Franz Bredemeyer

Bernhard Albrecht Moll : The only existing picture by Bredemeyer, Philadelphia 1783.

Franz Bredemeyer (* 1758 ; † 1839 in Schönbrunn ) was a gardener who worked in Vienna . He took part in the Märter expedition for the procurement of plants, animals and minerals from 1783–1788, traveling independently to Martinique , Puerto Rico and Venezuela . From 1827 he headed the court gardens and the menagerie in Schönbrunn.

Life

Bredemeyer's origin is unclear. If one may conclude from the spread of his family name, he came from Lower Saxony. He possibly learned his trade at one of the castles of the high aristocracy in Moravia . In Schönbrunn he became an assistant to court gardener Ryk van der Schot .

Participant of the Märter expedition

With about 24 years Brede Meyer got the chance with botanists Franz Joseph Märter and Matthias Leopold Stupic , the painter Bernhard Albrecht Moll and Van der Schots first mate Franz Boos on a mission for the procurement of exotic plants, animals and minerals participate, by Kaiser Joseph II was funded. The expedition team traveled from April to September 1783 via Brussels, Paris and Le Havre to Philadelphia , where it arrived shortly after the formal end of the American War of Independence . Bredemeyer went on a botanical tour with Moll and took him by sea to Charleston (South Carolina) in December , where they met the other researchers again in January 1794.

As a result, Moll and Stupić turned their backs on the expedition and settled in Charleston. Boos and Bredemeyer were also accused of disobedience by Märter, the latter also being accused of indifference. He behaved "as if he had only been sent to do himself good." From June to November Bredemeyer brought the first groupage transport from Charleston back to Vienna via London and Ostend . As Märter had feared, it was not without losses.

Nevertheless, Joseph II sent Bredemeyer back to America at the end of 1784, which he had asked for. This shows that Märter was not as bad a boss as the emperor had thought after jumping from Moll and Stupic. Accompanied by the gardener Joseph Schücht , Bredemeyer drove via Bordeaux to Saint-Pierre in Martinique , where he arrived in March 1785. Although he stayed there for a long time without any news from the expedition leader, he used the stay to botanize. When Märter wanted to pick up Bredemeyer and Schücht in Martinique in June, seasickness forced him to stop in Guadeloupe . The gardeners only met him in August in Cap-Français ( Cap-Haïtien ) on Saint-Domingue ( Haiti ). Although all three were temporarily ill, Bredemeyer was the first botanist to travel to Puerto Rico in Spain until February 1786 .

Mission to Venezuela

In February 1786 Bredemeyer and Schücht von Märter were sent to Venezuela. They reached Caracas in March via Puerto Rico and the port of La Guaira . Originally Boos should have traveled there. In any case, Märter Bredemeyer gave Bredemeyer his papers, which is still confusing today. The gardeners were suspected of economic espionage and struggled with money worries. In Vienna, Märter was apparently blamed for these difficulties, but Bredemeyer defended him: he got to know him in Saint-Domingue as “very righteous”, “so that I (would have) valued myself very lucky the whole world to travel around him ”.

In the area around Caracas, Bredemeyer found the medicinal plant Sabadill (Schoenocaulon officinale), which he described in 1807. In September he and Schucht rode east to Guatire , Caucagua and Capaya (all in what is now the state of Miranda ). 13 years before Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland they saw the American cow tree (Brosimum utile) near Capaya in the rainforest of the coastal cordillera . From March to May 1787 they stayed west of Caracas in the valleys of today's state of Aragua and the Llanos (plains). In April 1788 they re-embarked in La Guaira. Via the Dutch Curaçao , where they chartered the American schooner The Commerce , they reached Amsterdam in July and Vienna in September.

Even if the botanist Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin failed to provide relevant information, many of the plants he described in the magnificent work Plantarum rariorum horti cæsarei Schœnbrunnensis descriptiones et icones (1797–1804) came from Bredemeyer. His plant collection was later sold to Berlin. Among other things , the botanist Carl Ludwig Willdenow took from his documents a description of cocoa plantations in Venezuela under red-flowered bucarés ( coral trees ) populated by parrots . A plant genus and various plant species are named after Bredemeyer.

