Johann Casimir Häffelin

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Cardinal von Häffelin, contemporary oil painting

Johann Casimir von Häffelin (born January 3, 1737 in Minfeld , † August 27, 1827 in Rome ) was a priest of the Diocese of Speyer , cardinal and important diplomat at the time of King Max I Joseph ; As Bavarian envoy in Rome, in 1817 he concluded the Concordat between the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Catholic Church under Pope Pius VII .

Life

Origin and career

Johann Casimir Häffelin was born on January 3, 1737 as the son of the ducal Palatinate-Zweibrücken clerk Georg Daniel Häffelin and his wife Anna Elisabeth born. Schönlaub, born in the castle estate of Minfeld in the south of the Palatinate, and baptized on January 13th. He was the middle of a total of 3 sons of his parents; his older brother Laurentius Joseph was born in 1735, the younger, Georg Daniel, was born in 1738. In his Modern History of the Bishops of Speyer , the historian Franz Xaver Remling writes : “The talented boy Casimir was chosen to study at an early age.” Nothing certain is known about the first stages of the class Latin school in the nearby Palatinate-Zweibrücken Bergzabern . There is clear evidence of his stay at the Jesuit-run Pont-à-Mousson educational institution . Here he studied theology and learned both Latin and French. He had an excellent command of both languages, which greatly benefited his diplomatic and church activities. In 1762 the young man from the Palatinate moved from Pont-à-Mousson to Heidelberg, where he was enrolled at the university on August 31 of that year. There he graduated in 1765 with a "Baccalaureus Biblicus" and only received his doctorate in theology at the University of Ingolstadt in 1781 .

Priest, historian and prelate

As early as September 24, 1763, the theologian Häffelin zu Speyer was ordained a priest in the collegiate church of St. German and Mauritius from Auxiliary Bishop Johann Adam Buckel . In the same year, Elector Karl Theodor employed the young clergyman as the Palatine court chaplain in Mannheim . What induced the ruler to appoint Häffelin to the Mannheim court is no longer known. For the priest, this began a lifelong service for the Wittelsbach family .

Elector Karl Theodor was very interested in science, art and history. Through him, the art academy under Peter Anton von Verschaffelt was brought into being in Mannheim in 1758 , on October 15, 1763 the prince also founded his " Electoral Palatinate Academy of Sciences " (Academia Theodoro Palatina) there, which had set itself the declared goal To research the history of the Palatinate and to make "the Palatinate the fatherland of science". In 1767 Karl Theodor appointed the court chaplain Häffelin as an extraordinary member, and a year later as a full member of the Academy of Sciences.

He immediately received a special order. He was sent to Rome in 1767 to track down the holdings of the former Bibliotheca Palatina from Heidelberg , which Elector Maximilian I had captured during the Thirty Years' War and given to the Pope as a gift. In their holdings - which made up only a small fraction in the huge Vatican Library - immensely important documents on Palatinate history slumbered, which no one has seen for centuries. Häffelin was supposed to find and evaluate these stocks. He found what he was looking for in Rome and, as a priest in the Vatican, had easy access to the books. Shortly after his return he drove back to Rome, now accompanied by the electoral court librarian Abbé Nicolas Maillot de la Treille , by Peter Anton von Verschaffelt , Theodor von Hacke, Nicolas de Pigage , as well as Franz Joseph and Wilhelm Anton Weiler, who took him to the Should support work. The Zweibrücker court painter Johann Christian von Mannlich , who had stayed in Rome for a long time and temporarily joined the compatriots, reports on this in his "Memoirs":

“We devoted a few days to the famous Vatikana, where we paid particular attention to the Heidelberg library. While Abbé Maillot and Häffelin leafed through the old manuscripts, we looked at the Etruscan vases and a tomb with the ashes of a Roman. "

- JC Mannlich : Memoirs

Together with his brother Maillot de la Traille, Häffelin also visited Herculaneum and Pompeii before they returned to Mannheim in October 1768. For Johann Casimir Häffelin, this trip to Italy represented a significant turning point in his life and remained permanently and spiritually formative. At the Mannheim Academy of Sciences he gave lectures on it and also published a whole series of related treatises that dealt particularly with artistic and historical topics.

Outcome from this trip to Italy is probably also his appointment to the Palatinate cabinet antiquarius and coin cabinet director, where he was commissioned by Karl Theodor to collect, maintain and catalog "systematically all antiques and other monuments that might be found by subjects or otherwise". That task also suited the priest's personal inclinations; As a result, Häffelin became a local history and monument conservation pioneer.

In 1775, together with friends who were equally interested, Häffelin founded the “Electoral German Society” to maintain the German language and specifically German cultural assets. In the Mannheim Residence, the Jesuits had been trying to get theater performances in German for a long time, and Schiller also worked there at times. In addition to Häffelins brother Johann Jakob worked in the "German Society" in Mannheim a. a. also Friedrich Schiller , Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock , Johann Georg von Stengel , the Palatinate painter-poet Friedrich Müller , the author Sophie von La Roche , Wolfgang Heribert von Dalberg , minister and honorary director of the theater, and the priest Joseph Anton Sambuga , the later gained great influence as a prince tutor at the Bavarian court.

On December 30, 1777, the last old Bavarian Elector Maximilian III died in Munich . and his relative from the Palatinate, Elector Karl Theodor, assumed the inheritance according to the contract. Regent, government and court moved to Munich, Mannheim sank down to the province. As early as 1778, the Elector Casimir Häffelin appointed there as a councilor for church policy issues. There, Häffelin was instrumental in the founding of the Anglo-Bavarian Tongue and the Bavarian Grand Priory of the Order of Malta in 1781 , and in 1783 he became Vicar General of the Bavarian Tongue and Commander-in- Chief of Kaltenberg . In 1782 he became a member and in 1805 an honorary member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . Pope Pius VI appointed Häffelin in 1783 as papal house prelate , at the same time he became vice-provost of the collegiate foundation "To our dear woman" in Munich, to which the court parish was also affiliated.

