Berthold Dietmayr

Berthold Dietmayr, Abbot of Melk (from: Newly opened World Galleria , 1703)

Birthplace in Scheibbs

Berthold Dietmayr (baptized name Carl Josef Dietmayr ; born March 15, 1670 in Scheibbs , † January 25, 1739 in Vienna ) was an Austrian Benedictine , abbot and politician.

Born the son of a court judge, he was abbot of Melk Abbey from 1700 , and in 1706 he became rector of the University of Vienna . He was both a decree of the prelate class of Lower Austria and advisor to the emperors Leopold I , Joseph I and Karl VI.

From 1702 Dietmayr had the medieval Melk Abbey completely baroque by Jakob Prandtauer and later by Joseph Munggenast (partly against the resistance of the convent ) . Initially it was about minor construction work; From 1705 it became clear that the entire monastery complex would be rebuilt. Melk thus became a world-famous example of the splendid baroque monastery, which was designed according to the courtly model.

Also in 1702 Dietmayr decided to have a new church built in place of the desolate church in Ravelsbach , which is incorporated into Melk Abbey . This was built from 1721 to 1726 according to plans and under the direction of Jakob Prandtauer based on the model of the Melk collegiate church by the master mason Leopold Stiepöck.

Dietmayr's attention was directed to all areas of the monastery (in 1707 he converted the four-class collegiate high school into a six-class high school), but his relationships at the imperial court became more and more intense. In 1720 he served as the emperor's envoy to Rome and Poland, in 1728 he became a real secret council, in 1732 he even took part in the interim government in Lower Austria (in the absence of the emperor). Its relations with its convent were not perfect: in 1722 the convent revolted against its abbot.

literature

• Anna Coreth:  Dietmayr, Berthold von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2 , p. 675 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Ignaz Franz Keiblinger : History of the Benedictine monastery Melk in Lower Austria, its possessions and surroundings. 2 volumes (in 4 sections). Beck, Vienna 1851–1869.
• Meinrad von Engelberg: Abbot and architect. Melk as a model of the late baroque monastery building. In: Richard van Dülmen , Sina Rauschenbach (ed.): Worlds of thought around 1700. Ten intellectual profiles. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2002, ISBN 3-412-07102-1 , pp. 181-207.

Individual proof

1. ↑ Church guide published by the Ravelsbach rectory, Gottfried Rennhofer Verlag, Korneuburg 2001

Web links

Commons : Berthold Dietmayr  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Entry on Berthold Dietmayr in the database of the state's memory for the history of the state of Lower Austria ( Museum Niederösterreich )
• Entry on Berthold Dietmayr in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )

predecessor	Office	successor
Gregor Müller	Abbot of Melk Abbey 1700–1739	Adrian Plieml