Matthias Burglechner

Matthias Burglechner , also Mathias Burglechner , Matthias Burgklehner and Matthias Burgklechner (* 1573 in Innsbruck ; † September 7, 1642 ibid) was an Austrian lawyer , historian and cartographer .

Life

Matthias Burglechner was born in Innsbruck in 1573 as one of at least five children of Matthias Burglechner (1545–1603) and Maria Polleiner. The family originally came from the Burglehen farm in Zimmermoos above Rattenberg , from which their family name is derived. His ancestors had worked their way up in the service of the sovereign, his father was first secretary, then councilor of the Upper Austrian Chamber (financial administration) in Innsbruck. In 1571 he and his brothers were given a coat of arms, Archduke Ferdinand II  elevated him to the nobility in 1594.

With the help of sovereign scholarships, Matthias Burglechner studied philosophy in Ingolstadt and law in Padua , where he received his doctorate in both rights in 1597 . After a brief activity at the Imperial  Court of Justice in Speyer , he was appointed to the regimental council in Innsbruck. From 1612 to 1620 he was vice president of the chamber, from 1620 vice chancellor of the regiment and government for the county of Tyrol and the foreland . Burglechner initially traveled around the country a lot and was called in by the sovereigns for many negotiations, especially for border negotiations.

Gate of the Thierburg residence with the Burglechner coat of arms (bottom right)

As was  widespread in the 16th and 17th centuries under the influence of humanism , Burglechner, like his contemporaries Jakob Andrä von Brandis and Marx Sittich von Wolkenstein , dealt with history in addition to his official business. At first he worked on a comprehensive world and church history of the Christian age ( Thesaurus historiarum , two parts, published in 1602 and 1604 in Innsbruck), later he turned to regional studies of Tyrol and created a multi-volume work ( Der Tiroler Adler ) and several maps .

In 1599 he married Katharina Botsch von Zwingenburg, the couple had three sons and four daughters. In 1604 he bought the two residences Thierburg and Vollandseck in Fritzens , after which he added the name Thierburg and Vollandsegg . In 1616 the prince left him with the care (administration) of the lucrative Freundsberg district court near Schwaz.

Works

The Tyrolean eagle

The Council of Trent

View of Lienz

The Tyrolean eagle is a historical-political description of the county of Tyrol. In 1608 Burglechner had completed the first part, but the printing was done by Maximilian III. who otherwise promoted him, because of incriminating passages in the historical description. In 1620 the second part was completed as a manuscript, two more parts were created by 1636. In 1641 Burglechner submitted the entire work to Princess Claudia de 'Medici , who in turn refused to go to print, but granted him 100  guilders for life and the work for 2000 guilders from the court chancellery. The original is now in the Austrian State Archives , a copy from the 19th century in the Tyrolean State Museum Ferdinandeum .

The work consists of four parts of three volumes each. The first part contains information on geography, economy (mining, coinage, agriculture) and religion as well as the history of Tyrol from Roman times to Ferdinand II. The second part deals with the history of the Tyrolean landscape, provinces, rights, monasteries and nobility, in the third In part, castles and mansions, the history of the cities and markets and the courts and lordships are described. The fourth part contains files and documents about the Austrian rights in Graubünden, the Tyrolean rights in the monasteries Brixen and Trient and in Württemberg , about contracts with Bavaria, Salzburg, Freising and Valtellina, as well as a chronicle of Bozen and a calendar with health rules and the like .

The Tyrolean eagle is richly illustrated with views of most of the cities, portraits of sovereigns and the coats of arms of the Tyrolean noble families. It also contains two maps, a scaled-down replica of Burglechner's “small map” from 1608 and a map showing the Upper Inn Valley between Imst and Zirl and the Ausserfern up to the level of Biberwier . This thematic map relates to the invasion of Tyrol by Elector Moritz von Sachsen in 1552 and was probably made as a sketch by Paul Dax around 1552 .

In the absence of literature, Burglechner largely had to obtain his information himself. As a senior civil servant, he had access to the documents and document books of the Innsbruck treasure archives and was able to obtain current information about the sovereign administrative organization.

The first part of the Tyrolean eagle was often copied in the 17th and 18th centuries and distributed as handwriting. It also served as a model for later works, such as Franz Adam von Brandis ' book Des Tyrolean Eagle Evergrünendes Ehrenkräzel , published in Bolzano in 1678 , but the aftermath was limited to Tyrol.

