Friedrich Christian Matthiä

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Title page of a work by Friedrich Christian Matthiä, Frankfurt, 1817

Friedrich Christian Matthiä , (born December 30, 1763 in Göttingen ; † March 21, 1822 in Frankfurt am Main ), was a pedagogue and classical philologist as well as an academic book author.

Live and act

Friedrich Christian Matthiä was born in Göttingen as the son of the medical professor and librarian Georg Matthiä . He attended the Protestant high school in Erfurt and, from 1777, the high school in his hometown . At the Georg-August University in Göttingen , Matthiä studied philology and linguistics with Christian Gottlob Heyne (1729-1812), theology and oriental linguistics with Johann David Michaelis and various other subjects with Johann Christoph Gatterer (1727-1799), Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742 –1799), Christoph Meiners (1747–1810) and August Ludwig von Schlözer (1735–1809). He also learned English, French, Italian and Spanish.

After completing his studies in 1787, Matthiä went to teach the Latin and Greek languages ​​at the Latin city and state school in the county of Wied zu Neuwied . In 1789 he became the successor of Karl Christian Heyler as director of the stately high school in Grünstadt , residence of the Counts of Leiningen-Westerburg . Matthiä worked here very knowledgeable and diligent until the French marched in as a result of the war in 1793 and he had to flee. The fronts between the French revolutionaries and the German imperial army changed several times, with Blücher and his red hussars also temporarily occupying Grünstadt in 1794. In that year Friedrich Christian Matthiä also returned to the town and resumed his work as a grammar school director. In 1797, during the Peace of Campo Formio , Grünstadt came to the French Département du Mont-Tonnerre with the seat of government in Mainz .

After the French had closed the grammar school in Grünstadt, Matthiä went to teach the Latin and Greek languages ​​at the department's “central school”, previously the University of Mainz . In 1802, from Mainz, he wrote to his brother August about his time as director in the tranquil Grünstadt residence:

“How much I regret that the circumstances have pushed me out of my school director's position in Grünstadt. Nowhere was I happier than there, especially from 1789 to 1792, before the tiresome party spirit hit people and tore all social ties. "

- August Matthiä in his life and work

In Mainz , Friedrich Christian Matthiä was elected to the municipal council of the city in 1800, and in 1801 also to the Conseil Général ( general council ) of the Département du Mont-Tonnerre . In this function he became a member of the "Commission for the Organization of the School in Grünstadt". Due to his influence he succeeded in rebuilding the local high school, which he took over as rector in 1802. It is the city's Leininger grammar school, which still exists today . The new French laws and regulations on teaching contradicted Matthiäs world views, which is why he resigned in 1804 and left Grünstadt for good. He also turned down a position offered to him by Minister Antoine François de Fourcroy as head of the Mainz Lyceum. The philologist emigrated from France and was appointed to the municipal high school in Frankfurt am Main .

In a letter he wrote:

"I swapped France for Frankfurt, just as it ceased to be frank or free and a res publica became a res privata of the Gallic emperor."

In 1806 the Frankfurt City Council appointed him rector. On the occasion of this promotion, the Philosophical Faculty of his old University of Göttingen appointed him an honorary doctorate (Dr. hc).

After the end of the Holy Roman Empire in August 1806, the imperial city of Frankfurt fell under the rule of Prince Primate Karl Theodor von Dalberg . After the founding of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt , Dalberg planned to set up a state university. On February 1, 1812, he issued the school patent with which he decreed the establishment of a high school in Frankfurt. At the newly founded Lyceum Carolinum , Matthäi became professor for ancient languages ​​at the philosophical faculty in 1812. At the same time he was appointed to the senior high school and college degree and confirmed in his role as the director of the high school. Matthai wrote to his brother August about this promotion:

“I have received a grand ducal decree on all of this and to go for it. Kanzlei-Sporteln 40  fl. 12 kr., That is, according to your cursed penny system 22 thalers. 8 gr., Have to pay, that makes 2 thl for one syllable. 11 5/9 gr. I wish that every syllable of your Euripides will bring you as much! If this wish comes true, one day you will not have to worry about suitors of your daughters, and your sons can be raised to the rank of count. "

In 1822 Matthäi died in Frankfurt of an intestinal obstruction .

The geographer Carl Ritter was a student of Friedrich Christian Matthiä in Frankfurt and was friends with him. Together with the Frankfurt doctor Johann Christian Ehrmann , Matthiä founded the satirical order of the crazy court councilors in 1809 .

Friedrich Christian Matthiä has his own encyclopedia entry in Pierer's Universal Lexikon 1860, as well as in Brockhaus Universal Lexikon , 1827. In the English Encyclopedia Britannica from 1911 Friedrich Christian Matthiä is mentioned separately in the article about his brother August Matthiä.

family

The brother August Matthiä (1769-1835) worked as a well-known philologist in Weimar and Altenburg .

Friedrich Christian Matthiä married Anna Christina Fries, who came from there, in Grünstadt in 1800, daughter of Johann Casimir Fries , the Count of Liningian court counselor. The marriage resulted in the son Ernst August Matthiä (1812-1887), who was involved in the Frankfurt Wachensturm in 1833 , was sentenced to life in prison in 1836 and escaped from the Konstablerwache in Switzerland on January 10, 1837 . Here he lived as a doctor in Wülflingen near Winterthur . It was listed in the infamous Black Book of the Frankfurt Central Investigation Authority .