Director of court gardens and menagerie

Giraffe house built under Bredemeyer's direction in Schönbrunn Zoo (status from 2010).

After returning from South America, Bredemeyer had bad luck twice: from the end of 1788, at the suggestion of Märters, whom Joseph II had appointed professor at the University of Brussels, he managed the botanical garden, but the two had to leave Belgium because of the Brabant Revolution in October 1789 flee. In April 1792 Bredemeyer embarked with van der Schot's son Joseph in Genoa to go to the East Indies and bring home the gardener Georg Scholl, who had been left behind by Boos in 1788 at the Cape of Good Hope . The outbreak of the First Coalition War led to a dispute with the French captain Nicolas Baudin , who owned the frigate La Jardinière (The Gardener) , so that he left the Austrians in Malaga in October .

In 1793 Bredemeyer became the overseer of the orchards and parks at Schönbrunn. He later looked after the archdukes ' gardens there , including the Alpinum . In Pressburg ( Bratislava ) he laid out the Vienna orchard . In 1802 he accompanied the Archdukes Anton , Johann and Rainer to the Schneealpe , where they had him collect "a whole truckload of strange herbs for botany", in 1807 Archduke Rainer to the Saualpe . The orangery in Schönbrunn, which was under his control, employed 13 people in the 190-meter-long glass house alone. It also included "many pineapple , orange and winter fruit houses".

After Boos retired, Bredemeyer was director of the court gardens and the menagerie until his death, 1827–1839 . Under his direction, the giraffe house was built in Schönbrunn in 1828 and an ensemble of parasitic plants in a glass house in the Dutch court garden , "as has not been seen before in such a replica and grouping of nature". He became imperial councilor in 1834 and was a member of the Agricultural Society in Vienna and a corresponding member of the Horticular Society of London , the Moravian- Silesian Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Natural History and Regional Studies in Brno and the Pomological Societies in Brno and Altenburg .

Bredemeyer was 80 years old. His wife Caroline died much earlier, whereupon an unmarried daughter seems to have taken care of the household.

Unprinted source used

Austrian National Library , Collection of Manuscripts and Old Prints, Cod. Ser. N. 3517.

literature

References and comments

personal data
SURNAME	Bredemeyer, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Gardener in Vienna
DATE OF BIRTH	1758
DATE OF DEATH	1839
Place of death	Schönbrunn

[1] There are numerous variants of the family name up to Brettermayer.

[2] Before May 28th. See Oesterreichisch-Kaiserliche privilegirte Wiener Zeitung , June 3, 1839, p. 775 ( digitized version ).

[3] New necrology of the Germans . 17th year, 1839, 2nd part, Bernhard Friedrich Voigt , Weimar 1841, p. 1196 ( digitized version ).

[4] See the list below of the companies to which Bredemeyer belonged and the biography of Franz Boos .

[5] Austrian National Library , Cod. Ser. N. 3517, fol. 37 f. (to Cobenzl, Charleston, June 15, 1784).

[6] Helga Hühnel: Imperial “journeyman gardeners” travel to America. In Elisabeth Zeilinger (ed.): Austria and the New World, symposium in the Austrian National Library, conference proceedings ( Biblos-Schriften 160), Austrian National Library, Vienna 1993, pp. 95-102, here: pp. 99 f.

[7] See Austrian National Library, Cod. Ser. N. 3517, fol. 141–144 (Märter an Born, Cap-Français, October 30, 1785, copy).

[8] Austrian National Library, Cod. Ser. N. 3517, fol. 129 f. (Märter to Cobenzl, Cap-Français, August 18, 1785).

[9] Ernst Moriz Kronfeld: Emperor Joseph II Cap Expedition (1786 to 1788). In: Wiener Zeitung, June 15, 1894, pp. 3–5, here: p. 4 ( digitized version ).

[10] Ignatius Urban (ed.): Symbolae Antillanae seu Fundamenta florae Indiae occidentalis, Volume 3, fratres Horntraeger, Lipsiae 1902 f., P. 27 ( digitized version ).

[11] Henri Alain Liogier : Botany and Botanists in Puerto Rico. In: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 776, No. 1 ( The Scientific Survey of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands ), June 1996, pp. 41-53 ( doi: 10.1111 / j.1749-6632.1996.tb17410 .x ), here: p. 42.

