Ignaz Weinhart (Jesuit)

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Ignaz Weinhart SJ (Ignaz von Weinhart zu Thierburg and Vollandsegg, born August 19, 1705 in Innsbruck , † May 22, 1787 ibid) was an Austrian Jesuit and universal scholar. As a professor of mathematics and physics at the University of Innsbruck , he founded experimental physics and geophysics there and was the initiator of the first land survey of Tyrol, the Atlas Tyrolensis .

Education and Jesuit Order

Born as the son of the physician Ferdinand Karl von Weinhart in Innsbruck , Ignaz (as he himself reported) studied the Inferiora for seven years in Innsbruck and Neuburg an der Donau, the Superiora in philosophy , mathematics, theology and law for seven years in Ingolstadt . At the age of 16, on September 28, 1721, he entered the Jesuit order and took the first three vows on September 29, 1723 , and the solemn profession of the fourth vows on February 2, 1739 . He was ordained a priest in 1735. His work in the order was initially three years of grammar, two years of poetry and five years professor of philosophy teaching. During this time he also taught at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau and was prefect at the Gymnasium Lyzeum in Lucerne (Switzerland).

Around 1740 he was appointed university professor in Innsbruck, where he taught mathematics and also dealt with astronomy and experimental physics. After Rudolf Henz he was a strict, but popular and socially minded university professor. As an advisor to the state government, he was a. a. concerned with economics and the Tyrolean saltworks . On Sundays he held courses for bricklayer and carpenter journeyman and was also the teacher of the later peasant cartographers Peter Anich and Blasius Hueber .

Physics, Mathematics and Geodesy

Weinhart founded an experimental cabinet at the Innsbruck Institute, the so-called Armarium , which u. a. Contained optical and mechanical apparatus, various measuring instruments as well as earth and celestial globes. In the Armarium he improved the piston air pump invented by Guericke in 1650 with a valve control, which he also made for other universities, some lyceums and the courts in Vienna and Florence. He successfully experimented with elliptical and parabolic burning mirrors made of plaster of paris and gold leaf; these “glazed” mirrors were lighter and of higher quality than the previous metal mirrors .

As a mathematician , he wrote the textbook Questiones et Responsa ex Arithmetica vulgari, Algebra, et Geometria in Lectionibus et Collegiis Mathematicis pertractanda , which was an official lecture book for 14 years (until 1779).

Also interested in questions of geodesy , Weinhart undertook precise observations of the sun's position and the North Star ( latitude determination and polaris azimuths ). At his suggestion, Anich turned the 1 m tall, soon-to-be-famous celestial globe with a clockwork drive and 1900 individual stars , the coordinates of which are believed to come from the Doppelmayr star catalog published in Nuremberg in 1742 . It was handed over to the State Museum Ferdinandeum in 1850 with the equally large-sized terrestrial globe .

He tested the barometric height measurement for applications in the mountains and for the first time in a mine shaft, which at that time was the deepest Holy Spirit shaft in the world at Kitzbühel at 800 m . Confronted with the problems of “dead air” and “bad weather”, he developed mechanical ventilation (“air drawer”) against firedamp accidents and health hazards for miners.

Weinhart also investigated the economically usable types of rock in Tyrol, the "planting of Turkic grain ", and the causes of fish death in stagnant and frozen waters. On behalf of the Gubernium , he was an appraiser for a feared rock fall after the 1767 earthquake in Sellrain and the impending flooding of the "Upper and Lower Yhnthalls" by the dammed Rofener Eissee (1772).

Atlas Tyrolensis

Father Ignaz Weinhart SJ is next to the Innsbruck plague doctor Paul Weinhart the Elder . Ä. probably the most famous personality of the entire Weinhart family. Its popularity is mainly due to the fact that, as a mentor and teacher of the two farmer cartographers Peter Anich (1723–1766) and Blasius Hueber (1735–1814), he became the scientific author of the famous Tyrolean map of these two farmers from Oberperfuss .

His first meeting with Peter Anich in 1751, who, as an autodidact, sought help with astronomical and geodetic questions from him, was decisive for his life and for the Tyrolean cartography . When he recognized Anich's talent, Weinhart's greatest and most beautiful, but also the most difficult task should develop from it: the direction and supervision of the mapping of Tyrol (1760–1774) and then the foreland ( Upper Austria ). He held this position from 1760 until his death in 1787. The 20-part map of North and South Tyrol was the first precise survey of the country in the high mountains . It was incorporated into the state Josefinische Landesaufnahme (approx. 1765–1785) and used as a model for later measurements of military geography .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rudolf Henz : Peter Anich, the star seeker . Amandus-Verlag, Vienna 1946
  2. ↑ The Vorarlberg map "Provincia Arlbergica" from 1783 digital ( memento of the original from April 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / vorarlberg.naturfreunde.at
personal data
SURNAME Weinhart, Ignaz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weinhart, Ignaz SJ
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian religious and scholar
DATE OF BIRTH August 19, 1705
PLACE OF BIRTH innsbruck
DATE OF DEATH May 22, 1787
Place of death innsbruck