Joseph Anton Siegmund von Beroldingen

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Joseph Anton Siegmund von Beroldingen

Joseph Anton Siegmund von Beroldingen (born September 9, 1738 in St. Gallen ; † February 22, 1816 in Hildesheim ) was a baron , Catholic priest and canon in the prince-bishopric of Speyer and the prince-bishopric of Hildesheim .

Origin and family

He came from the old Swiss noble family von Beroldingen and was born as the son of Baron Josef Anton Euseb von Beroldingen (1703–1776) and his wife Maria Anna, Baroness von Roll zu Bernau († 1750). The father officiated as Landshofmeister of the prince abbey of St. Gallen and was confidante of the prince abbot Joseph von Rudolphi († 1740), as well as imperial councilor.

Joseph Anton Siegmund's brother Franz Cölestin von Beroldingen (1740–1798) held a canon position in Hildesheim and gained fame as a geological writer. The half-brother Paul Joseph von Beroldingen (1754-1831) became a diplomat in the Kingdom of Württemberg .

Live and act

Joseph Anton Siegmund von Beroldingen received a canon post in Speyer in 1758 and in Hildesheim in 1771. He acted as President of the Court Chamber in Speyer and emerged as the leader of the opposition to Prince-Bishop August von Limburg-Stirum . He also held the offices of dean and , from 1790, provost at the Odenheim Knights' Monastery in Bruchsal .

Beroldingen lived primarily in Speyer during this period. Educated and full of ideas, his contemporaries praised him as an art connoisseur and as a promoter of literature and science. He wrote poems himself, collected copperplate engravings and was on friendly terms with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , who visited him in Speyer in 1779 together with Duke Karl August von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach .

From 1780 onwards , Marianne Kirchgeßner , who was blinded by the leaves , financed her musical training on the glass harmonica with the Karlsruhe conductor Joseph Aloys Schmittbaur and had him build such an instrument for 100 ducats. She was to become the most successful and important glass harmonica virtuoso of her time.

Following an idea by the painter Müller , Joseph Anton Siegmund von Beroldingen wanted to publish a cultural magazine for Germany together with Wilhelm Heinse in 1783, but this could not be realized for cost reasons. When the young painter Friedrich Georg Weitsch was in Speyer in 1784 and showed a tendency towards the clergy towards the priest, the latter offered him to pay for his theology studies if necessary and to provide him with a good benefice. Beroldingen also supported the musically gifted Karl Klein (1769-1824), later a Catholic priest and journalist in Mannheim .

The canon became president of the Helvetic Society in 1784 and was an honorary member of the Bern Economic Society and the Zurich Physical Society . He is considered one of the most important personalities of the Catholic Enlightenment in German-speaking countries and was in close contact with many like-minded friends, such as Johann Caspar Lavater , Johann Heinrich Merck , Sophie von La Roche , Franz Wilhelm von Spiegel and Eulogius Schneider .

Eulogius Scheider, a retired Franciscan and enthusiastic Jacobin , ended up falling under the guillotine of the French revolutionaries in 1794. That incident marks a turning point in Beroldingen's life. In Vienna, where he now stayed for a while, he made contact with people around his Swiss compatriot, Father Niklaus Albert von Diesbach (1732–1798). He had gathered around him a group of seriously devout Catholics, who were known as “Christian Friendship” and who were among the “early romantics” . There, Canon von Beroldingen also met the politician Josef von Penkler (1751-1830) and the priest Klemens Maria Hofbauer (1751-1820), who was later canonized . Joseph Anton Siegmund von Beroldingen changed from enlightenment to deeply religious person and became one of the most ardent followers and supporters of Hofbauer and his Redemptorist order . Politically, too, he had made a radical change. He had advocated the reintegration of Switzerland into the Holy Roman Empire since 1792, to protect against revolutionary France, and now campaigned for the emigrants who fled the French Revolution. In keeping with Klemens Maria Hofbauer's spirituality, Beroldingen worked as a priest until his death in 1816. Regardless of his changed views, he remained friends with Goethe, with whom he corresponded in 1811 from his old home in Hildesheim.

Joseph Anton Siegmund von Beroldingen raised both his half-brother Paul Joseph von Beroldingen (1754–1831) and his son Joseph Ignaz von Beroldingen (1780–1868), both politicians from Württemberg.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinrich Düntzer: Goethe and Karl August during the first fifteen years of their association , Leipzig 1861, p. 76 f. ( Digitized version )
  2. ^ Heinrich Döring: Goethe's letters in the years 1768 to 1832 , Leipzig 1837, p. 10 ( digitized version )
  3. ↑ Website about the glass harmonica ( memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.glassmusic.org
  4. ^ Johann Rudolf Füssli: General Artist Lexicon , Zurich, 1816, Volume 3, p. 6085 ( digitized version )
  5. ^ Franz von Besnard: literary newspaper for the Catholic clergy , twentieth volume, 2nd volume, Landshut 1829, pages 110 to 126 (digital scan)
  6. ^ Biographical website on Niklaus Albert von Diesbach
personal data
SURNAME Beroldingen, Joseph Anton Siegmund von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Beroldingen, Joseph Anton Sigismund von; Beroldingen, Joseph Antoine Siegmund von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss nobleman and priest, canon in Speyer and Hildesheim
DATE OF BIRTH September 9, 1738
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Gallen
DATE OF DEATH February 22, 1816
Place of death Hildesheim