Kaspar von Hohenems

Kaspar von Hohenems (portrait by Lucas Kilian )

Count Kaspar von Hohenems (born March 1, 1573 on Alt-Ems near Hohenems , † September 10, 1640 in Hohenems) was an imperial count .

Life

Kaspar von Hohenems was born in the Alt-Ems fortress . He came from the family of the Lords of Ems , his parents were Jakob Hannibal I von Hohenems (1530–1587) and Hortensia Borromeo (1551–1578), who had married in Rome in 1565. His father died when Kaspar was 14 years old, after which his uncle Cardinal Markus Sittikus von Hohenems took care of his nephew. Kaspar's brother Markus Sittikus achieved some fame as Prince Archbishop of Salzburg , as did his son Jakob Hannibal II (1595–1646).

In 1589 Kaspar joined Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol as a treasurer .

On May 15, 1592 Kaspar married Freiin Eleonore Philippine von Welsperg. They had the children Jakob Hannibal II., Dorothea, Franz Maria and Eleonore. On January 4, 1614, his wife died in childbed . In March 1614, Kaspar married Countess Anna Amalia von Sulz, who was half her junior, despite the concerns of his eldest daughter . The son Franz Leopold comes from this marriage.

Between 1607 and 1614 Kaspar held the bailiff for Bludenz and Sonnenberg . In 1613 he acquired the dominions of Vaduz and Schellenberg from Karl Ludwig zu Sulz .

Tomb in Hohenems

Kaspar died on September 10, 1640 in Hohenems. His sarcophagus is still to be found in the tomb, created in 1635 by the sculptor Hans Konrad Asper from Hohenems marble , in the parish church of St. Karl Borromeo in Hohenems. There is an engraving by Lucas Kilian (1617) showing Kaspar von Hohenems in the National Museum Zurich .

After his death, his gender began to decline. His great-grandson Ferdinand Karl von Hohenems (1650–1686) drove his possessions towards the abyss; the sale became inevitable. Prince Johann Adam Andreas von Liechtenstein acquired the empire-free rule Schellenberg in 1699 and the county of Vaduz in 1712.

Act

Construction activity

In the years 1603 to 1610 Count Kaspar developed a brisk building activity; the expansion of the Count's palace in Hohenems took place under the direction of the Italian architect Martino Longhi the Elder . Sculptor Esaias Gruber the Elder Ä. created the statues and reliefs for the palace courtyard and the parish church . In addition to the palace , Kaspar had a summer house and a spacious park with a zoo with deer , fox and other species of game. Furthermore, the Dompropsteigasse was founded (later called Christengasse and now Marktstrasse). As early as 1595, at the request of his late father, he had the Chapel of the Holy Trinity built in sulfur .

In 1607 Kaspar had the first building of the chapel consecrated to the plague saint St. Rochus built in Ems-Reute because of the salvation from this disease ( Chapel St. Rochus (Hohenems) ). In 1617 the Karl Borromeo Chapel behind today's town hall.

politics

In 1613, under Johann Georg Schleh, who came from Rottweil , the rhetianic histori, later called Emser Chronik , was created as a propaganda work by the count. This work was printed in 1616 in the first Vorarlberg printing house by Bartholome Schnell in Hohenems.

In 1617, Count Kaspar issued a letter of protection for Jews for economic reasons . The fact that they were expelled from the Austrian margraviate of Burgau in 1617 contributed significantly to the settlement of the Jews . In 1632 the Swedish War caused the influx of more Jews. The following over three hundred year history of the Hohenems Jews ended in the Nazi era.

There were witch trials under the rule of Kaspar because he was firmly convinced of the existence of witchcraft and sorcery. On December 10, 1630, on his instructions, the innocent Frena Fenkart was arrested, subsequently tortured and executed because she felt harmed and threatened by her for alleged witchcraft. Shortly thereafter, her daughter, Walpurga Türchin, also for alleged witchcraft. The witch trials were continued among the successors and claimed at least 17 lives here alone.

progeny

Eleonore Philippine von Welsperg (1597)

Kaspar von Hohenems married on May 15, 1592 Eleonore Philippine von Welsperg (* 1573 - † January 4, 1614), a daughter of Freiherr Christoph von Welsperg († 1580) and Dorothea Lucia, nee Freiin von Firmian .

