Georg Christoph Eimmart

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Self-portrait accompanied by angels and Athena .
G. Chr.Eimmart: Planisphaerium Coeleste , 1705 (copy around 1730)

Georg Christoph Eimmart (born August 22, 1638 in Regensburg ; † January 5, 1705 in Nuremberg ) was the founder of the first Nuremberg observatory , mathematician and copperplate engraver .

Origin and family

Georg Christoph Eimmart was born as the son of Georg Christoph Eimmart the Elder (1603–1658), painter and engraver in Regensburg, and Christine geb. Banns († 1654), daughter of the Austrian toll administrator Damian Banns.

On April 20, 1668 he married Maria Walther, a daughter of the weighing master Christian Walther. From the marriage a son (not surviving) and the daughter Maria Clara Eimmart (1676-1707) were born.

Live and act

After attending the Regensburg Gymnasium poeticum (today Albertus-Magnus-Gymnasium Regensburg ), Eimmart attended the University of Jena from 1655 . Here he mainly studied mathematics under Erhard Weigel , with whom he had a lifelong friendship. At the end of 1658 he returned to Regensburg.

After his father died around 1660, he followed his sister Regina Christina (1636–1708) to Nuremberg, who had married Jacob von Sandrart, who had settled in Nuremberg as a copperplate engraver and ran a small art publishing house. Eimmart probably hoped to get a job as a copper engraver in this environment, which he succeeded. He was involved in the management of the painting academy founded in 1662 and was director of this institution from 1699 until shortly before his death.

Eimmart's portrait by the sculptor Georg Schweigger

Eimmart used the money he earned from his artistic activity to set up an observatory. He founded this in the autumn of 1678 on the Vestnertorbastei of Nuremberg Castle . In 1688 he had to close his observatory because there was a risk that the French would devastate the Franconian lands in the Palatinate War of Succession and that the bastion would be used again for its actual purpose. However, he was able to resume operations the following year. At the end of the 17th century, Eimmart's observatory was the only larger observatory in Germany.

Eimmart's daughter Maria Clara Eimmart was an independent astronomical observer who drew around 250 sketches of the moon between 1693 and 1698 and observed the total solar eclipse on May 12, 1706. The previous January she had married Johann Heinrich Müller , who had been an assistant at the observatory since 1687. She died in childbed the following year.

After Georg Christoph Eimmart's death, his observatory was bought by the city of Nuremberg and Müller was appointed director. When Müller followed a call to Altdorf in 1710 , Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr became the new head of the observatory. After his death, his successor Georg Moritz Lowitz was only able to have the rotted devices dismantled in autumn 1751. A new construction of the observatory failed due to the finances of the city of Nuremberg.

Eimmart's estate, comprising 57 thick volumes , ended up in the State Library of Saint Petersburg .

Services

Georg Christoph Eimmart's work consisted in the design and production of celestial and land maps and globes .

The importance of the Eimmart observatory lies less in the scientific observations that were made here, because the measurement accuracy was around the values ​​that Tycho Brahe had already achieved around 100 years earlier. But Eimmart loved to surround himself with young people at the observatory, who received such a solid introduction to observational astronomy . Some of his assistants later made considerable contributions to astronomy and geography . In addition, Eimmart opened his observatory to the public during special celestial events. The Eimmart Observatory can thus be described as the first people's observatory in Nuremberg, if not the first people's observatory of modern times worldwide.

Memorial column on the Vestnertor Bastion

Memberships and honors

In 1699 Eimmart was accepted into the Paris Academy of Sciences , and in 1701 at the suggestion of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz into the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences .

The lunar crater Eimmart was named after Eimmart by the important astronomer Johann Hieronymus Schroeter around 1800.

Since May 25, 2007, a memorial column for Eimmart has stood on the site of his observatory, the Vestnertorbastei at Nuremberg Castle. The column was erected by the Nuremberg Astronomical Society .

Fonts

  • New actual chart of the Rhine river. Loschge, Nuremberg 1689. Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf
  • Full charter / Von Frankenland. Loschge, Nuremberg 1689.
  • Tabula Nova Circuli Franconici cum omnibus suis limitibus from Anno XXXVIII hujusd. Seculi constructa, III. post Annis evulgata per Joh. Georg. et Georg Conr. Iungios, Fratres Latiori fronte in partes quatuor divisa, recenter edita et aucta per GCE Nuremberg 1690.
  • SR Imp. Circuli Franconici or the entire Francken-Land with its borders in 68th complete country charts. Nuremberg 1692.
  • Phenomenon Anuum Vespertinum, detectum Noribergae. In: Acta Eruditorum. Volume February 13, 1694, pp. 58f.
  • Ichnographia nova contemplationum de sole in desolatis antiquorum philosophorum ruderibus. Endter, Nuremberg 1701.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://naa.net/ain/haben/show.asp?ID=39

literature

Web links

Commons : Georg Christoph Eimmart  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Eimmart, Georg Christoph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Nuremberg astronomer and engraver
DATE OF BIRTH August 22, 1638
PLACE OF BIRTH regensburg
DATE OF DEATH January 5, 1705
Place of death Nuremberg