Nicolò di Montalban

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Nicolò di Montalban (also: Nicolo de Montalban and Nicolò Montalbano or Nicolaus de Montalbani ; born before 1672 in Venice ; died 1695 ) was a Venetian poet , architect and Catholic clergyman , who was the court cavalier Philipp Christoph von Königsmarck and lover of the princess Sophie Dorothea von Hanover murdered.

Life

Count Nicolò di Montalban came from an impoverished Venetian noble family. In 1672 he came into the service of Duke Johann Friedrich von Braunschweig-Lüneburg and was also closely related in many ways to other family members of the Guelphs . The later Hanoverian Electress Sophie, for example, called him "nostre Montalban".

As the architect, Montalban supplied the designs for the two side wings of Osnabrück Castle , which were built under his direction from the summer of 1678 and until 1681 , which were completed by 1683.

The Venetian nobleman was also used in many ways in the royal seat of Hanover at the court of the converted Duke Johann Friedrich († 1679) and his brother and successor Ernst August ( Elector from 1692 ). The baroque court society enriched di Montalban primarily as a poet, who wrote various dramas and operas , among other things . His musical drama L'Alceste, created together with Nikolaus Adam Strungk , Sophie Amalie, Regentess of Denmark and Norway , Pier Antonio Fiocco , Ortensio Mauro and Marc'Antonio Ziani , appeared in 1681 . Also in 1681, in July of that year, Montalban was chosen to look after little Princess Sophie Dorothea as their honorary cavalier on the occasion of the Celle court society's visit to Hanover .

The courtier , ordained a priest, was also known for numerous affairs and gambling debts, which cavalier Niccolò conte Montalban could soon only deal with with the help of the Jewish court factor Leffmann Behrens . The construction management and the organization of the Osnabrück Castle on behalf of the then Prince-Bishop Ernst August had obviously overwhelmed the Count. The construction costs rose excessively, the expansion was delayed and only came to an extensive conclusion with the death of Duke Johann Friedrich and the move of Ernst August as his successor to Hanover.

The Conte was a contemporary of Hofrat Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who was also living in Hanover at the time . By the mention in correspondence of Leibniz's name Montalban part was the world cultural heritage of UNESCO .

"The politically erotic Königsmarck affair" became world famous, in which the Elector Princess Sophie Dorothea, neglected by her husband and later King of Great Britain, Georg Ludwig (George I) , entered into a love affair with the Duke's head guard, Philipp Christoph von Königsmarck . After Amour fou became known, especially through the correspondence between the two lovers , there was a not least politically motivated murder plot by four courtiers known by name: The assassins were Wilken von Klencke, Philipp Adam von Eltz, Johann Christoph von Stubenvol and “the Italian Clergy Don Nicolò di Montalban ”, who carried out the fatal blow against the 29-year-old Königsmarck in the Leineschloss on the night of July 11th to 12th, 1694 . While the corpse was probably disposed of on the leash , the electoral princess was then divorced and remained known as the "Princess of Ahlden " due to the place of her lifelong banishment .

Di Montalban received a high monetary reward for his deed: The until then regularly penniless "Count Montalban, who was overtly indebted," who usually had to live on an annual salary of 200 thalers , was in the Hanoverian Koenigmarck during the period of "disappearance without a trace" Chamber accounts from 1694/95 suddenly as a lender with a total of 15,000 thalers in the books. Montalban transformed from a heavily indebted Italian gambler into a capital investor almost overnight, compared to the subscriber of a government bond. His sudden increase in wealth provided - regardless of the details of the murder - the decisive indication of complicity with the Hanoverian government. The investment, referred to by historians as both blood money and hush money, allowed the sovereign rulers to "suspend interest payments if the worst comes to the worst, and even to freeze the share capital."

Montalban died in the year following the murder. But as he had determined in his will, the Hanoverian Chamber of the Beloved Montalbans paid “the interest for 2000 thalers of the reward, 5% per annum” until she died in 1743.

Works (selection)

Building:

  • Drafts, construction management and organization for the two side wings of Osnabrück Castle, which were built between 1679 and 1683

Portrait of the Bishop of Monteban

In the lavatory of the Queen of Prussia, Sophie Charlotte von Hanover at Lietzenburg Palace, which was later named Charlottenburg Palace in her honor , the Queen had numerous portraits of mostly beautiful, noble ladies hung. In this semi-“private” room there were also other pictures , often created by the Flemish painter and Viennese court painter Anthonis Schoonjans , including “the portrait of the bishop of Monteban, probably the Italian clergyman Don Nicolo Montalban”. The current location of the painting is unknown.

