Ferdinand Franz Wallraf

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Ferdinand Franz Wallraf; Painting by Johann Anton de Peters , 1792

Ferdinand Franz Wallraf (born July 20, 1748 in Cologne ; † March 18, 1824 there ) was a German botanist , mathematician , priest and important art collector .

biography

Ferdinand Franz Wallraf was the son of a Cologne master tailor. From 1760 he attended the Gymnasium Montanum and from 1765 the artist faculty , from which he graduated in 1767 with the degree of Magister Artium . Since he had no money for higher studies ( theology , law , medicine ), Wallraf, who had received the minor orders in 1763, had to hire himself out as a teacher.

On December 9, 1772 by the Cologne Auxiliary Bishop Karl Aloys von Koenigsegg-Aulendorf for priests ordained , his friend gave him Professor Johann Georg Menn from 1776 to study medicine, which he on 1 June 1778 Baccalaureate and on August 3, 1780 the Master's degree. On August 18, 1784 , the old University of Cologne awarded the eager and successful pedagogue a professorship and the canonical of St. Maria im Kapitol . Canon and chair were linked. As early as 1785, he was commissioned to work on the improvement of the school and university system in the city, an attempt at reform which, however, came to nothing due to the city government. He received his doctorate in medicine in 1788, he was also a doctor of philosophy , was elected rector of the university (until 1796) at the end of 1793 and in 1795 acquired another canonical to St. Aposteln zu Cologne. He used his own resources to renovate the botanical garden in Zeughausstrasse for study purposes.

After the university was abolished by the French occupation in 1798 , Wallraf, who had refused to take the oath to the republic, became a teacher at the central school in 1799, the university's successor. For this, however, he had taken the oath on January 21 of that year. On October 28, 1798 he, who had been professor of botany and natural history at the medical faculty, became professor of fine sciences .

In 1798, Wallraf became Conservateur des monumens , an office that was expanded to include what was then the district of Cologne in 1807 as part of the sub-prefecture's soil monument protection ordinance . His own collection, however, was intended to restore the university. His collection included Roman excavation pieces (some of them from the collection of Count Sternberg-Manderscheid from Blankenheim) , various medieval paintings, religious works of art, manuscripts and early prints, coins, fossils, but also historical weapons and sculptures.

In 1809, Ferdinand Franz Wallraf, in his capacity as conservator, was commissioned to design the new Melaten cemetery in Cologne, using the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris as a model. He described his plans in the 1809 publication "About the new Stadtkölnischen Kirchhof zu Melaten". From the beginning, he also planned the cemetery as a recreation area and as a public green area.

Around 1809 he founded the "Olympic Society" together with the teacher Johann Caspar Schug (1766-1818) in Cologne. This society was dedicated to cultivating art and literature as well as Cologne humor and dialect. The society met weekly in winter in Wallraf's apartment in the Dompropstei and in summer in a high-altitude restaurant on the bulwark , which the members understood as Olympus and thus gave the society its name.

On his 75th birthday in 1823, Wallraf was awarded an oak wreath as a citizen's crown by the Cologne City Council. Later, the term "Arch Citizen" was coined for him, which is equivalent to a preliminary form of honorary citizenship .

Wallraf was also one of the regular authors of the early Kölnische Zeitung .

Cologne street names in French

On August 9, 1812, during the French era, Wallraf received an order from the French administration through Mayor Johann Jakob von Wittgenstein to propose objective, new French street names for the streets of Cologne . If possible, Wallraf should check the historical background or the form of the Old High German, Middle High German and Old Cologne connections and traditions and find their expression in the new name. The official ordinance for this was issued on December 16, 1812. Wallraf frequently consulted Theodor Franz Thiriart , who, for example, considered “rue des oliviers” for the olive street and not Wallraf's suggestion “rue des olives” to be more correct. There was now the opportunity to abolish offensive names: “Pißgasse” became “Passage de la Bourse” (Börsengässchen), the bus (en) street was now called “rue du buisson” (Buschgasse). With regard to house numbers , it was based on the house number system ordered by city commander Brigadier General Charles Daurier in November 1794. On January 18, 1813, Thiriart was the publisher of this only Cologne address book in French, the “ Itinéraire de Cologne ” (“New naming of the streets, squares, ramparts and moats of the city of Cologne”) written by Wallraf, with house numbering for the first time.

testament

In his third will of May 9, 1818, after many years of negotiations and attempts to organize the holdings, Wallraf finally appointed the city of Cologne as the universal heir of his collection. He formulated the requirement that they "remain with this city and community for the benefit of art and science for ever, should be preserved and sold, relocated elsewhere, set up or withdrawn from them under any imaginable pretext." The city accepted the donation on May 16, 1818.

