is kept in the Cathedral and Diocesan Museum (Mainz) .
4. ↑ Death register of the parish St. Nikolaus, Steinach, page 64f.