Johann Goswin Aries

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Johann Goswin Widder, portrait by Moritz Kellerhoven

Johann Goswin Widder (born January 7, 1734 in Bad Dürkheim , † December 26, 1800 in Mannheim ) was a Palatinate-Bavarian civil servant, historian and topographer who published a four-volume description of the Electoral Palatinate , which to this day is one of the fundamental sources of Palatinate historical research heard.

Life

Widder came as the son of the Limburg monastery conductor and Wachenheim official cellar Johann Daniel Widder and his wife Maria Jakobine Apollonia, born on behalf of the Electoral Palatinate . Bellaire, in Dürkheim in the Upper Palatinate . His father died as early as 1742 on the Schönfeld saltworks in Dürkheim, where he was an inspector. His gravestone from the Pfeffingen cemetery is preserved in the Bad Dürkheim City Museum.

In 1760 Johann Goswin Widder worked as a secretary at the electoral porcelain factory in Frankenthal , in 1776 he was court chamber councilor in Wachenheim . From around 1780 Widder stayed in Munich, from 1786 at the latest he held the offices of electoral secret secretary and senior regional councilor there. From 1790 until his death, the man from the Palatinate lived again as a privy councilor and chamber director in Mannheim .

The official earned special services to the financial affairs of Elector Karl Theodor and to agriculture, especially local viticulture. In 1765 he wrote a memorandum to combat the vine prick , which at that time could largely destroy the grape harvests. The electoral government had Aries' treatise printed and distributed. In order to eradicate the pest, she also ordered the planned collection of beetles or the leaf compresses with the egg clusters recommended in the memorandum.

Widder married Maria Katharina Cetti on November 24, 1762. From the union three sons were born, one of which, Gabriel Bernard of Aries , and later (1774-1831) as President of Upper Bavaria ennobled was.

The other son, Heinrich Widder (1772-1812), officiated under Bishop Johann Casimir Häffelin as secretary of the Bavarian legation at the Holy See. He was a great lover and connoisseur of art.

Historian and author

Title page of volume 1 of the description of the Electoral Palatinate, by Johann Goswin Widder (with engraving by Heidelberg).

Johann Goswin Widder was interested in local history and history all his life. He began to collect material about the whole of the then Electoral Palatinate and sent u. a. also questionnaires to all local administrative offices. From this he wrote his four-volume description of the country between 1786 and 1788 on over 2000 book pages : An attempt at a complete geographical-historical description of the Electoral Palatinate on the Rhine . It is still an indispensable, fundamental source work on the regional history of the region and was reprinted in an unchanged reprint in 1996.

Volume 1 (1786), contains the "main introduction", as well as the description of the Heidelberg Oberamt with the capitals Mannheim and Heidelberg , as well as the Oberamt Ladenburg and Lindenfels .

Volume 2 (1786), contains the description of the regional offices in Neustadt / Haardt including the capital Frankenthal , as well as the offices in Germersheim , Ozberg , Umstatt , Boxberg , Mosbach and Bretten .

Volume 3 (1787), describes the Oberamt Alzey with its sub-offices Freinsheim and Erbes-Büdesheim , as well as the upper offices Oppenheim , Stromberg , Simmern and Bacharach with the sub-offices Kaub .

Volume 4 (1788), deals with the Oberämter Kreuznach , Kaiserslautern , Lauterecken and Veldenz and at the same time has the index of the complete edition.

In addition to his description of the Electoral Palatinate, the history friend Goswin Widder also dealt with the ancient Gau judicial mountains of the region, "Stahlbohel" or "Stahlbühel" in the "Rhenish Contributions to Gelehrsamkeit", 1776, 1st year, Volume 2, pp. 401-430. called.

A history of the Limburg Abbey near Bad Dürkheim, with which Widder had a certain relationship about his father's position as property manager of the secularized monastery, probably did not appear in print. However, the officer collected material and worked on it. The manuscript and the associated collection of documents have been preserved in the Heidelberg University Library . Albert Becker published the article Der Pfälzer Heimatforscher Johann Goswin Widder in the organ of the Historical Association of the Palatinate Palatinate Museum (Issue No. 5/6, pages 152–154 of the year) about this and about the already mentioned memorandum of Widders on the wine pest "Rebenstecher" as an oenologist and historian of Limburg .

Johann Goswin Widder had also been an extraordinary member of the Electoral Palatinate Academy of Sciences in Mannheim since 1787 and was a passionate coin collector with outstanding knowledge of local coins. In Munich the clergyman Franz Ignaz von Streber worked as his private secretary, to whom he imparted extensive knowledge of numismatics and who later managed the Bavarian Coin Cabinet together with the future Cardinal Johann Casimir Häffelin . In this regard, Widder wrote a two-volume, illustrated treatise in 1785 with the title: Catalog of all existing coins and medals of the Wittelsbach general house . His valuable collection was purchased by the Bavarian Coin Cabinet in Munich from 1796; more than 2000 pieces again from his estate, 1808.

The painter Moritz Kellerhoven portrayed Widder around 1790; the painting is in the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen Mannheim.

literature

  • Viktor Carl: Lexicon of Palatinate personalities. Hennig, Edenkoben 2004, ISBN 3-9804668-5-X , p. 944.
  • Theodor Julius Ney:  Widder, Johann Goswin . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 42, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1897, p. 338.
  • Dautermann, Feldmann, Klein, Zink: Bad Dürkheim, chronicle of a Salier town. Bad Dürkheim 1973.
  • Eberhard Gößmann: The passion of the collector, JG Widder, 1734-1800; Author of the first regional studies in the Electoral Palatinate. Quadrate bookstore, Mannheim 1996, ISBN 3-924704-28-7 .
  • Friedrich Walter : Johann Goswin Widder. Mannheimer Geschichtsblätter, 1926, p. 213.
  • Daniel Häberle : The Palatinate topographer Johann Goswin Widder. Pfälzisches Museum, 1931, pp. 33–38 (also published as a separate print).
  • Friedrich Ebrard: Johann Goswin Widder and his family. For the 150th anniversary of the publication year of his four-volume work on the topography of the Palatinate on the Rhine. Mannheimer Geschichtsblätter, 1936, pp. 59–67.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Website of the tombstone
  2. ↑ Website about the vines, a wine pest
  3. ^ Friedrich August Schmidt, Bernhard Friedrich Voigt: New Nekrolog der Deutschen . P. 171
  4. ↑ Texscan on Heinrich Widder, from the "Münchner Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst", Volume 34, 1983, page 105
  5. ^ Publishing house for art reproduction, Neustadt an der Aisch
  6. ↑ Complete scan of the 1st volume of Widders "Description of the Electoral Palatinate"
  7. ↑ Complete scan of the 2nd volume of Widders "Description of the Electoral Palatinate"
  8. ↑ Complete scan of the 3rd volume of Widder's "Description of the Electoral Palatinate"
  9. ↑ Complete scan of the 4th volume of Widders "Description of the Electoral Palatinate"
  10. ↑ About the so-called "Stahlbühel" in Michael Frey's description of the Palatinate from 1836
  11. ^ Hyacinth Holland:  Kellerhoven, Moritz . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1882, p. 584 f.
personal data
SURNAME Aries, Johann Goswin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Aries, Goswin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Palatinate-Bavarian civil servant, historian, topographer, author
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1734
PLACE OF BIRTH Bad Dürkheim
DATE OF DEATH December 26, 1800
Place of death Mannheim