Bishop and Bavarian envoy

On September 28, 1787, the Palatinate was from Pius VI. appointed titular bishop of Chersonesus in Creta and consecrated on November 11th by the apostolic nuncio Giulio Cesare Zoglio in the St. Michael Church of St. Michael in Munich. On June 1, 1790, Elector Karl Theodor was raised to the nobility as "Reichsfreiherr".

On April 2, 1799, Johann Casimir Häffelin was made electoral chief librarian and held this position until 1803. In that capacity, he also took care of the elector's liquidation of the Mannheim library and the transfer of the holdings to Munich. Together with his assistant Franz Ignaz von Streber , Häffelin also looked after the electoral coin cabinet at the Munich court.

The decisive turning point in Johann Casimir Häfelin's life occurred on November 18, 1803. He was promoted to Bavarian envoy to the Holy See .

In addition to his ecclesiastical and political activities, Häffelin also acted in Italy as a second to the art-loving Crown Prince Ludwig to track down and buy valuable antiquities and art objects. He selected the objects with great expertise and gave the prince sustained support towards his father and the government in Bavaria, who had little understanding for such costly things. He recommended the purchase of the world-famous Barberin Faun , today one of Munich's great art attractions, to the prince with the far-sighted words: "These are acquisitions that will one day be simply priceless." (Häffelin's letter to Crown Prince Ludwig of November 10, 1809)

Because of the deportation of the Pope between 1806 and 1814, Häffelin was also extraordinary Bavarian envoy and plenipotentiary minister to the King of the Two Sicilies (who represented the papal interests) with his seat in Naples from June 17, 1810. The Palatinate left Rome on October 24, 1810 and only returned there on August 28, 1815.

On July 5, 1817, after tough negotiations with the Curia, Johann Casimir von Häffelin succeeded in concluding the long-sought concordat between the Catholic Church and the Kingdom of Bavaria . It was signed by Cardinal Ercole Consalvi on behalf of Pope Pius VII and Johann Casimir von Häffelin as the representative of King Max I Joseph of Bavaria. Consalvi and Häffelin both played a decisive role in bringing it about.

cardinal

After the conclusion of the Concordat, Pope Pius VII raised the Palatinate Bishop in the consistory of April 6, 1818 to cardinal priest, initially with the titular church Santa Sabina , from 1822 St. Anastasia . In this capacity, Häffelin took part in the conclave in the election of Pope Leo XII. 1823 part.

The Palatinate prelate seems to have been quite popular with his diplomatic colleagues because of his friendly nature. The contemporary Prussian ambassador to the Holy See, the young Barthold von Niebuhr writes about him: "Among the ambassadors, I am most comfortable with the Bavarian, an old man of 85 years, an old clergyman full of heart and friendliness."

According to Rudolf Fendler, who published a carefully compiled Häffelin biography in 1980, many German visitors to Rome considered it a special honor to be received by the prelate, who is valued as an art and history connoisseur. When the painter Ludwig Emil Grimm , the brother of the famous fairy tale collector, was in Rome in the summer of 1816 , he established contact through Count August von Seinsheim, a painter who was friends with Häffelin, and then met the ambassador. In his memoirs, Grimm later describes the cardinal and his Roman living conditions very vividly and in detail:

“He - Count Seinsheim - went with us to the Bavarian envoy, Cardinal Häffelin. In his room it looked very spiritual, but elegant. He was wearing a long damask dressing gown and purple stockings, an old, somewhat fat man, extremely friendly, white hair, yellow in the face, if I am not mistaken it was pitted with peeling. He tripped on the carpet in the room and when he drank his hand trembled. We had to come into his bedroom, he opened the window and said: 'Now look how beautiful!' On a wall was an aloe with a very long stem that was full of flowers; so the good-natured old gentleman lived his days by. "

- Ludwig Emil Grimm : memories from my life

Even the poet August von Platen tells us, barely a year before the death of Häffelin, how he saw him in Rome: “The day before yesterday, on All Saints Day, I saw the Pope in the Sistine Chapel, even with the triple crown. A cardinal let the mass, the Bavarian ambassador, Cardinal Häffelin, is ancient and always has to be led by two ... ” (Diaries of August von Platen, November 3rd, 1826)

In a letter to Josef Görres, Clemens Brentano comes to an almost devastating verdict on the elderly Palatine. However, one has to note that for Brentano and Görres primarily religious aspects counted, in which area Häffelin was actually rather colorless. His art-historical and diplomatic qualities as well as his universally respected personality are not taken into account. Brentano wrote: “… Bavarian things are very miserable in Rome. Cardinal Häffelin is 88 years old and adding a zero, makes 880 years ... " (Josef von Görres, collected letters, Volume III, Munich 1874, p. 250)

Cardinal Häffelin died on August 27, 1827 in the Bavarian legation in Rome. He was buried in his titular church where there is also a tombstone with a portrait.

Along with Johannes von Geissel, Johann Casimir Häffelin was the only cardinal from the Palatinate in the 19th century. It is listed in the Nekrologium (Book of the Dead) of the priests of the Speyer diocese.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ludwig Emil Grimm : Memories from my life. Leipzig 1913, p. 252.
personal data
SURNAME Häffelin, Johann Casimir
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Häffelin, Johann Casimir von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat and cardinal
DATE OF BIRTH January 3, 1737
PLACE OF BIRTH Minfeld
DATE OF DEATH August 27, 1827
Place of death Rome