Francesco Arcangeli (Winckelmann murderer)

Francesco Arcangeli (born May 18, 1737 in the Tuscan village of Campiglio di Cireglio near Pistoia , † July 20, 1768 in Trieste , executed) was the murderer of Johann Joachim Winckelmann . His name is passed down in the Winckelmann murder file.

Sequence of events

Even before the murder of Winckelmann, Arcangeli had committed a criminal offense. a. for stealing from his employer in Vienna . After that he was not allowed to stay in Austrian territories, which included Trieste at the time. Winckelmann was stuck in Trieste because he couldn't get a ship to cross to Venice . Arcangeli helped him find it.

Arcangeli was Winckelmann's room neighbor in the Hotel Osteria Grande , today's Grand Hotel Duchi d'Aosta in Trieste. Winckelmann became friends with him and showed him gold and silver coins that he had received from Empress Maria Theresa . Motivated by the sight of the coins, Arcangeli first tried to strangle his victim with a piece of rope. When that didn't work because Winckelmann was relatively strong, he stabbed him with seven knife stabs.

Winckelmann died about six hours after the attack and was able to provide the authorities with information about what had happened.

Arcangeli tried to escape arrest by escaping but was caught. Not only on Winckelmann's statements, which were surprisingly clear despite his life-threatening injuries, and on indications such as bloody cord and knife, but also on numerous testimonies the authorities were able to fall back on in the investigation. Both the accused and the witnesses were questioned again. Arcangeli himself, who had to testify several times, said - at least according to the files - the untruth several times, because he hoped for a mitigation of the sentence. He even tried to pass the blame on to Winckelmann himself, because he had first given him the idea of ​​the deed by showing the coins. The authorities also did not fail to have the cause of death clarified by means of forensic medical reports from several experts. According to the experts' reports, five of the seven knife wounds in Winckelmann's body were to be classified as life-threatening and were considered to be the cause of Winckelmann's death. Winckelmann fought so fiercely that both of his hands were injured when - according to the reports - he repeatedly reached into the knife to keep it away from his body.

After the authorities had proved beyond reasonable doubt in a very meticulous for that time investigation Arcangeli fault, he was sentenced to death and publicly in the same year in Trieste by wheels executed . However, the investigation remained incomplete on one point: it was neglected to record the Arcangelis escape route or to ask him about it. It seems that some sympathized with Arcangeli's act to the extent that they tried to divert his pursuers, the Austrian authorities unpopular with the Italians, on the wrong tracks.

Lore

The murder file on Winckelmann, which provides detailed information about what happened, was rediscovered in 1963 by Cesare Pagnini . In addition to this murder record, there is a will Winckelmann, which he did not write down with his own hand due to injury.

About 40 years after the murder, Domenico Rossetti asked for access to the files in order to be able to give a detailed description of the incident, and was given access to the files. His descriptions of Winckelmann's last week of life based on the Trieste court files are available in print. In Rossetti's description, Winckelmann's death takes on the traits of a tragic heroic epic even as reflected in the facts in the court files. It is also largely thanks to Rossetti that Winckelmann did not fall into oblivion. Soon after the fact, Winckelmann was forgotten in Trieste, so that it was no longer known where his grave was. Johann Gottfried Seume arrived here in 1802 on his walk to Syracuse and happened to be staying in the same hotel where Winckelmann was murdered. At the time of Winckelmann's arrival, the hotel was probably only completed shortly before.

In the extensive Winckelmann literature, numerous different explanations of the motives of the murder have been discussed over the course of almost 250 years. Speculations about the background to the murder have never stopped, although the external facts are known. Again and again there was speculation about whether it was robbery, a dispute among homosexuals, a murder in diplomatic matters, a contract murder by the Jesuits or even by competing archaeologists. With the latter conceivable possibilities, Arcangeli would have acted as a handyman. Hein van Dolen denied in murder in Trieste. The death of Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768) from a new point of view (= Akzidenzen ; Volume 10; Winckelmann-Gesellschaft; Stendal; 1998) even that it was Winckelmann who was killed in Trieste, but without a plausible answer on who else was the murdered man. Dolen also expresses the assumption (p. 46 f.) That Winckelmann was no longer known to the emperor and empress at the time immediately after his murder. That doesn't sound very believable, however. Most likely, the standard interpretation as robbery may continue to apply.

literature

• Domenico de Rossetti : Johann Winckelmann's last week of life. A contribution to his biography. From the original judicial files of the criminal trial of his murderer Arcangeli. Edited by Dom. v. Rossetti. With a preface by Böttiger and a facsimile by Winckelmann . Dresden 1818
• Domenico de Rossetti: Il sepolcro di Winckelmann in Trieste . Venice 1823
• Cesare Pagnini (Ed.): Winckelmann murder files: the original files of the criminal trial against the murderer Johann Joachim Winckelmann (Trieste 1768), found and the wording of the original in Trieste 1964 . Translated and commented by Heinrich Alexander Stoll. Akademie-Verlag Berlin 1965 (Italian edition: Gli atti originali del processo criminale per l'uccisione di Giovanni Winckelmann 1768. 1964)
• Franco Farina: End point Trieste. Suffering and death of Johann Joachim Winckelmann . (= Commercial work ; Volume 5). Winckelmann Society, Stendal 1992 (fiction treatment of the topic)
• Hein van Dolen: Murder in Trieste. The death of Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) from a new perspective . (= Commercial work ; Volume 10). Winckelmann Society, Stendal 1998
• Mathias Schmoeckel: Fiat Iustitia! Theme and variations on a murder in Trieste , Stendal 2005; Akzidenzen 15, flyers from the Winckelmann Society, edited by Max Kunze, ISBN 3-910060-71-4
• Literary processing of the murder of Winckelmann in: Hans-Joachim Schädlich. Gone: three stories. Reinbek 2007.
• Radio play adaptation: Rolf Schneider : The Winckelmann Affair , Österreichischer Rundfunk 2009 (Director: Walter Niklaus )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ European Enlightenment between Vienna and Trieste: the diaries of ... by Karl Zinzendorf (Graf von), Grete Klingenstein, Eva Faber, Antonio Trampus, online at books.google.de, p. 95.