Karl Johann Anton von Cichin
Karl Johann Anton von Cichin (* 1723 in Munich ; † March 15, 1793 in Wolfenbüttel ) was a German library secretary . He was Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's employee at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel.
Life
There are no reliable sources about Cichin's origin. In a letter dated September 21, 1756 to Duke Charles I of Braunschweig , he claimed that he had been baptized by the later Emperor Charles VII and raised at the electoral court in Munich. The rumor derived from the claim that he was an illegitimate son of the Wittelsbacher .
He entered the Franciscan order in 1740 . Probably influenced by the conversion of the scholar Franz Ignatius Rothfischer , Cichin also switched to Protestantism and fled his monastery in 1750. He lived in Wittenberg and Leipzig for a few years before moving to Braunschweig in 1756 . He studied from 1756 to 1758 with a ducal scholarship at the Brunswick State University of Helmstedt .
On February 4, 1758, Cichin was employed as a secretary at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel, which he held until his death. He served under the library directors Georg Septimus Andreas von Praun and Christian Johann Brandan Hugo , Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1770–1781) and Ernst Theodor Langer (1781–1820). He did paperwork, did the accounting, kept the registry and compiled a list of the funeral sermons that remained unfinished. During his long period of service he prepared 20 special catalogs and kept the library's access and lending book. Cichin was often in debt, was considered stubborn, resentful, talkative as well as argumentative and eager to write. For his superior Lessing, whom he adored and at the same time hated, he was an indispensable employee. He recorded a large number of library details from Lessing's tenure and thus passed on important source material. After Lessing's death in 1781, at the instigation of the heirs, Cichin viewed and recorded the books and invoices he had left behind for several years.
Cichin died in March 1793 at the age of 69 or 70 in his now no longer preserved house at Mühlenstrasse 3 in Wolfenbüttel.
literature
- Wolfgang Milde : Cichin (spoken: Zichin), Karl Johann Anton von . In: Georg Ruppelt and Sabine Solf (eds.): Lexicon on the past and present of the Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel , Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1992, ISBN 3-447-03922-1 , p. 43.
- Paul Raabe : Cichin, Karl Johann Anton von . In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck , Dieter Lent et al. (Ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon - 8th to 18th century . Appelhans Verlag, Braunschweig 2006, ISBN 3-937664-46-7 , p. 148 .
Web links
- Cichin, Carl Johann Anton von . In: Lessing database of the Lessing Academy eV Wolfenbüttel
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cichin, Carl Johann Anton . In: Lessing database of the Lessing Academy eV Wolfenbüttel
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Cichin, Karl Johann Anton von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Cichin, Carl Johann Anton von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German library secretary |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1723 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Munich |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 15, 1793 |
| Place of death | Wolfenbüttel |