literature

  • Rosemarie Elisabeth Wallbrecht: The theater of the baroque age at the Guelph courts of Hanover and Celle. With 27 panels (= sources and representations on the history of Lower Saxony , vol. 83), also a dissertation in 1972 at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Vienna, Hildesheim: August Lax, 1974, p. 21
  • Ansgar Westermeyer: The palace in Osnabrück - planning and construction in the period 1668–1698 , in Franz-Joachim Verspohl : The Osnabrück Palace. City residence, villa, administrative seat (= Osnabrücker Kulturdenkmäler , Vol. 5), Bramsche: Rasch, 1991, ISBN 978-3-922469-55-1 and ISBN 3-922469-55-8 and ISBN 978-3-922469-56- 8 and ISBN 3-922469-56-6

Remarks

  1. ↑ Notwithstanding this, Hatton named 150,000 thalers; compare Ragnhild Marie Hatton: George I (2001), p. 59

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Georg Schnath :  Königsmarck, Philipp Christoph Graf von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 362 ( digitized version ).
  2. ↑ a b o. V .: Montalban, Nicolo de in the database of Niedersächsische Personen ( new entry required ) of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library - Lower Saxony State Library [undated], last accessed on July 9, 2020
  3. ^ A b Ragnhild Marie Hatton : George I (= Yale English Monarchs ), new edition, New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-300-08883-3 , p. 59; limited preview in Google Book search
  4. ↑ a b c d Christian Gottlieb Jöcher : de Montalbani (Nicolaus) , in ders .: Allgemeine Gelehrten-Lexicon, Darinne the scholars of all classes, both male and female, who lived from the beginning of the world to the present time, and themselves made known to the learned world, after their birth, life, remarkable stories, deaths and writings from the most credible scribes are described in alphabetical order . Volume 3, Verlag Johann Friedrich Gleditsch, Leipzig, 1751 ;. P. 621; Digitized via Google books
  5. ↑ a b c d Georg Schnath : History of Hanover in the age of the ninth cure and the English succession 1674-1714. Following Adolf Köcher's unfinished "History of Hanover and Braunschweig 1648-1714" (= publications of the Historical Commission for Lower Saxony and Bremen , vol. 18), vol. 2: 1693 - 1698 , Hildesheim: August Lax, 1976, ISBN 978- 3-7848-2402-4 and ISBN 3-7848-2402-1 , pp. 172, 173, 385, etc .; limited preview in Google Book search
  6. ↑ a b c d e Ansgar Westermeyer: de Montalban, Nicolo , in: Biographisches Handbuch zur Geschichte der Osnabrück , p. 211
  7. ↑ a b c d e f Wolfgang Adam, Siegrid Westphal, Claudius Sittig (eds.): Handbook of cultural centers of the early modern period , vol. 1: Augsburg - Gottorf , Berlin; Boston, Massachusetts: De Gruyter, 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-020703-3 and ISBN 3-11-020703-6 , p. 1632; limited preview in Google Book search
  8. ^ Klaus Mlynek : Ernst August, Elector of Hanover , in: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon , p. 111
  9. ↑ Information about the WorldCat bibliographic database
  10. ↑ a b o. V .: Montalban, Niccolò conte, Kavalier und Poet am Hannoverschen Hof in the personal and correspondence database of the Leibniz Edition [undated], last accessed on June 13, 2020
  11. ↑ Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn , Sabine Albersmeier (Ed.): Herrenhausen - Gardens, Spirit and Art. Herrenhausen Summer Academy 2013 (= Herrenhäuser Schriften , Volume 1), 1st edition, Munich: Akademische Verlagsgemeinschaft München, 2014, ISBN 978-3-96091-016-9 , especially p. 58; limited preview in Google Book search
  12. ↑ Tim Blanning: George I. The lucky King (= Penguin monarchs ), UK: Allen Lane, 2017, ISBN 978-0-14-197683-9 ; limited preview in Google Book search
  13. ↑ a b c Wolfgang Reinhard (Ed.): Krumme Touren. Anthropology of communicative detours (= publications of the Institute for Historical Anthropology eV , Vol. 10), Vienna; Cologne; Weimar: Böhlau, circa 2007, ISBN 978-3-205-77572-0 and ISBN 3-205-77572-4 , p. 213; limited preview in Google Book search
  14. ↑ Franziska Windt ( SPSG ): BildGeschichte # 11: Matthäus des Angles' "The wife of the Russian envoy Matwejew" on the website of the Research Center Sanssouci (RECS) from April 24, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Montalban, Nicolò di
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Montalban, Nicolo de; Montalbani, Nicolaus de; Montalbano, Nicolò; Montalban, Niccolò conte; Montalban, Nikolaus de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Venetian poet and architect at the Electoral Braunschweig-Lüneburgischer Hof in Hanover
DATE OF BIRTH before 1678
PLACE OF BIRTH Venice
DATE OF DEATH 1695