Ferdinand Franz Wallraf died on March 18, 1824 and was buried in the Melaten cemetery in Cologne . It took almost two years to view and catalog the heritage. The city first exhibited its collections from 1827 to 1860 in the “Wallrafianum” at 7 Trankgasse . Many Cologne museums emerged from this first museum. Most of the collection is now in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum . Wallraf's manuscripts are in the Historical Archives of the City of Cologne (holdings 7010). After the archive building collapsed on March 3, 2009, they were almost completely recovered and identified. Wallraf's library with approx. 14,000 prints from the 15th to 19th centuries. was also bequeathed to the city of Cologne in 1824 and is now in the Cologne University and City Library .

Monuments

Bronze seat image by Ferdinand Franz Wallraf. (Wilhelm Alberman, 1900) Common gravestone of Ferdinand Franz Wallraf and Johann Heinrich Richartz
Bronze seat image by Ferdinand Franz Wallraf. (Wilhelm Alberman, 1900)
Common gravestone of Ferdinand Franz Wallraf and Johann Heinrich Richartz

Designations

In 1830 the city of Cologne named the square southwest of the cathedral , on which the provost's office where Wallraf lived, “ Wallrafplatz ”. There is also a Wallraf Street in Bornheim , Kerpen and Neuss . However, Wallrafstrasse in Bornheim is named after Johann Wallraf, the first teacher in Bornheim.

In 1861 the city of Cologne named the museum, which was built especially for Wallraf's art collections, after the collector and the museum donor "Wallraf-Richartz-Museum".

literature

Web links

Commons : Ferdinand Franz Wallraf  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ G. Quarg: FF Wallraf (1748-1824) and natural history at the old Cologne University . In: Martin Schwarzbach (Hrsg.): Natural sciences and natural scientists in Cologne between the old and the new university (1798-1919) . Böhlau, Cologne 1985, p. 7 .
  2. ↑ Cornelius Steckner, Wallraf as Conservateur des Monumens de Cologne, In: Wallrafs Erbe. A citizen saves Cologne, Cologne 2018, pp. 166–176.
  3. ↑ Cornelius Steckner, Museum and Floor Monument Preservation in the Arrondissement de Cologne before 1814 and the educational system since 1794, Kölner Jahrbuch 46, 2013, pp. 335–368.
  4. ↑ Willi Spiertz: Eberhard von Groote: Life and Work of Cologne Social politician and literary scholar (1789-1864), pp 125-129 Digitalisat
  5. ^ Robert Zahn: Ferdinand Franz Wallraf - The only "Archbishop of Cologne" in: Topography: History Wallrafplatz, website www.Campi-im-Funkhaus.de [1] ; also: Schwedt, Herbert: The Prince, the Rhine, the Carnival. Ways of civil carnival in: Fastnacht / Carnival in European comparison , ed. by Michael Matheus , Stuttgart 1999, p. 65 [2] and a.
  6. ↑ The house biographer of the publishing house in which the Kölnische Zeitung appeared, Ernst von der Nahmer, attributed the rediscovery of the " Alaaf ", which later became the Cologne carnival call, to Wallraf . Ernst von der Nahmer: The history of the Cologne newspaper , Volume 1, M. Dumont Schauberg, Cologne, 1920, p.?.
  7. ^ Adam Wrede , Neuer Kölnischer Sprachschatz , Volume III, 1984, p. 5
  8. ^ Johannes Kramer, Street names in Cologne during the French period , 1984, p. 113
  9. ^ Franz Steiner Verlag, Journal for Company History , Volume 24, 1979, p. 15
  10. ↑ Elisabeth Schläwe, Sebastian Schlinkheider: Last will with great effect - The wills of Ferdinand Franz Wallraf (1748-1824). In: mapublishing-lab. 2018, accessed on July 3, 2018 (online publication on Wallraf's three wills with extensive source material).
  11. ↑ Ferdinand Franz Wallraf's third testament of May 9, 1818, Historical Archive of the City of Cologne (HAStK), Best. 1105 (Ferdinand Franz Wallraf), A 27 (Testamentary dispositions), fol. 27r-32v. Digitized and transcribed at: Elisabeth Schläwe, Sebastian Schlinkheider: Last will with great effect - Ferdinand Franz Wallraf's wills (1748–1824) . In: mapublishing-lab. 2018, accessed July 3, 2018 ( online ).
  12. ↑ Between antiquarian erudition and enlightenment. The library of the Cologne University Rector Ferdinand Franz Wallraf (1748–1824) (= Small Writings of the University and City Library Cologne 18). University and City Library Cologne 2006, ISBN 3-931596-34-6 .
personal data
SURNAME Wallraf, Ferdinand Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German botanist, mathematician, priest and art collector
DATE OF BIRTH July 20, 1748
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH March 18, 1824
Place of death Cologne