[12] Austrian National Library, Cod. Ser. N. 3517, fol. 220 f. (Instructions for Bredemeyer and Schucht, Cap-Français, February 7, 1785).

[13] Austrian National Library, Cod. Ser. N. 3517, fol. 205-207, 228 (Schucht to Cobenzl, Caracas, December 31, 1786); Helga Lindorf: Notices on the Austrian expedition in a Venezuelan document dated 1787 and comments on botanical names linked to the collectors. In: Acta Botanica Venezuela 27/1, Caracas 2004, pp. 57-64 (unpaginated digital copy ).

[14] Helga Lindorf: Notices on the Austrian expedition in a Venezuelan document dated 1787 and comments on botanical names linked to the collectors. In: Acta Botanica Venezuela 27/1, Caracas 2004, pp. 57-64 (unpaginated digital copy ); the same: Entre lo clandestino y lo permittido, Dos exploraciones botánicas del siglo XVIII documentadas en archivos venezolanos. In: Bitácora-e Revista Electrónica Latinoamericana de Estudios Sociales, Históricos y Culturales de la Ciencia y la Tecnología 2017/1, pp. 36–56 ( digitized version ), here: pp. 44–49.

[15] Austrian National Library, Cod. Ser. N. 3517, fol. 313 f. (Bredemeyer to Cobenzl, Caracas, September 15, 1787).

[16] natural history of toxic plants in the Austrian pharmaceutical copy officinäl are. (...) Edited and edited by a society of doctors and herbalists. v. Reilly, Vienna 1807, p. 7, 106-108 ( digitized version ).

[17] Austrian National Library, Cod. Ser. N. 3517, fol. 313 f. (Bredemeyer to Cobenzl, Caracas, September 15, 1787). According to Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin: Plantarum rariorum horti cæsarei Schœnbrunnensis descriptiones et icones, Volume 1, C. F. Wappler, Viennæ 1797, p. IV ( digitized version ), they would be much further east, to the interior of the Paria peninsula (state of Sucre ) and into the vicinity of the Orinoco - Delta , arrives.

[18] Austrian National Library, Cod. Ser. N. 3517, fol. 224–227 (calculation by Bredemeyer and Schücht, February 10– December 31, 1786), here: fol. 225 verso; Alexander von Humboldt , Aimé Bonpland : trip to the equinoctial -Gegenden of the New Continent in the years 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803 and 1804. 3. Theil, J. G. Cotta , Stuttgart / Tübingen 1820, p 180-193, 221 f. ( Digitized version ); Johann Baptist Rupprecht: The South American cow tree. (Palo de Vaca.) In: Oesterreichisch-Kaiserliche privileged Wiener Zeitung, August 31, 1838, p. 1213 ( digitized version ).

[19] Austrian National Library, Cod. Ser. N. 3517, fol. 270/273 (Bredemeyer to Cobenzl, Caracas, June 1, 1787).

[20] Austrian National Library, Cod. Ser. N. 3517, fol. 350 f. (Bredemeyer to Cobenzl, La Guaira, April 20, 1788).

[21] Austrian National Library, Cod. Ser. N. 3517, fol. 362 f. (Bredemeyer to Cobenzl, Amsterdam, July 7, 1788). According to Ignatius Urban (ed.): Symbolae Antillanae seu Fundamenta florae Indiae occidentalis, Volume 3, fratres Horntraeger, Lipsiae 1902 f., P. 158 ( digitized ), Bredemeyer would have botanized in Curaçao .

[22] Translation: Descriptions and illustrations of rarer plants in the Schönbrunn Imperial Garden.

[23] Helga Hühnel: Imperial “journeyman gardeners” travel to America. In Elisabeth Zeilinger (Ed.): Austria and the New World, Symposium in the Austrian National Library, proceedings ( Biblos-Schriften 160), Austrian National Library, Vienna 1993, pp. 95-102, here: p. 102 / note. 22; see. Leopold Joseph Fitzinger : history of the kais. Hof-Naturalien-Cabinetes (1st division). In: Session reports of the mathematical and natural science class of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, Volume 21, k. k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1856, pp. 433–479, here: pp. 457, 479 ( digitized version ).

