Moritz Felicetti von Liebenfelss

Moritz Felicetti von Liebenfelss, 1861. The original painting by the painter Emily Schmäck-Stregen is in the possession of the regional archive of the Styrian regional government in Austria

Moritz Leopold Felicetti, Edler von Liebenfelss (born March 31, 1816 in Vienna , † October 26, 1889 in Graz ) was an Austrian historian and poet . He was the son of the secret Austro-Hungarian Council of State and archive director Josef Emanuel Ferdinand von Liebenfelss. Contemporaries report that Mother Nature gave it a striking resemblance to the Duke of Reichstadt , son of Napoleon I , who died in 1832, "as a special recommendation for life" .

Ancestors and parental home

The Felicetti family comes from Venice . It was raised to the nobility with the predicate "von Liebenfeiss" with Simon Anton Felicetti on November 8, 1745 by the Empress Maria Theresa . The relevant document shows that the ancestors of Simon Anton Felicetti were highly regarded and honored in Venice under the name of Cittadini. In 1512 the family settled on fiefdoms in the Fiemme Valley ("zu Pflaims in the princely county of Tyrol"), where they introduced timber rafting and established a particularly financially successful princely timber trade. Various family members were repeatedly active in various civil and military offices for the princely county and were distinguished by their particular eagerness to serve and brave courage. In this context, Simon Anton Felicetti's grandfather, Niclas Felicetti, gave his life as a long-time captain, as did Jacob and Franz Felicetti in 1704, who were two of the five sons of Gabriel Anton Felicetti, the father of Simon Anton Felicetti.

Simon Anton Felicetti himself was very successful in various political offices. From 1722 to 1731 he was an imperial consulate secretary in Livorno and then seven years in the Austrian secret court chancellery (today . Austrian Federal Chancellery ) as tax-control officer (Tax- counter handler operates). In this office, the Austrian tax system improved and standardized so successfully and significantly that he was raised to the nobility in 1754. The family had lived in Vienna since 1730, owned a few houses there and were remarkably wealthy. In particular, the wife of Simon Anton Felicetti's son, Franz von Felicetti, brought through a not inconsiderable part of the fortune. Josef Emanuel Ferdinand von Felicetti, who was born on January 1, 1783 and married Theresia Sophia Radischnigg von Lerchenfeld on June 25, 1815, is descended from Franz von Felicetti. From this marriage came the first-born Moritz Leopold, born in Vienna on March 31, 1816, Clementine Carolina, who married Josef Glanz (field war conceptionist) in 1836, and the last-born Gustav Adolf Franz Xaver.

Youth and military time

Moritz Felicetti von Liebenfelss spent his youth in Vienna, where he attended what was then the academic high school. After graduating, he wanted to study medicine. His uncle, the Feldzeugmeister Baron Alois Gollner von Goldenfels, persuaded him to join the military. Moritz Felicetti von Liebenfelss joined the 48th Infantry Regiment on July 6, 1832 as an ensign , whose owner was his uncle. His first garrison types were Vienna and Bregenz . From the regiment he was then sent to the topographical-lithographical institution of the General Quartermaster's staff in Vienna, which was renamed the Imperial and Royal Military Geographic Institute in 1839 (today: Federal Office for Metrology and Surveying ). The cartographic skills learned here were of great use to him for his later historical topographical work.

On October 25, 1835 he was promoted to second lieutenant . On August 6, 1836, he was posted to the Galician Infantry Regiment No. 13 and on December 21, 1839 to the Hungarian Infantry Regiment No. 39 , with which his promotion to first lieutenant was connected. Although he encountered his stay on Hungarian soil in a remarkably fun-loving manner, he still did not forget the beautiful literature or the study of more serious branches of knowledge. He used most of his savings to buy books. In particular due to the reading of numerous forbidden historical and political writings, he very soon adopted a decidedly liberal attitude , which was often contrary to the doctrines of the then official Austria and also only rarely was in accordance with the views of the majority of his peers.

In Komorn , Hungary , Moritz Felicetti von Liebenfelss was introduced to the family of the local civil servant Balthasar von Karattur at the age of 27, where he met and fell in love with his daughter Caroline von Karattur, who is said to have been extremely beautiful. Both married on October 15, 1845. The couple had a daughter and a son, who both died very early. On the other hand, however, the influence of Emilie von Karattur, his wife's sister, on the mental and spiritual life of Moritz Felicetti von Liebenfelss was so powerful that he became a poet. It was also she who repeatedly inflamed him for poetic creation.

