Melchior de Polignac

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Cardinal Melchior de Polignac, portrait by Rosalba Carriera , 1732

Melchior de Polignac (born October 11, 1661 in Lavoûte-sur-Loire next to Le Puy-en-Velay , Velay (today's Haute-Loire department ); † November 20, 1741 in Paris ) was a French cardinal , diplomat and poet.

Life

As the younger son of Armand XVI. , Marquis von Polignac, born in Le Puy-en-Velay , a tendency towards diplomacy was discovered in his early youth . He trained with the Jesuits in Paris. At the Sorbonne he received his doctorate in theology .

In 1695 he was sent as ambassador to Poland , where he pursued plans to have François Louis de Bourbon, prince de Conti, succeed Jan Sobieski as the Polish king in 1697 by the Sejm . On June 27, 1697, Conti was elected King of Poland, but could not prevail against August the Strong and returned to France. The failure resulting from the intrigue led to the fact that de Polignac fell temporarily out of favor with Louis XIV , since the Great Conti was supposed to be removed from the Versailles court. Therefore Ludwig banished him as a commendatory in the Abbey Bonport in Normandy. But as early as 1702, Melchior de Polignac was received again in grace in Versailles . Ten years later he was sent to the Congress of Utrecht as Ludwig's representative . On May 18, 1712, Pope Clement XI. Polignac cardinal in pectore , published January 30, 1713. Until 1724 he remained without a Roman titular church , only in September of that year did Pope Benedict XIII. the titled deaconry Santa Maria in Portico . However, the cardinal changed to Santa Maria in Via as cardinal priest in November of the same year and finally to Santa Maria degli Angeli in December 1725 .

During the reign of Duke Philippe II. Charles de Bourbon, duc d'Orléans on the still underage great-grandson of the Sun King, the later Louis XV. , de Polignac was involved in the so-called conspiracy of Cellamare around the Spanish ambassador of the same name, Antonio Cellamare , and the Duke of Maine against the Duke of Orléans, in which the common reign of the two dukes, which is to be demanded according to the will, was involved. After Cardinal Dubois discovered the conspiracy , de Polignac was banished to Flanders for three years .

In 1704 he was elected to the Académie française , where he was one of the prominent actors in the expulsion of the Abbé de Saint-Pierre . He was subsequently elected as an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences in Paris (1715) and the Academy of Inscriptions and Fine Arts (1717).

From 1725 to 1732 he served as French ambassador to the Holy See in Rome , where he was an avid patron of French painters and sculptors . Among other things, he promoted Lambert-Sigisbert Adam and his younger brother. For the ambassador, the brothers copied and restored several ancient statues. De Polignac consecrated the church of Santi Claudio e Andrea dei Borgognoni on March 4, 1731 .

In December 1725, the king elected Cardinal de Polignac archbishop of Auch in Gascony , which Rome confirmed in February 1726. . Pope Benedict XIII, at the election of the Pope (1724) Melchior de Polignac had participated, it has issued subsequently in person on March 19, 1726 consecration ; Cardinals Pietro Ottoboni and Filippo Antonio Gualterio were co-consecrators . Also at the conclave of 1730 , from which Clemens XII. when Pope emerged, de Polignac was able to participate.

De Polignac also appeared as the author of more than 2000 verses in Latin. Melchior de Polignac died in Paris on November 20, 1741.

He left behind a refutation of Lucretius in metrical verse, which the Abbé de Rothelin published three years after his death as "Anti-Lucretius sive De Deo et Natura" (Anti-Lucretius or About God and Nature). Very popular with his contemporaries, Polignac's abilities were praised even by Voltaire in a typically ambivalent way: "  aussi bon poète latin qu'on peut l'être dans une langue morte; très éloquent dans la sienne; l'un de ceux qui ont prouvé qu'il est plus aisé de faire des vers latins que des vers français. Malheureusement pour lui, en combattant Lucrèce il combat Newton.  “ Goethe is also said to have valued the anti-Lucretius.

In 1742 Frederick II bought the deceased cardinal's collection of around 300 works of antiquities, which, with its significant pieces, including the ankle player , formed one of the foundations of today's Berlin Collection of Antiquities . The Polignacs collection also includes paintings, contemporary sculpture, coins, medals and tapestries.

literature

Web links

Commons : Melchior de Polignac  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ List of members since 1666: Letter P. Académie des sciences, accessed on February 5, 2020 (French).
  2. ↑ Catalog de la plupart des écrivains français qui ont paru dans le Siècle de Louis XIV, pour servir à l'histoire littéraire de ce temps , 1751
  3. ↑ Astrid Dostert: The Collection of Antiquities of Cardinal Melchior de Polignac, 2009, p. 5
personal data
SURNAME Polignac, Melchior de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French cardinal, diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1661
PLACE OF BIRTH Le Puy-en-Velay
DATE OF DEATH November 20, 1741
Place of death Paris