[24] Carl Ludwig Willdenow : Some rare plants. In: The Society of Friends of Natural Sciences in Berlin new writings, 3rd volume, Berlin 1801, pp. 413-432, here: pp. 429-431 ( digitized version ).

[25] Helga Lindorf: Notices on the Austrian expedition in a Venezuelan document dated 1787 and comments on botanical names linked to the collectors. In: Acta Botanica Venezuela 27/1, Caracas 2004, pp. 57-64 (unpaginated digital copy ).

[26] Georg Ernst Kletten (Ed.): Wiener Medical Monthly, Volume 1, Joseph Georg Oehler, Vienna 1789, p. 253 ( digitized version ).

[27] Austrian National Library, Cod. Ser. N. 3517, fol. 380 f. (Märter to Cobenzl, Brussels, December 8, 1788); see. Provincial news from the Kaiserl. Royal States on Statistics, Economics, Action, Arts and Sciences (Vienna), March 14, 1789, p. 329 f. ( Digitized version ); Fundamenta et termini botanici, congesta secundum methodum, et ad ductum Celeberr. Eq. Car. à Linné , in usum prælectionum theoreticarum à F. J. Märter (…) Matthæus Lemaire, Bruxellis 1789, pp. 53–130, plate ( digitized ).

[28] The greenhouse gardener (...) From the English of Johann Abercrombie. Joseph Stahel, Vienna 1792, preface by the translator J. E. Fr. v. L., p. 8 / note. a ( digitized version ).

[29] Austrian National Library, Cod. Ser. N. 3517, fol. 414 f. (Bredemeyer to Cobenzl, Málaga, May 26, 1792), 416 f. (ditto, August 24, 1792), 418-420 (ditto, September 29, 1792); Madeleine Ly-Tio-Fane: Contacts between Schönbrunn and the Jardin du Roi at Isle de France (Mauritius) in the 18th Century. An Episode in the Career of Nicolas Thomas Baudin . In: Mitteilungen des Österreichisches Staatsarchiv 35/1982, pp. 85–109, here: pp. 103–107 ( digitized version ); the same: Le Géographe et le Naturaliste à l ' Île-de-France , 1801, 1803. Ultime escale du capitaine Baudin. Port-Louis 2003, ISBN 99903-31-12-X , pp. 54-62.

[30] Pomological systems in the monarchy. In: Economic News and Negotiations (Prague), December 1811, p. 459 ( digitized version ); Ernst Moriz Kronfeld: Park and Garden of Schönbrunn ( Amalthea library, 35th volume). Amalthea-Verlag, Zurich 1923, pp. 35–39, 70.

[31] Wiener Zeitung, August 25, 1802, p. 3097 f. ( Digitized version ).

[32] Letter from Carinthia of December 15, 1807. In: Intellektivenblatt der Annalen der Literatur des Österreichischen Kaiserthumes, Aprill (sic) 1808, columns 137-142, here: column 138 ( digitized version ).

[33] Friedrich Mayer: Some news about botanical gardens in and around Vienna. In: Flora or Botanische Zeitung (Regensburg), May 30, 1818, pp. 245-253, here: p. 246 f. ( Digitized version ).

[34] Leopold Joseph Fitzinger: Attempt a history of the menageries of the Austrian imperial court. In: Meeting reports of the mathematical and natural science class of the Imperial Academy of Sciences , Volume 10, k. k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1853, p. 300–403, here: p. 345 f. ( Digitized version ).

[35] Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst, Literatur, Theater und Mode, February 9, 1828, p. 139 ( digitized version ).

[36] Oesterreichisch-Kaiserliche privilegirte Wiener Zeitung, October 2, 1834, p. 909 ( digitized version ).

[37] Court and State Schematism of the Austrian Empire . 1st part, k. k. Hof- und Staats- Aerarial -Druckerey, Vienna 1838, p. 114 ( digitized version ).

[38] official journal for Oesterr. Kaiserl. priv. Wiener Zeitung, December 29, 1831, p. 1063 ( digitized version ); December 18, 1833, p. 707 ( digitized version ); December 28, 1837, p. 849 ( digitized version ).