Journalistic work

Friedrich Christian Matthiä published a large number of publications, of which the “Comments on three passages in Herodotus, Cicero and Livius” appeared in a new edition in 2009 as a paperback. His best-known works are Seneca's letters, published in Frankfurt 1803–1808. He also worked as a translator of foreign books.

The best known of his publications are:

  • Some suggestions for improvements in Homer's hymn to Apollo , Kranzbühler, 1792
  • Some remarks on the 21st book of Livy . (Invitation to the Gymnasium zu Grünstadt), 1793
  • “Comments on the Livian-Polybian Descriptions of the Battle of Cannae and the Siege of Syracuse” , Frankfurt High School, 1807
  • L. Annaei Senecae ad Lucilium juniorem Epistolae , 2 volumes, 1803–1808
  • Comments on three passages in Herodotus, Cicero and Livius , 1810
  • Prolegomens to Cicero's conversations from the speaker, for my students , Frankfurt Gymnasium, 1812.
  • Matthias Quad: a contribution to the German literary and art history of the 16th and 17th centuries , 1815
  • The Patriarch Gregorius of Cyprus autobiography: a contribution to the literary and school history of the thirteenth century, together with one of Gregory's unprinted letters from a manuscript , 1817
  • Arati Phaenomena et Diosemea: quibus subjiciuntur Eratosthenis Catasterismi. Dionysii Orbis terrarum descriptio. Rufi Fest Avieni utriusque poetae metaphrases , 1817
  • About two passages in Aeschylus and Horace , 1818
  • Brief overview d. Roman. u. Greek. Maas-: weight u. Coinage , 1818
  • From some important enrichments of the city library in Frankfurt a. M. , 1819
  • The Retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks, after John Macdonald Kinneir , 1819
  • Sample of a new edition of the Leibnitz-Ludolfische Correspondence , 1820
  • About Pater Meermann's thermometric observations in the local library, etc. Calculations , Frankfurt High School, 1821
  • Directory of the Frankfurt am Main library , 1822
  • About the destruction of the Roman cities on the Rhine between Lahn and Wied by the Germans in the middle of the third century, as they have shown in excavations near Neuwied , 1823 (posthumously)
  • News about the remains of Roman antiquity in the vicinity of Neuwied , 1823 (posthumous)

literature

  • Brockhaus Universal Lexikon , Leipzig 1827, Volume 7, p. 195
  • Pierers Universal Lexikon , Altenburg 1860, Volume 11, p. 10
  • Immanuel Konstantin Matthiae: August Matthiä in his life and work , Quedlinburg, 1845 (with a separate chapter on Friedrich Christian Matthiä); Scan of the entire book
  • Friedrich Ernst: Rector Matthiä's report on the Grünstadt grammar school in the vortex of the revolution from 1793 to 1796 . In: Neue Leininger Geschichtsblätter , Grünstadt, year 1926/27, pp. 30–31
  • Otto Liermann: The Lyceum Carolinum: A Contribution to the History of Education in the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt . Knauer Verlag, 1908, pp. 30–32 ( digitized version )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Matthiä about his time in Grünstadt. In: August Matthiä in his life and work . Quedlinburg 1845, pp. 116/117
  2. ↑ Quoted from Otto Liermann: Das Lyceum Carolinum. A contribution to the history of education in the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt. In the school program of the Wöhler Realgymnasium No. 591, Easter 1908, pp. 31–32.
  3. ↑ Otto Liermann: The Lyceum Carolinum: A Contribution to the History of Education in the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt , Knauer Verlag 1908, p. 33 ( digitized version )
  4. ^ About the friendship between Matthiä and Carl Ritter
  5. ↑ Matthai . In: Universal Lexicon of the Present and Past . 4., reworked. and greatly increased edition, Volume 11:  Matelica – Nishnei-Kolymsk , self-published, Altenburg 1860, p.  10 .
  6. ^ Friedrich Christian Matthäi. In: Brockhaus Universal Lexikon , Leipzig 1827, Volume 7, p. 195
  7. ^ Matthiae, August Heinrich . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 17 : Lord Chamberlain - Mecklenburg . London 1911, p. 899 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
  8. ^ Richard Hoche:  Matthiae, August . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1884, pp. 626-628.
  9. ↑ Genealogical website, u. a. with information on the Matthiä family
  10. ^ Website on the Black Book of the Central Investigation Authority, with information on Ernst August Matthiä
  11. ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: Modern edition of a work by Friedrich Christian Matthiä )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.flipkart.com
  12. ↑ Complete book scan of a philological work by Friedrich Christian Matthiä, from 1817
personal data
SURNAME Matthiä, Friedrich Christian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Matthiae, Friedrich Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pedagogue and classical philologist, scientific author
DATE OF BIRTH December 30, 1763
PLACE OF BIRTH Goettingen
DATE OF DEATH March 21, 1822
Place of death Frankfurt am Main