Johann van Ghelen

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Johann van Ghelen

Johann van Ghelen (baptized May 23, 1645 in Antwerp , † April 13, 1721 in Vienna ) was a Flemish printer and one of the most important printers in Vienna.

Life

Johann van Ghelen came from an old family of printers who originally came from Westphalia and belonged to the wealthy middle-class families in Antwerp. Van Ghelen's father and grandfather were Catholic. Johann studied first in Antwerp with the Jesuits , then with the Augustinians and finished his school education in Breygen near Villvorden. He then worked as a printer in Antwerp.

Van Ghelen then turned to Brussels and Ryssel and finally came to Vienna on a trip through Germany in 1670. Here he entered the office of the Flemish Johann Baptist Hacque , who specialized in foreign language books and newspapers. Van Ghelen found an ideal field of activity here because he mastered the German, Latin, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish and Hungarian languages. Through Hacque he met his sister-in-law Elisabeth de la Fontaine and married her in 1672. After Hacque's death in 1678 he acquired his printing company and became a university printer in the same year.

In 1678 Ghelen was granted the privilege to print and sell Latin and French newspapers. In 1679, during the great plague epidemic, and in 1683, during the second Turkish siege , Ghelen made great contributions to the common good. Also because of these services, the privilege was renewed in 1699 by Emperor Leopold I and extended to his son Johann Peter van Ghelen . After the Cosmerovische Hofbuchdruckerei had gone out, Ghelen was given the position of a court printer. In 1701 he also became an Italian court printer. The emperor justified this as follows:

Because our loyal Johann van Ghelen led an honorable and irreproachable change in his profession 23 years ago, also during the Contagion (1679) and siege (1683), in addition to his people's position in the university company, he also earned the diary of the Siege published in Italian, the wälsche Zeitung and our most beloved women, mother Eleonora, have printed the so-called Creutz Ordnungsbuch in German and Wälsch and, on our orders, various Italian books on Austrian histories, operas and many other works in French and in other languages We, since he, van Ghelen, are not only responsible for a complete truck shop, but also a complete type foundry, which means that the truck shop can be renewed and changed at any time, to our Italian court printer .

In old age, Johann van Ghelen gradually withdrew from the business and left the printing shop to his son Johann Peter van Ghelen. His daughter Maria Christine married the mayor of Vienna, Franz Josef Hauer . In 1894 the Ghelengasse in Vienna- Hietzing was named after him and his son.

Meaning and work

Johann van Ghelen led the Hacquesche Druckerei, which he had taken over, to great prosperity. He not only published Italian books and newspapers, but also numerous Latin, Hungarian, Hebrew and other foreign language articles. He owned 5 presses in Vienna and was the largest printer based here. He also had a large number of Antiqua , Fraktur and Schwabach letters , some of which he imported and some of which he cast himself.

In the German-language book production Ghelen tried to introduce the Antiqua font, but had to return to Fraktur. In 1703 he founded a regular German-language newspaper, the Post-Daily Mercurius , and in the same year the Wiennerische Diarium . The latter became the organ for official announcements and decrees and, under the name Wiener Zeitung, is the oldest daily newspaper in Austria and around the world that still exists today.

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Messager des sciences historiques , ou, Archives des arts et de la bibliographie de Belgique, issue: 1896, Gent, Impr. Et Lithographie de L. Hebbelynck, p 225-226
personal data
SURNAME Ghelen, Johann van
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Flemish printer who worked mainly in Vienna
DATE OF BIRTH baptized May 23, 1645
PLACE OF BIRTH Antwerp
DATE OF DEATH April 13, 1721
Place of death Vienna