Markus Welser

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Markus Welser

Markus Welser , also Marx Welser (born June 20, 1558 in Augsburg , † June 23, 1614 in Augsburg) was a German humanist , historian , publisher and from 1600 mayor of Augsburg.

Life

Welser, from an Augsburg patrician family, brother of Matthäus and Paulus Welser , was sent to Padua at the age of ten to study law , probably stayed in Paris in 1571 , then for a few years in Rome (member of the Accademia dei Lincei since 1612) and came as a 26-year-old to Venice . Here he completed his commercial knowledge, was consul of the German merchants at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi and was in contact with humanist circles. Markus Welser married Anna May in 1583.

After his return to Augsburg in 1584, Welser had been one of the two town rangers since 1600 and, together with his brother, ran a trading company with Europe-wide connections, which went bankrupt just a week after his death , so that when he died , people spoke of suicide . His extensive literary and patronage activities made Welser one of the most important figures of late German humanism. He ran a rich "commercium litterarium", among others with Isaac Casaubon , Galileo Galilei , Joseph Justus Scaliger , Joachim Camerarius the Younger , Christoph Scheiner , Johann Jakob Rüeger and wrote, among other things, a presentation of the ancient history of his native town Rerum augustanarum vindelicarum libri octo ( 1594) and made a name for himself as the editor and initiator of anthologies . In 1613 he was accepted into the Florentine Accademia della Crusca .

The publishing house he founded, "Ad insigne pinus", was protected by an imperial privilege and published around ninety titles, especially works from Christian antiquity, up to his death and beyond. Welser was probably the initiator of the urban planning program for Augsburg, which Elias Holl had implemented since the end of the 16th century.

Works

as an author
  • Inscriptiones antiquae Augustae Vindelicorum . 1590.
  • Rerum Augustanarum Vindelicarum libri VIII . 1594.
  • Rerum Boicarum libri V . 1602.
as editor
  • Tabula Peutingeriana . 1598.
  • Conversio et passio St. Afrae . 1591.
  • Imagines sanctorum Augustanorum Vindelicorum . 1601.
  • Uranometria . 1603.
  • Letters from Christoph Scheiner about sunspots . 1612 (pseudonym: "Apelles latens post tabulam").

literature

  • Franz Daxecker : The physicist and astronomer Christoph Scheiner . Universitätsverlag Wagner, Innsbruck 2006, ISBN 3-70300424X
  • Wolfgang Kuhoff: Marcus Welser as researcher of Roman Augsburg. In: Mark Häberlein - Johannes Burkhardt (Ed.), Die Welser. New research on the history and culture of the Upper German trading house. Berlin 2002, pp. 585-608.
  • Leonhard Lenk: Augsburg bourgeoisie in late humanism and early baroque 1580–1700 (Diss. Munich: The civil spirit of the city of Augsburg at the end of the 16th and 17th centuries ). H. Mühlberger, Augsburg 1968.
  • Friedrich Roth:  Welser . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 41, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1896, pp. 682-692. (Family item)

Web links

Commons : Markus Welser  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Membership list of the Crusca


personal data
SURNAME Welser, Markus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Welser, Marx
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German humanist, historian, publisher and mayor of Augsburg
DATE OF BIRTH June 20, 1558
PLACE OF BIRTH augsburg
DATE OF DEATH June 23, 1614
Place of death augsburg