The following children are from the first marriage:

• Jakob Hannibal II (March 20, 1595 - April 10, 1646)

1. ⚭ 1616 Princess Anna Sidonia von Teschen-Groß-Glogau (* March 2, 1598 - March 13, 1619), a daughter of Duke Adam Wenzel

2. ⚭ 1619 Countess Franziska Katharina von Hohenzollern-Hechingen († June 16, 1665), a daughter of Count Johann Georg , first prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen

• Dorothea (born November 13, 1598; † summer 1666) ⚭ 1641 Franz Andreas von Raitenau , Freiherr zu Hofen (* December 1, 1602; † 1658)
• Franz Maria (* August 22, 1608; † before October 7, 1642) ⚭ 1642 Susanna Hedwig von Raming Freiin zu Ronegg († after 1642); they lived in Vaduz Castle
• Eleonore (January 9, 1612; † May 6, 1675) ⚭ November 1631 Count Johann Georg von Königsegg-Aulendorf (* 1604; † February 11, 1666)

In March 1614, Kaspar von Hohenems married Anna Amalia von Sulz (* 1593 in Vaduz ; † April 26, 1658 in Waldshut ), a daughter of Count Karl Ludwig von Sulz . From this marriage there was a son:

• Franz Leopold (* 1619; † December 6, 1642), Canon in Konstanz (1633), Augsburg and Salzburg (1634)

literature

Coat of arms in the Liechtenstein National Museum

• Franz Attems, Johannes Koren: Patron saints of Austria as keepers and helpers in need. Their lives, their patrons and attributes. Innsbruck 1992, ISBN 3-7016-2391-0 .
• Karl Heinz Burmeister : The development of the Hohenems Jewish community. In: Marktgemeinde Hohenems (Hrsg.): Hohenems - history. Vol. 1 of 3. Bregenz 1975, pp. 171-188.
• Arnulf Häfele , Peter Mathis, Im San Toni, St. Anton cemetery and chapel in Hohenems , Bucher Verlag, Hohenems 2012.
• Sebastian Häfele: Jewish intellectual history in Hohenems in the 19th and 20th centuries. In: Kulturkreis Hohenems (ed.): Emser almanach no. 3. pp. 60–100.
• Ludwig Welti: Count Kaspar von Hohenems 1573–1640. A noble life in the conflict between a peaceful cultural ideal and the harsh war reality in the early baroque. Wagner University Press, Innsbruck 1963.
• Bundesdenkmalamt (Ed.): Dehio Handbook. The art monuments of Austria. Arranged by Gert Ammann, Martin Bitschnau et al. Schroll & Co., Vienna 1983.
• Manfred Tschaikner : witch hunts in Hohenems. Including the Reichshof Lustenau and the Austrian lordships of Feldkirch and Neuburg under Hohenemsian pawns and rebels. Edited by the Vorarlberger Landesarchiv. Research on the history of Vorarlberg, Vol. 5, Universitätsverlag Konstanz, Konstanz 2004, ISBN 3-89669-690-4 .
• Manfred Tschaikner , The persecution of witches in Hohenems - a research report, Verba volant - online contributions from the Vorarlberger Landesarchiv, No. 9, September 10, 2008, vorarlberg.at (PDF)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Johann Riedl: Marcus Sitticus, Archbishop of Salzburg and his nephew Jakob Hanibal Count von Hohenems . In: Communications of the Society for Salzburg Regional Studies No. 4, Salzburg 1864, pp. 250–288. [1] , accessed June 5, 2016.
2. ↑ http://gw.geneanet.org/favrejhas?lang=de&p=kaspar&n=von+hohenems .
3. ↑ See the VIAF - standard data .
4. ↑ See: Arnulf Häfele , Peter Mathis, Im San Toni, Friedhof und Kapelle St. Anton in Hohenems , p. 25.
5. ↑ See: Arnulf Häfele , Peter Mathis, Im San Toni, Friedhof und Kapelle St. Anton in Hohenems , p. 38.
6. ^ Office for Culture Liechtenstein: Testament Kaspar von Hohenems (extract)