Gian Marchet Colani

Gian Marchet Colani

Gian Marchet Colani (born May 19, 1772 in Chamues-ch ; † August 17, 1837 in Pontresina ) was a Grisons hunter , mountaineer and gunsmith and one of the most legendary figures of the Upper Engadin of his time.

Life

As the son of the cabinet maker Jan Colani and Anna Lony (originally in Rhaeto-Romanic in the dialect Puter Culaun and Lum , later Italianized), Gian Marchet grew up in the farming village of Chamues-ch. The boy accompanied his father on the hunt at an early stage, and as a 14-year-old he is said to have shot 60 chamois .

On July 18, 1794, Gain Marchet Colani married Margretta Ambass from Bever and moved to the home village of his wife, who was three years older than him. On January 27, 1797 she gave birth to his daughter Anna and on July 8, 1798 to their son Giöry. Marital difficulties caused Gian Marchet to emigrate to France. Like many Engadines of his time, he wanted to complete an apprenticeship as a pastry chef in a confectionery . But he preferred to focus on the art of gunsmithing and was also plagued by homesickness, so that he finally broke off his apprenticeship and returned to the Engadin. His marriage was broken and after nine years they divorced.

Gian Marchet now earned money as a locksmith . In 1803 Gian Marchet went to Pontresina. There he married his second wife Maria Branger from Davos . Five children grew out of this happy marriage. Together with his wife, Colani worked as a locksmith as well as an innkeeper in Pontresina.

In 1837 Colani made a bet with a mower from Tyrol , which concerned his physical condition with the use of the scythe . He won the bet, but as a result of the exertion he fell ill and died not in his mountains as desired, but in bed in his Pontresin home.

Fame and rumor

Contemporary portrait

Colani is said to have shot two bears , two wolves and over 2,700 chamois , of which one day even ten in number, in the course of his life. He benefited from a new trigger technique he had developed himself, which enabled him to fire two shots one after the other at the shortest possible distance.

In August 1835, he was said to be the first alpinist to climb the eastern flank of Piz Palü together with Oswald Heer .

Based on a newspaper article in the "Stuttgarter Morgenblatt", the rumor arose that Colani had killed foreign hunters in his area and removed their bodies. The rumor lasted all his life, probably also nourished by the secrecy of Colani himself and his being, which was sometimes perceived by contemporaries as dark and eerie. It is documented that Colani kept unwanted strangers at bay with warning shots. At the same time, however, it is also guaranteed that, at the risk of his own life, he saved numerous people who were buried in avalanches.

Literary processing

Colani served as a model for the character of Markus Paltram in Jakob Christoph Heer's novel The King of Bernina , published in 1900 .

Web links

• Dolf Kaiser: Colani, Gian Marchet. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Brief information about Gian Marchet Colani
• Detailed information on his biography