On February 6, 1846 Moritz Felicetti von Liebenfelss became captain in the Illyrian-Banat Border Infantry Regiment No. 72. In this position, he took part in the Austrian army campaign in Italy in 1848 . During the blockade of Venice he developed what is known as lagoon fever , the name given to malaria among the Austrian troops in Venice. As a result, he was forced to take temporary retirement . However, he soon gave up the attempt to reactivate it in 1849 because a severe spleen disease made it impossible for him to ride. From the end of December 1849, he stayed in Graz in retirement . Apart from a few trips, he stayed in Graz until the end of his life.

On July 13, 1850, his wife gave birth to a healthy boy who was named after his father, Moritz Felicetti von Liebenfelss (junior) . He became the father of the art historian Prof. Dr. Walter Felicetti-Liebenfels and grandfather of the actor Jörg von Liebenfelß .

The poet

The literary historian Ferdinand Khull-Kholwald from Graz wrote in 1901 about the poetic work of Felicetti von Liebenfelss:

“He tried his hand at both lyrical and small epic poems. The lyrical poems show a deep feeling and a remarkable power of linguistic expression, especially when he stays at a distance from his role models, the romantics and their sweetish-soft manner. B. in the poems "The Sea" and "Am Friedhof". The numerous love songs offer little independence and move in traditional views and forms. Some songs of the “old German style”, including “Die Linde” in particular, are very pretty and popular in terms of content and form. The ballads contain a whole series of beautiful, genuinely poetic individual passages, but on the whole they lack tightness and brevity of expression. Finally, it should be noted that Felicetti's collection of poems, consisting of two handwritten volumes, contains some good translations of Lamartine's , Byron and Sappho's songs, as well as the first part of a larger prose story entitled “Nothing but Love and Yet So Little Love” from 1844 . "

The historian

As a result of the early retirement at the age of only 33, Moritz Felicetti von Liebenfelss developed a strong urge to take on a secondary job, which was to be of a scientific nature in particular. He began first with mineralogical and botanical studies, then also with seal and coin studies and finally from around 1865 more and more with historical research . His pronounced talent for cartography , which he learned during his military service , and his talent for drawing and painting, helped the very self-disciplined autodidact in copying and editing extensive documentary material , with which he found himself in the former Joanneum and then in the Styrian State Archives familiarized over the years. At the Provincial Archives of Styria he found a temporary job as a kind of volunteer . In this, as he himself said, perfectly organized institute, he stayed with pleasure and long.

In 1869 he was elected to the Association Committee of the Historical Association for Styria. Two treatises from the years 1868 and 1873 in the “Contributions to the customer of Styrian historical sources” came from these archival studies and his growing familiarity with historical-topographical research. Published by the historical association for Styria (5th, 9th and 10th year) ”. With his treatise "Ueber die Lage des pagus Chrouat ", he provided deeds of donation for the Monastery of Göß and a good map to prove that this Gau, which was previously searched for near Kraubath , Upper Styria, can be assigned to the Carinthian region. With this treatise Moritz Felicetti von Liebenfelss introduced himself with great recognition to critical research on medieval topography . With two further works on “ Styria in the Age of 8-12 Century on the basis of critical source studies ”(with 2 maps) he created a decisive basis for the oldest political-ecclesiastical structure of this market area so unique in its genesis as a province .

In the estate of Moritz Felicetti of love Felss there is also a "Map of Styria at the time of government Antrittes of the house of Habsburg in 1282", including buzzwords explanatory text, from other studies that he occasion of the 600-year Habsburg jubilee had prepared in the 1882nd This card was issued to the public at the Vienna World Exhibition in 1873 . In addition, he had also completed a treatise on “Styrian noble seats ”, composed a “compilation and description of all known Austrian private medals of older times”, and started preparatory work for a map of Upper and Lower Austria , talking to the person in charge of Spruner History atlas (Karl von Spruner's Historisch-Geographischer Schul-Atlas), Th. Mencke, put together, and a lot in words and pictures on a historical topography of Graz.

He bequeathed his rich herbarium of European flora to the natural history collection of the Joanneum in Graz . Moritz Felicetti von Liebenfelss was a tireless, non-profit private researcher, scholar and collector until the end of his life, despite physical suffering. He was considered a man of noble disposition, strict against himself and of great modesty.

literature

• Franz von Krones:  Felicetti von Liebenfels, Moritz . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 48, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1904, p. 514 f.

Individual evidence

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