Georg Brentano

Georg Brentano on a portrait drawing from the 19th century

Georg Michael Anton Josef Brentano (born March 12, 1775 in Ehrenbreitstein ; † February 22, 1851 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a Frankfurt merchant and the eldest son of Peter Anton Brentano with his second wife Maximiliane von La Roche , a friend of Goethe .

life and work

The Petrihaus in Frankfurt-Rödelheim

After his father's business retreat and his move from Frankfurt am Main to Koblenz , the residence of the Elector of Trier, he became chief financial officer of the Brentano banking and trading company and ran it together with his half-brother Franz Dominicus Brentano . At Georg's initiative, the trading house concentrated entirely on banking from 1830 onwards. To distinguish himself from Franz, he called himself Brentano-Laroche .

Brentano was married to Maria Schröder, daughter of a rent master from Bergen near Frankfurt. His wife died in 1815 and had four children: Claudine (1804–1876); she married Georg Firnhaber von Eberstein called Jordis , Sophie (1806-1856). Franz (1809–1830) and Ludwig also called Louis (1811–1895).

After his wife's death, he went on a three-month trip to Italy in 1816, accompanied by Ludwig Emil Grimm . Numerous sketches have survived from this trip, which took him to Naples.

Brentano's grave in Frankfurt's main cemetery

His real goal in life seems to have been the creation of a landscape park. In 1808 he bought a private garden and country house from the Prussian court advisor Friedrich Wilhelm Basse . In 40 years Georg expanded this garden in Rödelheim near Frankfurt through around 40 acquisitions to an area of ​​approx. 13 hectares. He had a Greek bathing temple and an artificial labyrinth built, as well as planting pomegranate, orange and other noble trees. For a long time he tried in vain to buy a half-timbered house on the Nidda from a Rödelheim baker named Petri . It was not until 1819 that he was able to acquire this building, later called Petrihaus , with a lot of money and have it converted into a refuge for himself.

His descendants sold the property to the city of Frankfurt in 1926. The country house was destroyed in the Second World War and the ruins were removed in 1957. The Brentanobad , the largest open-air swimming pool in Hesse, was built on one part . A small part (approx. 3 hectares of the former 13) has since served as a public recreational area ( Brentanopark ).

literature

• Wolfgang Klötzer (Hrsg.): Frankfurter Biographie . Personal history lexicon . First volume. A – L (=  publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XIX , no. 1 ). Waldemar Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-7829-0444-3 .
• Jochen Lengemann : MdL Hessen. 1808-1996. Biographical index (= political and parliamentary history of the state of Hesse. Vol. 14 = publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse. Vol. 48, 7). Elwert, Marburg 1996, ISBN 3-7708-1071-6 , p. 89.

Web links

Commons : Georg Brentano  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Homage to Georg from his great-grandchildren.
• Brentano, Georg Michael Anton Josef. Hessian biography. (As of March 12, 2020). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
• Brentano, Georg in the Frankfurt personal dictionary
• Entry on Georg Brentano in the Rhineland-Palatinate personal database