Franz Weidmann

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Father Franz Weidmann OSB (* December 22, 1774 ; † October 15, 1843 ) was a Swiss clergyman and librarian . He was from 1833 to 1834 and from 1836 to 1843 monastery librarian in the prince abbey of St. Gallen .

Life

Father Franz, born as Isidor Josef Thomas Weidmann in Einsiedeln , was the son of Konrad Dominik Weidmann and Maria Barbara Röllin. After attending the monastery schools in Einsiedeln and St. Gallen , he made his profession on May 27, 1792 in St. Gallen . In 1792 he became a subdeacon , in 1796 a deacon . He was ordained a priest on June 2, 1798.

Act

Franz Weidmann began his career in St. Gallen as a vicar before he became a pastor in Berg near Rorschach for twelve years . He was unable to continue in office because of a lung condition. He later worked as a teacher at the Catholic high school in St. Gallen . From 1819 he was a library adjunct. A trip to Italy followed, which took him to Rome . Back in St. Gallen, he was a monastery librarian from October 12, 1833 to February 4, 1834 and from September 14, 1836 until his death on October 15, 1843. Weidmann was considered a liberal spirit who was open to the Enlightenment and inner-monastic reform efforts. For this reason he had been appointed abbey librarian by the liberal-minded Catholic administration , although Johann Greith would have been a well-deserved scholar.

Franz Weidmann wrote numerous printed and unprinted works, including a report on his trip to Rome (1821) and a history of the St. Gallen monastery under the last two prince abbots (1834). In both works, his liberal attitude, which was shaped by a time of upheaval, was clearly expressed, which is why they were received by conservative circles with critical distance. On the other hand, his work on the monastery library and its holdings met with greater response . Johannes Duft described his history of the library of St. Gallen from its foundation around the year 830 up to 1841 (1st edition 1841) as "the most important achievement of the librarian Franz Weidmann". His services for cataloging the St. Gallen manuscript holdings can also be classified as significant. In his Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum , Weidmann described in detail the manuscripts stored in the abbey library on a total of 2260 pages. Even if this catalog was hardly practicable due to the lack of a stringent system, it served as the basis for further inventory work, in particular for those by Gustav Scherrer .

Fonts

  • Views on the latest trip to Rome. St. Gallen 1821.
  • History of the former monastery and the St. Gallen landscape under the last two prince abbots of St. Gallen, especially during the years of the Swiss Revolution until the monastery was abolished. With original documents, extracts from correspondence and other enclosures. St. Gallen 1834.
  • History of the library of St. Gallen from its foundation around the year 830 up to 1841. Edited from the sources on the thousand-year jubilation. St. Gallen 1841.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johannes Duft: Franz Weidmann, the historian of the monastery library. In: Johannes Duft: The Abbey of St. Gallen. Vol. 3: Contributions to the Baroque Age. Sigmaringen 1994, pp. 202-211, here p. 204.
  2. ↑ Johannes Duft: Franz Weidmann, the historian of the monastery library. In: Johannes Duft: The Abbey of St. Gallen. Vol. 3: Contributions to the Baroque Age. Sigmaringen 1994, pp. 202-211, here p. 208.
  3. ↑ Manuscript catalog of the St. Gallen Abbey Library. Retrieved March 16, 2018 .
predecessor Office successor
Ildefons of Arx Librarian from St. Gallen
1833–1834 and 1836–1843 		Alois Fuchs
personal data
SURNAME Weidmann, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss clergyman and librarian
DATE OF BIRTH December 22, 1774
DATE OF DEATH October 15, 1843