The small map of Tyrol from 1608

The little card

The map Die Firstlich Graffschaft Tirol appeared in 1608 as a copper engraving carried out by David Zigl in Hall . It consists of a sheet of paper measuring 42 × 39 cm and has an average scale of 1: 620,000. The map only shows bodies of water and places, but apart from the “great distant”, the glaciated central area of ​​the Ötztal Alps , no mountains. Larger settlements and castles are shown with elevation drawings, smaller ones with circle signatures. The border is unusually shown for the time with a broken line, the areas have included here the bishoprics of Brixen and Trent , which do not belong to Tyrol, but by the Habsburgs claimed areas in the Engadine , and the Bishopric of Salzburg scoring rule Windisch Matrei . The only decoration on the card is a cartouche with the Austrian and Tyrolean coats of arms.

Tyrolean eagle card

The Tyrolean eagle card

The map Aquila Tirolensis was first published in 1609 as a copperplate engraving (engraved by David Zigl) in four sheets with an overall format of 97 × 74 cm with an average scale of 1: 620,000. In 1620 and 1626 it was revised, but without changes in content, engraved by Andreas Spängler, and reissued. The special thing about the map is the symbolism: The state of Tyrol is represented in the form of an eagle, the heraldic animal , surrounded by heraldic animals of neighboring countries such as the Graubünden ibex and the Venetian lion of St. Mark . Such maps, in which a country or continent is represented in the form of an allegorical figure, were very popular in the Renaissance and Baroque periods . This form of presentation naturally leads to strong distortions.

The menu is also richly decorated. The coats of arms of the Tyrolean cities and that of Schwaz are depicted on the left and right edges . At the lower edge is a Tyrolean landscape with four people representing the estates (prelates, nobility, citizens, farmers) against the background of a castle and a bishop's residence or a city (view of Innsbruck) and an agricultural scene. Above it are shown two of the most important sources of income in Tyrol at the time, a mine and vineyards with a wine press.

The large map of Tyrol from 1611

The big card

The map Die F (i) r (Eastern) County Tyrol , also known as the large map , was intended as a supplement to the history of the Tiroler Adler , in which reference is made to it in many places. Another reason for creating the map was presumably border negotiations with neighboring countries.

Instead of the expensive and elaborate copperplate engraving, Burglechner opted for the woodcut, which was made by Hans Rogel in Augsburg in 1611 . However, for unknown reasons, possibly due to technical problems, the map was not printed and it was not until the 19th century that it was reproduced from the original printing blocks that were preserved. The map consists of 12 sheets with an overall size of 165 × 155 cm and an average scale of 1: 160,000. In 1629 it was executed as a copperplate engraving and published by Andreas Spängler in Innsbruck with minor changes.

Burglechner probably knew the Tyrol maps from Wolfgang Lazius and Warmund Ygl , but his map is based on his own topographical surveys completed in 1608. The Bavarian country tables by Philipp Apian, first published in 1579, served as a model for the design .

The card has the same card size as the small card . The coat of arms of Prince Maximilian III can be found at the bottom . (replaced in the engraved version by the coats of arms of Leopold V and Claudia de 'Medicis ) and the county of Tyrol. On the edges there are text cartouches about places and the administrative structure of the country, five small battle pictures remind of historical events. The areas bordering on Tyrol are covered by banks of clouds. Valleys and waters largely correspond to reality, mountains and mountains are not represented as "molehills" as in contemporary maps, but with naturalistic (but not realistic) elevation drawings. Places are also marked with elevation pictures, forests and vineyards are symbolized by appropriate signatures. The meaning of the six-pointed asterisks distributed over the entire area is unclear; they may have a connection to mining. Numerous bridges are shown as the only transport links. The map contains around 3000 geographical names.

Until the publication of the Atlas Tyrolensis by Peter Anich in 1774, the large map, together with that of Warmund Ygl, was the most important map of Tyrol. It was known and widespread in Tyrol, but outside of the country it was not taken into account, unlike the Ygl map published a few years earlier.

literature

• Franz von Krones:  Burglechner, Mathias . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1876, p. 608 f.
• Wilfried Beimrohr: Mathias Burglechner (Burgklehner) - civil servant, historian and cartographer. Archive & Source 31, Tiroler Landesarchiv, Innsbruck 2008 ( PDF; 2.5 MB )
• Kurt Brunner: Regional maps of Tyrol by Matthias Burgklechner and their predecessors. In: Mitteilungen der Österreichische Geographische Gesellschaft, Vol. 144, Vienna 2002, pp. 237–254 ( PDF; 7.7 MB )
• J. Kraft: The picture decorations in M. Burgklehner's “Tiroler Adler” . In: Publications of the Museum Ferdinandeum in Innsbruck, Issue 8, 1928, pp. 361–405 ( digitized version )

Web links

Commons : Matthias Burgklehner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Matthias Burgklehner in the catalog of the German National Library
• Publications by and about Matthias Burglechner in VD 16 .
• Works by and about Matthias Burgklehner  in the German Digital Library
• Entry on Burgklechner, Matthias the Younger in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )