Friedrich Johann Lorenz Meyer
Friedrich Johann Lorenz Meyer (born January 22, 1760 in Hamburg ; † October 22, 1844 ibid) was a German lawyer, president of the Hamburg cathedral chapter , an avowed supporter of the French Revolution and travel writer .
Live and act
The son of the wine merchant Johann Lorentz Meyer (1696–1770) and his second wife Katharina Maria Kern (1723–1803) studied law at the University of Göttingen after leaving school in 1778 , which he completed in 1782 with his doctoral thesis: “ De dignitatibus in capitulis ecclesiarum cathedralium et collegiatarum ”. This was followed by a longer study trip through Switzerland, Italy and France before he initially temporarily settled as a lawyer in his home town of Hamburg in 1784 .
Since his mother had already acquired a prebende (benefice) at the Hamburg cathedral monastery in 1774 in order to financially secure a position in the cathedral chapter with reservations for her son, Meyer was also able to take up a position as canon at the Hamburg cathedral from 1784 on the basis of this foundation . After the secularization of Hamburg Cathedral due to the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss in 1803, Meyer, who had meanwhile been promoted to "Praeses Capituli", lost his position.
Since Meyer, according to the legal situation at the time, was not allowed to be a citizen of Hamburg in his function as a canon and thus could not perform any state tasks, he was already involved in the Patriotic Society of 1765 , an "enlightened non-profit society", from 1785 onwards unselfishly committed to the "promotion of the arts and the useful trade", as it was initially in its founding name. Meyer took on the role of librarian from 1789 to 1793, headed the secretariat of this society from 1790 to 1825 and was meanwhile also editor and co-author of its writings.
In addition, Meyer was one of the members of the monthly society founded by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock , with whose works he had already come into contact in his earliest youth and with which he now had a sincere friendship that lasted even after Klopstock's death with his bereaved. Meyer also found a partner in spirit and deeds in Georg Heinrich Sieveking , who was also a member of the Patriotic Society. Shaped by his social contacts and his family environment - his father-in-law and former Göttingen doctoral supervisor Georg Ludwig Böhmer was considered an important modernizer in the field of criminal law in the Age of Enlightenment and his wife's brother, Georg Wilhelm Böhmer , was one of the co-founders of the Mainz Republic - Meyer wanted to spread the ideas of the Enlightenment in the Hamburg area together with Sieveking. On July 14, 1790, he and Klopstock and others took part in the revolutionary celebration that Sieveking had organized on the occasion of the anniversary of the storm on the Bastille in Harvestehude and which attracted attention far beyond Hamburg. Together they were considered to be supporters of the French Revolution and were suspected of being not only close to the reading society founded by the French ambassador Francois le Hoc and the publicist Friedrich Wilhelm von Schütz based on the model of the Mainz Jacobin Club , whose president was Sieveking, not only close, but even one Wanting to found the Jacobin movement in Hamburg. Like Sieveking, Meyer was also a member of the Freemason Lodge Absalom zu den Drei Netteln in Hamburg.
In 1793, due to his revolutionary sentiments, le Hoc was expelled by the Hamburg Senate, whereupon France imposed a trade embargo on the Hanseatic city. Once through the suppression of the counter-revolutionary uprising on October 5, 1795 by Napoleon Bonaparte and Paul de Barras a time of domestic political peace had returned in France, Meyer was one in April 1796 a run by Sieveking special delegation to the Paris negotiations with the French Directorate for This embargo was lifted, which was finally crowned with success in June 1796. Meyer was also a member of another deputation in 1801 , which led further bilateral negotiations with Napoléon, the incumbent First Consul of the French Consulate .
From his early study trips to late years, Meyer was repeatedly active as a versatile travel and art writer, but also as a political and social reporter. He reported, for example, on the effects of the Mainz Republic or later on his stay as a deputy in Paris, where he came into contact not only with politicians but also with artists and scholars. In addition, he worked as a translator and reviewer for the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung and the magazine Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek , and as a freelancer for three major Hamburg newspapers, but also for the Allgemeine Zeitung by Johann Friedrich Cotta in Stuttgart and Augsburg.
family
Friedrich Johann Lorenz Meyer was married to Sophie Friederike Amalie Boehmer (1766–1840), daughter of the law professor and Privy Councilor Georg Ludwig Böhmer , with whom he had three sons. One of his sons, Paul Emil Meyer (1805–1866), later married Dorothea Amalia Luisa Boehmer (1816–1889), daughter of his brother-in-law and co-founder of the Republic of Mainz and justice of the peace in the Kingdom of Westphalia Georg Wilhelm Böhmer .
Fonts (selection)
- Representations from Russia's imperial city and its surroundings to Gross-Novgorod , Hamburg, Nestler, 1829 ( digital copy from the holdings of the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Research ).
- Representations from Northern Germany , Kiel, Schramm, 1815, ( digitized )
- View of the cathedral in Hamburg , Hamburg, Nestler, 1804, ( digitized , SUB Hamburg).
- Letters from the capital and the interior of France . Tübingen, Cotta,
- Sketches for a painting of Hamburg , Frederik Hermann Nestler, Hamburg,
- Volume 1 (Issue 1–3), 1800; Booklet 1 digitized , booklet 2 digitized and booklet 3 digitized
- Volume 2 (Issue 4–6), 1802; Issue 4–6 digitized
- Publication of the following texts in Johann Smidt (Ed.), Hanseatisches Magazin , Friedrich Wilmanns, Bremen, ( online , State and University Library Bremen):
- First volume, first issue (1799), II. On the current state of the fine arts in Hamburg . P. 91ff.
- First volume, second issue (1799), VII. Hamburg Society for the Advancement of the Arts and Useful Trades . Overview of their negotiations in the past six months from Michael 1798 to Easter 1799. P. 271ff. and VIII. Memorable rescue of five people in the last ice drift of the Elbe . P. 294ff.
- Second volume, first issue (1799), I. Sketches for a moral painting of Hamburg . P. 1ff. and IV. Poor Asylum in Hamburg, pp. 140ff.
- Volume two, volume two (1799), VII. Ritzebüttel . P. 265ff.
- Third volume, first issue (1800), I. Sketches for a painting of Hamburg . Continuation. P. 1ff. and II. attempt to present the action crisis in Hamburg , autumn 1799. pp. 69ff.
- Fourth volume, first issue (1800), I. Sketches for a painting of Hamburg . Continuation. P. 5ff. and II. Society's reading room, Harmonie, in Hamburg . P. 66ff.
- Fifth volume, first issue (1801), I. Büsch and Kirchhof , II. Büsch's honorary monument in Hamburg . P. 18ff., III. Physical cabinet of the late Senator Kirchhof in Hamburg . P. 27ff. and V. Samples of a picture gallery of Hamburg men of the eighteenth century . P. 115ff.
- Sixth volume, second issue (1802), II. Arrangement and condition of the Hamburger Bank . P. 181ff.
- Fragments from Paris in the 4th year of the French Republic , Karl Ernst Bohn, Hamburg, 1797, in 2 parts, part 1 digitized and part 2 digitized
- Mainz, after being taken back by the allied Germans , Hamburg, Schnuphase, 1793, digitized
- Representations from Italy , Berlin, Voss, 1792, digitized
Portraits
- Johann Gerhard Huck , mezzotint, Hanover 1799, notation : Anton Graff pinxt // JG Huck sculpt , 29.1 × 22.7 cm (panel size ), ( online , Gleimhaus Halberstadt, graphics collection, [loan from St. 17]), ( digital Portrait index )
- Friedrich Wilhelm Bollinger , copper engraving , 1801, notation: FW Bollinger fec. 1801 , ( SUB Hamburg )
- Siegfried Detlev Bendixen , lithograph , Hamburg 1818, notation: after a drawing by Gröger on stone by Bendixen , paper: H: 53.5 cm, W: 38 cm, ( Museums SH )
- Friedrich Carl Gröger and Heinrich Jacob Aldenrath , lithograph, 1835, 13.5 × 13.5 cm
- Anton Graff , oil on canvas, 62.5 × 50.5 cm. Hamburger Kunsthalle .
- Friedrich Carl Gröger , oil on canvas, 40 cm × 33.6 cm. Bez .: Gröger pinxit / 1830. Altona Museum
Literature and Sources
- Hans-Thorald Michaelis : History of the von Boehmer family - In continuation of the genealogy, written by Hugo Erich von Boehmer in 1892, of the Boehmer and von Boehmer families descended from Justus Henning Boehmer as well as some of the families related to them. , Page 78-82, Rheinische Verlagsanstalt, Bonn-Bad Godesberg (1978);
- Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock : Works and Letters. Historical-critical edition , page 969 ff., Berlin and New York (Walter de Gruyter) 1974 ff. Google book
- Karl Veit Riedel : Friedrich Johann Lorenz Meyer 1760 - 1844. A life in Hamburg between the Enlightenment and Biedermeier , publication by the Association for Hamburg History; Vol. 17, Hamburg, Christians, 1963
- Werner von Melle : Meyer, Friedrich Johann Lorenz . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, p. 574.
- Otto Beneke : History and genealogy of the Lorenz Meyer family in Hamburg , printed as a manuscript, Hamburg, 1861, Google book ULB Düsseldorf
- Meyer, Friedrich Johann Lorenz . In: Pierer's Universal-Lexikon , 4th edition, 1857-1865, p. 226
- Christian Friedrich Wurm : Words of Remembrance , Negotiations and Writings of the Hamburg Society for the Promotion of the Arts and Useful Trades, Negotiations from 1844, Nestler & Melle, Hamburg 1845, p. 142
Web links
- Literature by and about Friedrich Johann Lorenz Meyer in the catalog of the German National Library
- Fonts in the joint union catalog (GVK)
Individual evidence
- ↑ These texts are partly identical and partly revised in the publication Sketches for a Painting of Hamburg .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Meyer, Friedrich Johann Lorenz |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German President of the Cathedral Chapter in Hamburg, supporter of the French Revolution and travel and art writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 22, 1760 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hamburg |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 22, 1844 |
| Place of death | Hamburg |