Dominic of Brentano

Dominikus von Brentano (actually Dominik Anton Cajetan Brentano , born October 6, 1740 in Rapperswil on Lake Zurich ; † June 2, 1797 in Gebrazhofen ) was a publicist, enlightenment theologian and Bible translator. Brentano was the author of the Enlightenment newspaper Latest World Events (from 1784).

Life

He was the twelfth child of the silk manufacturer and merchant Laurentius Brentano (1707–1746) and his Lucerne- born wife Maria Francisca Rusconi. After the early death of the father on August 26, 1746, an uncle took over the guardianship. Domenico Antonio Francesco Brentano (1703–1781) was a pastor and episcopal commissioner of Chur . He lived in Schänis , about 25 km from Rapperswil, as a local pastor. The uncle ensured an excellent upbringing and found a place to study at the traditional Collegium Helveticum in Milan , which he had attended himself. Here and at the connected Collegio di Brera, Dominic completed his studies with a doctorate in theology and was ordained a priest in 1763 by Cardinal Pozzobonelli , Archbishop of Milan.

Dominikus later moved to live with another uncle in the Habsburg episcopal city of Constance and, for a longer period, in the capital of the Habsburg foreland (also known as Upper Austria ) in Freiburg im Breisgau . Here he was raised to the nobility by Empress Maria Theresa . In 1768 he became court chaplain and teacher of the sons of the Reichserbtruchsess of Count Ernst Jakob von Waldburg-Zeil-Wurzach at Wurzach Castle .

In 1772, the multilingual Dominikus changed his professional position and became court chaplain and clergyman of the prince monastery Kempten as well as supervisor of the court library of the prince abbot. For almost twenty years he was the personal secretary of Prince Abbot Honorius Roth von Schreckenstein (1760–1785) and his immediate successor Rupert II von Neuenstein (1785–1793).

In 1787, Dominikus von Brentano was a co-founder of the Masonic lodge at the rising sun in Kempten. The declared aim of this lodge was to bring the Enlightenment to Kempten and to overcome the separation of the Catholic collegiate city of Kempten from the Protestant imperial city of Kempten.

After the unexpected death of Abbot Rupert II von Neuenstein on September 8, 1793 and the election of the previous Provost of Lautrach , Castolus Reichlin von Meldegg (1793–1803), as the last Prince Abbot, a declared opponent of enlightened ideas (he ruled until Dissolution of the prince monastery Kempten 1803), he planned to leave the court.

On May 31, 1794, Dominikus von Brentano left Kempten and became pastor of Gebrazhofen . In the vicinity of Leutkirch in the Allgäu he took over a small and poorly paid parish, under the patronage of the prince monastery Kempten, but on Austrian territory. Here he was able to devote himself to his scientific and theological work as a staunch Catholic educator and to his health problems.

According to family tradition, Dominikus took in his niece Marianne , the daughter of Franz Xaver Brentano, who died in 1775, and promoted her education. As Marianne Ehrmann-Brentano, she became one of the first female writers. He also took on another nephew, Heinrich Franz Ernst Brentano (1768–1831), who had also lost his father at an early age, and promoted his theological studies in Freiburg. For his ordination on December 18, 1790, Dominic gave him a theological textbook he had written himself.

In 1790–91 he began his main work, a translation of the Bible from the original languages ​​into German. However, he was only able to complete this work for the New Testament; from the Old Testament he translated the Pentateuch, the Psalms and the Proverbs, his work was continued by Thaddäus Anton Dereser .

On May 10, 1797, a French army marched into Gebrazhofen and looted and destroyed the small town. Dominikus von Brentano did not recover from this excitement, so that he died in Gebrazhofen on the night of July 2nd to 3rd, 1797. In his parish church, a plaque on the outer wall of the sacristy reminds of him.

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  Memorial plaque on the church in Gebrazhofen

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  Detail shot

literature

• Reinhold Bohlen (editor), Dominikus von Brentano 1740-1797 , Paulinus Verlag Trier, 1997