Johann Dientzenhofer

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Johann Dientzenhofer (born May 25, 1663 in St. Margarethen near Brannenburg , Electorate of Bavaria , † July 20, 1726 in Bamberg ) was a builder and architect of the Baroque period .

Origin and family

Johann Dientzenhofer's house (1710) at Rittergasse 4, Fulda

Johann Dientzenhofer was the youngest child of the mountain farmer Georg Dientzenhofer and Barbara, née Thanner. Since the family was poor, he and his older siblings had to go looking for work. He became a successful master builder who, together with his brothers Georg , Christoph , Leonhard , Wolfgang and his nephew Kilian Ignaz, formed the famous Dientzenhofer family of artists .

Life

At the age of 15, Johann Dientzenhofer can be traced back to Prague, as he was present at the wedding of his sister Anna , who was 18 years older than him, to Wolfgang Leuthner, a relative of the builder Abraham Leuthner , in 1678 . It is believed that he lived with his sister in Prague, learned masonry and stone masonry from Abraham Leuthner and Carlo Lurago or Jean Baptiste Mathey and then worked as a foreman with his eight-year-old brother Christoph. In any case, his own buildings show a close relationship with those of Christoph. For 1685 it is still registered in the registers of the Church of Mary under the chain on Prague's Lesser Town . He probably got married in Prague too.

Around 1696 Johann Dientzenhofer was called to Bamberg by his brother Leonhard , who was well stocked with orders , where he found employment as a foreman on the Michelsberg and in 1698 acquired Bamberg citizenship as a master mason. In the same year the Bamberg prince-bishop Lothar Franz von Schönborn made a study trip to Italy possible for him .

After his return, Johann Dientzenhofer was appointed prince abbot master builder Adalbert von Schleifras on the recommendation of the Bamberg prince-bishop by the Fulda prince-abbot Adalbert von Schleifras on September 4, 1700 . At the same time he was commissioned to build the new Fulda bishopric church , which was consecrated in 1712. It could only be called a cathedral from 1752, after the prince abbot became a bishop. In the Fulda years, Dientzenhofer redesigned the city palace in the baroque style and built the summer residences Bieberstein and Geisa according to his own plans . In the Fuldaer Rittergasse 4 he built a house in the baroque style for himself and his family. Until 1707 he lived and worked in Fulda.

After the death of his brother Leonhard, on November 30, 1707, Johann applied to the Bamberg prince-bishop Lothar Franz von Schönborn for the vacant position as court master builder, which, however, was not officially awarded to him until 1711, although he had carried out orders from Bamberg since 1708. In this position he traveled to Vienna via Prague in 1713 to discuss the plans for Weissenstein Castle in Pommersfelden with Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt .

His major orders included the construction of the Weissenstein castles near Pommersfelden and Reichmannsdorf near Bamberg, as well as renovation work on Bamberg's St. Michaels Church. On the recommendation of his prince-bishop, he worked on the construction of the Würzburg residence under Balthasar Neumann from 1720 to 1723 , to whom he presumably conveyed the Prague forms of his brother Christoph.

In addition to his architectural work, he designed the pulpit and six altars for the Banz monastery church in 1714 , which were made by Balthasar Esterbauer .

Despite his success and trustworthiness, Johann Dientzenhofer was not very business-minded. As a result of the cost estimates being too low, he suffered financial losses several times, for which he was contractually liable. When he died in 1726, his children and his widow Maria Eleonore, who outlived him by nine years, were not well looked after. The construction business was continued by his son Justus Heinrich Dientzenhofer .

Buildings

  • Banz Monastery

  • Fulda Cathedral

  • Baroque facade of Neumünster Abbey in Würzburg

  • Boettingerhaus

  • Bibra-Palais, Bamberg

  • Böttinger country house in Stegaurach (1725)

literature

Johann Dientzenhofer as a literary figure:

  • Josephine Grau: The cathedral builder. A story from Fulda's past. Fulda, originally as a serial in the Fuldaer Zeitung. Jhgg. 1886, No. 172-231, and published in the Rheinischer Merkur, reprint Fulda 1979, Parzeller Verlag, 978-3-7900-0093-1

Web links

Commons : Johann Dientzenhofer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fritz Usinger : Residence of Heaven . In: Die Rhön (= Merian , vol. 17 (1964), issue 4), pp. 29–37, here p. 32.
  2. ↑ Milada Vilímková, Johannes Brucker: Dientzenhofer. A Bavarian master builder family in the baroque era. 1989.
  3. ↑ Rudi Held: The facade of the Neumünster Church in Würzburg .
  4. ↑ Stefan Kummer : Architecture and fine arts from the beginnings of the Renaissance to the end of the Baroque. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes; Volume 2: From the Peasants' War in 1525 to the transition to the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1814. Theiss, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8062-1477-8 , pp. 576–678 and 942–952, here: pp. 630–632.
personal data
SURNAME Dientzenhofer, Johann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bavarian builder of the baroque period
DATE OF BIRTH May 25, 1663
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Margarethen near Brannenburg , Electorate of Bavaria
DATE OF DEATH July 20, 1726
Place of death Bamberg