Johann Albrecht Widmanstetter

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Johann Albrecht Widmanstetter (alternative spelling Widmannstetter , * around 1506 in Nellingen near Ulm ; † March 28, 1557 in Regensburg ) was a German humanist , diplomat , theologian and philologist and applies to Johannes von Reuchlin and Sebastian Münster , on whose cosmography he worked, as one of the founders of oriental studies . He was married since January 15, 1542 to Anna von Leonsberg , an illegitimate daughter of Ludwig X , Duke of Bavaria (1495–1545) and stepdaughter of the Vice Chancellor Jakob von Jonas . His book collection, which comprised more than 800 volumes, including more than three hundred manuscripts, mainly in Hebrew and Arabic , was acquired by Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria for his court library and formed the basis for the collection of oriental manuscripts of the Bavarian, which is still extremely important today State Library . The collection also contained works on classical philology, theology and natural history writings, including from the field of medicine.

Life

Widmanstetter studied law , theology and oriental languages in Tübingen . After 1527 he continued his language studies in Italy , first in Turin and later in Naples and Rome . His linguistic focus was on Syrian and Arabic. From 1533 he was papal secretary, first with Clement VII , then with Paul III. In 1533, Widmanstetter held a series of lectures in Rome in which he explained the theories of Nicolaus Copernicus , probably mainly on the basis of the Commentariolus of 1509, since Copernicus did not publish his main work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium until shortly before his death in 1543, despite the insistence of friends. The lectures met with great interest from Cardinals and Clement VII. In 1535 he became secretary to Nikolaus Cardinal von Schönberg , the archbishop of Capua . The cardinal wrote a letter to Copernicus in 1536, presumably because of Widmanstetter's lectures, urging Copernicus to publish his work.

After his return to Bavaria, Ludwig X., his father-in-law, served as a councilor from 1539 to 1545 and made numerous trips on his behalf, including again to Rome and Ghent . After his death in 1545, he switched to the service of his brother, Duke Ernst (1500–1554), who was Archbishop of Salzburg from 1540 to 1554 . From 1546 to 1552 he was chancellor and archivist of Cardinal Otto von Waldburg , the bishop of Augsburg . At the Augsburg Reichstag of 1548 he was knighted by the emperor on March 2nd. In 1551 he was appointed Imperial Palatine Count, and in the following year (1552) he entered the service of King Ferdinand I as Chancellor of the Austrian states . In 1554 he was appointed Superintendent of the University of Vienna. In addition to reforming the university, he was also charged with founding a Jesuit college in Vienna.

Pope Paul III appointed him a deacon in 1541 in order to fill the role of deaconus graecus for the papal mass . Widmanstetter married with papal permission in 1542. After the death of his wife in 1556, he was ordained a priest on February 24, 1557 and entered the Regensburg cathedral chapter, where he died a little over a month later and was buried there on March 28, 1557 .

Widmanstetter left at least one daughter:

meaning

To this day, Widmanstetter is particularly important as a co-founder of Oriental Studies, in which he is considered a trailblazer for dealing with the Syrian language and which he operated in the interests of the Church. This is evidenced by his publication of the New Testament in Syrian, which he prepared with the support of Ferdinand I from a manuscript that the priest Moses of Mardin had brought from Mesopotamia . This print was also the first print in an oriental language in Vienna. A number of his works remained unprinted, such as a Syrian and an Arabic grammar and a translation of the Koran into Latin. His autobiography is lost.

Following the scholarly tradition of the time, he wrote not only under his name, but also under the pseudonym Lucretius . Other variants of his name are: Widmestadius , Widmanstadt and Widmenstadius .

In the 1540s, a bitter legal dispute with his former friend Ambrosius von Gumppenberg caused a stir, which was also reflected in pamphlets from both opponents and third parties. Widmanstetter accused Gumppenberg, who on behalf of the Bishop of Eichstätt , for whom he also worked in Rome, of embezzlement of funds and dishonest behavior. Gumppenberg, for his part, claimed that Widmanstetter was of Jewish descent and Lutheran attitudes. In addition, he accused him of immoral conduct. Widmanstetter, on the other hand, claimed that Gumppenberg wanted to have him murdered by a housemate. The dispute ran through several secular and spiritual instances.

An aspect of contemporary interest is the question of the admissibility or inadmissibility of duels disputed by the opponents . Widmanstetter stated in his polemic that Gumppenberg had caused two acquaintances to claim him. The Duke Ludwig, whom he had informed, then asked the Pope to stop such activities by ending the long process. Also, as a doctor of secular law and because of his vow of the Portuguese Order of St. Jacob, he could not approve of the duel. Widmanstetter's opponents, on the other hand, pull him in their writings on the libel of majesty, because he called this honorable custom in Italy and Spain, which also occurs among kings in the form of knightly duels, as slaughter ( carnificina ). Gumppenberg himself was imprisoned in Rome for some time in 1540, but was released again after a short time.

Works (selection)

  • 1541/42: Sacrarum ceremoniarum sive rituum ecclesiasticorum sanctae romanae ecclesiae libri tres
  • 1543: Notae contra Mohammedis dogmata
  • 1552: From the spiritual and secular coats of arms of a knight (Dillingen)
  • 1555: Liber sacrosancti Evangelii de Jesu Christo Domino et Deo nostro (Vienna)
  • 1555: Syriacae linguae ... prima elementa (Vienna); also published in Antwerp in 1572

literature

Web links

  • Angelika Weber: WIDMANSTETTER KOSMOS, documentary about Johann Albrecht von Widmanstetter (1506–1557) [1]

Individual evidence

  1. Johann Baptist Witting (editor) in J. Siebmacher's large Wappenbuch Volume 26, The coats of arms of the nobility in Lower Austria Part 2, S - Z, (reprint edition) Verlag Bauer & Rspe, owner Gerhard Gessner, Neustadt an der Aisch, 1983, P. 28
  2. ^ Robert J. (Robert John) Wilkinson: Orientalism, Aramaic, and Kabbalah in the Catholic Reformation: the first printing of the Syriac New Testament . Brill, Leiden; Boston 2007, ISBN 978-90-04-16250-1 . (Summary see Joseph P. Byrne: Orientalism, Aramaic and Kabbalah in the Catholic Reformation. The First Printing of the Syriac New Testament (HTTP) FindArticles.com, accessed 11 May 2011 English (). )