Karl Heinrich Joseph von Sickingen

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Karl Heinrich Joseph Reichsgraf von Sickingen (* 1737 ; † July 13, 1791 in Vienna ) was a diplomat and chemist who wrote works on platinum . Karl von Sickingen was the last lord of the older branch of the Sickingen to Sickingen line and a direct descendant of the knight Franz von Sickingen .

family

Karl von Sickingen was the son of Johann Damian von Sickingen (* February 10, 1702, † January 4, 1785). This was senior officer in the Electoral Palatinate Oberamt Simmern and on March 3, 1778 acquired the dignity of imperial count for himself and the whole family . The mother was the Countess Maria Charlotte Maximiliane von Seinsheim († March 16, 1747). His brother was Wilhelm Friedrich von Sickingen (born September 7, 1739), Electoral Mainz State Minister and Associate Minister after 1794.

Life

Karl von Sickingen was palatine of Bavarian real Councilor , Honorary Knight of the Order of Malta and the Knights of the Order of the Palatine lion . From 1780 to 1791 he was the Palatinate Bavarian envoy and plenipotentiary minister at the French court of Louis XVI.

He was the first to recognize the weldability of platinum and who succeeded in hammering the platinum into sheet metal and pulling it out into wires. He made the experiments on platinum in Paris around 1772, and in 1778 they were read aloud at the academy. A German translation of the French treatise appeared in Mannheim in 1782 : Attempts on the Platina . In 1782 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . In 1785 he was elected a foreign member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . Karl von Sickingen died on July 13, 1791 in Vienna.

literature

  • Hans-Erhard Lessing: Mannheim pioneers . Wellhöfer-Verlag, Mannheim 2007.
  • Eva Flegel: Minister, patron, metal researcher: Carl Heinrich von Sickingen (1737–1791) and his "Experiments on the Platina" (1782); Life and work of a lay researcher in the age of the Enlightenment . Frankfurt am Main u. a., Lang (Europäische Hochschulschriften 3, 753), 1997 (Heidelberg University, dissertation 1995), ISBN 3-631-31562-7 .
  • Bernhard Lepsius :  Sickingen, Karl Heinrich Joseph Graf von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 34, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1892, pp. 158-160.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Biographical website on Wilhelm Friedrich von Sickingen
  2. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 225.
predecessor Office successor
Maximilian von Eyck Bavarian envoy to France
1778–1787 		Anton von Cetto (from 1799)
personal data
SURNAME Sickingen, Karl Heinrich Joseph von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sickingen, Karl Heinrich Joseph Reichsgraf von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Privy councilor and chemist
DATE OF BIRTH 1737
DATE OF DEATH July 13, 1791
Place of death Vienna