Michael von Aitzing

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Figure by Meister Eckhart, who represents Michael von Aitzing's on the Cologne town hall tower (r.)
The Spanish Netherlands in the Leo Belgicus in the shape of a lion

Michael (II.) Freiherr von Aitzing (also Aitzinger, Eyzinger, Eitzing ) (* approx. 1530 in Schrattenthal , † 1598 in Bonn ) was an Austrian nobleman , scholar and author . He is considered a pioneer in newspaper writing and genealogy .

biography

Michael von Aitzing came from the Lower Austrian noble family of the Eyczinger , he was probably born at Schrattenthal Castle , which then belonged to his family. He studied law in Leuven, Belgium , around 1550 and was interested in cartography , mathematics , history and languages. In 1553 he published his first work, a rhetorical textbook with the title Artis oratiae tabulae . From 1557 to 1560 he successfully brought settlement negotiations to the end of the properties of his stepmother Anna von Roggendorf in France. He traveled extensively and mastered several old and new languages ​​such as Greek , Latin , Hebrew , Spanish , Italian and Flemish .

After his studies, von Aitzing returned to Vienna at the request of his father Christoph von Eyczing . Emperor Ferdinand I appointed him "court servant", and he also served his successors Maximilian II and Rudolf II as councilor and chamberlain until 1576 . In 1563 von Aitzing, who was married to a woman of the Fugger family, visited the Council of Trient on behalf of the emperor and in 1566 the Diet of Augsburg . In 1568 he was an eyewitness to the execution of Lamoral von Egmond in Brussels , where he was probably staying as a “secret spy” of the Austrian court, and was subsequently imprisoned there himself, probably for political reasons. After his release he settled as a writer in Cologne in 1581 .

Von Aitzing drew a map of the Holy Land , which was engraved in copper by Frans Hogenberg in 1582 . He became known for his work Leo Belgicus , written in Latin , which appeared for the first time in 1583 and later with new editions and which described the events in the Netherlands since 1559. In that year the Spanish King Philip II installed his half-sister Margarethe of Parma as governor of the Habsburg Netherlands . During her tenure, the uprisings of the Dutch nobility, who were mainly Protestant , began against a central administration by Catholic Spain. Aitzings' work, as a Catholic and partisan of Spanish politics, was based on his own notes, letters, pamphlets and other publications. The territories of the Netherlands were marked with the outline of a lion.

In 1582 the Archbishop of Cologne, Gebhard I von Waldburg, converted to Protestantism. Michael von Aitzing described the events from 1580 to 1583 from his point of view as a contemporary witness from the Catholic point of view in a Relatio historica . This publication was a success, which led him to create annual collective reports, the so-called measurement relations . To do this, he used the regular mail connections for messaging and sales. From 1588 to 1593 the measuring tables appeared every six months at the spring and autumn fair in Frankfurt am Main , and annually from 1594 onwards. In it he listed events and excerpts from files chronologically in a “dry enumeration”: “His measurement relation in the handy quart format is the first historiographical, periodic printed work to be counted among the earliest preforms of the journals.” A total of 18 issues appeared before his death, later His son Michael von Aitzing junior took over the business and published further relations in Cologne.

In 1590 Michael von Aitzing published his work Thesaurus principum hac aetate in Europa viventium, quo progenitores eorum tam paterni quam materni simul ac fratres et sorores inde ab origine reconduntur, usque ad annum a Christo nato 1590 , in which ancestors are numbered after the later for the first time so called Sosa-Stradonitz-System were printed.

Despite his publishing success, von Aitzing lived in Cologne in great poverty. He finally followed a call from the Elector and Archbishop Ernst of Bavaria to Bonn, where he died as his historiographer in 1598.

Commemoration of the city of Cologne

Michael von Aitzing is part of the figure program for the Cologne town hall tower (No. 47, 1st floor). The statue of the master Eckhart created by Alexander Iven in 1900/1901 represents that of Michael von Aitzing. It survived the Second World War with damage and was restored in 1992 by the sculptor Serban Rusu .

literature

  • Eitzing. A lovable community in the Innviertel . Edited by the municipality of Eitzing, Upper Austria. Ried i. Innkreis, 2013, p. 50f.

Web links

Commons : Michael von Aitzing  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Eitzing municipality. (Ed.): Eitzing. A lovable community in the Innviertel . Moserbauer, Ried im Innkreis 2013, ISBN 978-3-902684-35-6 , p. 50 . : " Born around 1530 in Schrattenthal ( not in Obereitzing, as often stated)"
  2. ↑ a b c d e Aitzing (Aitsingerus, Eitzing, Eitzinger, Eyzinger), Michael Freiherr von in the German biography
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Hiltrud Kier , Bernd Ernsting, Ulrich Krings : Cologne, the council tower: its history and its program of figures . Ed .: City of Cologne. JP Bachem Verlag , Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-7616-0858-6 , p. 481 f .
  4. ↑ a b c Titus Tobler:  Eitzing, Michael Freiherr von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 777 f.
  5. ^ Rudolf Stöber: German press history: From the beginnings to the present. 2005, p. 53f , accessed on January 14, 2015 .
  6. ^ The Sosa-Stradonitz System or Pedigree Numbering System. genealogy.ro, accessed January 14, 2015 .
  7. ^ Sculptures on the first floor. City of Cologne, accessed on January 14, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Aitzing, Michael von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Aitzing, Freiherr Michael von; Aitzinger, Michael; Eyzinger, Michael; Eitzing, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian nobleman, scholar and author
DATE OF BIRTH around 1530
PLACE OF BIRTH Schrattenthal
DATE OF DEATH 1598
Place of death Bonn