Johann Cassar

Johann Cassar (* 8. October 1724 in Kaisersteinbruch , Western Hungary , today Burgenland , † after 1785 in Bruck an der Leitha ) one was Austrian master stonemason and sculptor of the Baroque .

Live and act

Due to the building activity of Emperor Karl VI. After surviving the plague and Prince Eugene of Savoy as the victor of Belgrade, there was enough work in the imperial quarry , major orders such as the Karlskirche in Vienna , the third construction phase of the city ​​palace of Prince Eugene , the Upper Belvedere Palace , the high altar of the Kaisersteinbruch Church of The stonemason brotherhood donated, all this directed and organized the court stonemason Elias Hügel .

Father from Schönstein in today's Slovenia, mother from Innsbruck

The grandfather was still a day laborer, his father, the stonemason journeyman Joseph Cassar, from Schönstein in the "Windischland", today Šoštanj in Slovenia , came to the Leithaberg . He founded his family here with Gertrude Zogglerin, daughter of an Innsbruck hunter, married on January 29, 1719 and their son Johann born on October 8, 1724. His mother died of childbed fever in 1734 when he was 10 years old, and in the same year his father married the Bohemian weaver's daughter Eva Ponitschin.

In the autumn of 1738, Master Hügel took him on as an apprentice, he was acquitted as a journeyman in 1743. In these years the expansion and baroque transformation of the Kaisersteinbruch Church came to its grand conclusion, Master Hügel completed the addition of his burial chapel with a work of art, the cross altar , The stone work of the tower facade with the curved gable was directed by the former hill apprentice Johann Baptist Regondi , the last Italian in the quarry.

In 1750 Johann married the young widow Eva Rummlin, both parents had since died. His goal was to become a master of the Kaisersteinbruch brotherhood here in the center of high stonemasonry near the royal seat of Vienna. In 1761 his wife Eva died. He left Kaisersteinbruch.

Brother Leopold became master of Kaisersteinbruch

The younger brother Leopold, born in 1730, learned from master Elias Hügel in 1743 and is documented as master of the Kaisersteinbrucher brotherhood as early as 1764.

Master in Winden, part of the Kaisersteinbrucher quarter drawer

Johann Cassar decided to go to neighboring Winden am See , on the south side of the Leithagebirge. Winden, which also belonged to the rule of the Heiligenkreuz Abbey , was incorporated into the Kaisersteinbruch quarter shop. In 1765 we find him there as a master.

Citizen of Bruck and master of the quarter drawer there

Johann Cassar became a citizen of Bruck an der Leitha in 1774 . In 1775 Cassar pays the master's money of 7 guilders. As a master of the Bruck quarter shop, he trains some Kaisersteinbrucher apprentices to become journeymen: 1775 Franz Xaver Radschödl, 1776 his brother Andreas Radschödl, 1782 Joseph Markowitsch, 1785 Philipp Kraus.

Archival material

• Heiligenkreuz Abbey Archive, Kaisersteinbruch, rubric 51 / VII / 2b. Church books, registers, stonemasons
• Bruck an der Leitha city archive, quarter drawer of the stonemasonry, Johann Cassar .

literature

• Helmuth Furch : Historical Lexicon Kaisersteinbruch , Volume 1, Museum and Culture Association Kaisersteinbruch 2002. ISBN 978-3-9504555-8-8 , p. 75 ( digitized ).