Nicholas II Esterházy de Galantha
Prince Nikolaus II. Esterházy de Galantha (* December 12, 1765 in Vienna ; † November 25, 1833 in Como ) was a Hungarian count (Comes de Fraknó) from the princely branch of the Esterházy family , head of the house, majorate and thus since 1794 Prince. He went down in history with the epithet "Il Magnifico" because of his magnificent court, his buildings and gardens and, above all, his large art collections.
1790 Privy Council, 1802 Feldzeugmeister lieutenant then Feldzeugmeister (Quartermaster General), 1803 Captain of the Royal Hungarian Noble Life Guard , 1808 Order of the Golden Fleece , 1808 Honorary Member of the Vienna Academy of the Arts, 1804 Lord of Edelstetten (prince county) and thus imperial prince with imperial estate, 1828 Lord the island of Mainau
Contemporary sources describe him as charming, educated, restless, agitated and active.
Nicholas II promoted the arts, had them built, collected, composed, arranged and staged in order to represent his power. Art was supposed to help the representative of the high aristocracy of the Habsburg monarchy to immortality when the nobility fought for supremacy in state and society between the epochs 1789 and 1848.
biography
Youth and Education (1765–1794)
Hereditary Prince (count until 1783) Nikolaus was brought up at the court of his grandfather, Prince Nikolaus I. Esterházy , in the spirit of the Ancien Régime. In Eszterház Castle in Hungary, the boy was introduced to the Italian opera and the work of the royal conductor Joseph Haydn, but also to the absolutist consumption of prestige through art and pomp.
From 1779 to 1782 Nikolaus and his younger brother Anton attended the Collegium Juricum in Eger / Erlau, where his relative Count Karl Eszterházy (1725–1782) was bishop.
On September 15, 1783, he married the Liechtenstein Princess Maria Josepha Hermengilde , the daughter of Prince Franz Josef I of Liechtenstein and Leopoldine , nee. Countess of Sternberg.
As early as the day after the wedding in the smallest family circle, Nicholas and his adjutant Jean-Frederic-Antoine Dattily set out on a grand tour to Italy, where he traveled until April 1784. In Naples, the young Nicholas stayed for a long time with his cousin, the imperial ambassador Count Anton Lamberg-Sprinzenstein (1740–1822), who was a famous art collector and connoisseur and became the lifelong mentor of the future prince.
In 1786 Nikolaus began his military training in Linz, and in 1790 was transferred to Vienna as Lieutenant of the Hungarian Nobles Life Guard.
Hereditary Prince Paul Anton was born in 1786, and Princess Leopoldine in 1788 , later wife of Prince Moritz von Liechtenstein . Prince Nikolaus (nicknamed Nickerl, died 1833) was born in 1799 and suffered from a mental handicap.
Regency over the majorate (1794–1802)
In 1794 Nikolaus took over the majority rule from his father Anton (I) , whom the then Hereditary Prince had accompanied in his function as coronation ambassador to the election and coronation of Archduke Franz as Roman-German King in Frankfurt in 1792 . With the same ceremony, the new Prince Nikolaus II then staged his assumption of the majority in Eisenstadt in 1794, which was also his appointment as Chief Count of Ödenburg / Sopron. Nicholas II began numerous economic experiments in the period that followed, had the administration renewed, participated in the postal system and began very successfully to expand sheep farming on his Upper Hungarian rule. In the years to come, sheep's wool became the main source of income for the Esterházy family, who then ruled over 431,000 hectares in 29 lordships with around 360,000 subjects, almost with the rights of sovereign princes. Nicholas II was one of the richest men in Europe.
From December 1794 to June 1795 Prince Nikolaus went on another trip to Italy, where he met all the greats of intellectual life in Rome and Naples: his mentor Anton Lamberg-Sprinzenstein accompanied him, he was friends with the English Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex , had his wife and mistress portrayed by Angelika Kauffmann and consulted the Berlin archaeologist Aloys Hirt on art purchases. The aim was to build up a collection of paintings, for which the foundation stone was laid with the paintings and drawings by Correggio , Andrea del Sarto , Anton Raphael Mengs , Jacob Philipp Hackert , Wilhelm Friedrich Gmelin and others bought in Italy at the time .
The garden around the Prince's Palace on Wiener Landstrasse (later Palais Arenberg ) became particularly famous during this time, as Nikolaus fell into disrepute with frivolous hints of design in the landscaping of the landscaped gardens. The buildings, gallery and facilities were the Prince's experimental space for his renovation plans in his Eisenstadt residence. The designs for the Landstraßer Garten and its buildings come from the French architect Jean-François Thomas de Thomon .
The heyday and the Eisenstadt cultural landscape (1803–1813)
With the experience of a long Paris-London trip from December 1802 to August 1803 in terms of luxury items, architecture, garden design, technology and art, Prince Nicholas II began to transform the Eisenstadt rule , the ancestral seat of the princely family, in the autumn of 1803 the renovation of Esterházy Palace in Eisenstadt in the classical style, planned an opera house and a gallery for his growing art collections and created gardens in the style of an English landscape garden . Under the direction of the architect Charles de Moreau , whom Nicholas met and poached in Paris, numerous garden structures, hunting lodges and officials' houses were built. The machine house in the Eisenstädter Garten is famous, in which the first steam engine of the Habsburg monarchy was set up, which Nicholas brought from London and which was supposed to power the water features. A huge cultural landscape with villages, avenues, forests, meadows, gardens and castles was to emerge, in which useful agriculture was combined with a representative demonstration of power by a prince.
Nikolaus developed a rich theater and opera life at his Eisenstadt court, for which the old Joseph Haydn and Johann Nepomuk Hummel were responsible.
The prince worked with his experts on expanding the library - under the custodians György Gaál and Ludwig Wieland - bought entire collections of paintings and graphics - under the custodian Joseph Fischer, expanded the rock and shell collection. The collection of church music and the plant collections are among the largest of their kind in the Habsburg monarchy.
As a theater entrepreneur, the prince took part in the performance of the Burgtheater and the Theater an der Wien , where he could almost have engaged the famous August Wilhelm Iffland as a member of the court theater management in 1809 . He also temporarily supported Ludwig van Beethoven . During the coalition wars , Esterházy became an important financier of troops and, with its agricultural production and stock keeping in Hungary, represented an important source of supplies for the imperial army.
The splendid, glamorous and economically important Prince Nikolaus II reached the height of his authority during this time when Emperor Franz I elevated the rule of Edelstetten in Bavaria, acquired by Nikolaus from Prince Charles de Ligne in 1804, to an imperial principality. Although the rule of Edelstetten was small, it opened the way for the princely Esterházy family to direct imperial politics, as they received a vote in the Imperial Council of the Holy Roman Empire .
But the Holy Roman Empire gradually dissolved under the pressure of Napoléon Bonaparte ( Reichsdeputationshauptschluss 1803). Francis II proclaimed himself Emperor of Austria on August 11, 1804 , before Napoléon was crowned Emperor of the French on December 2, 1804. In 1806 Francis II laid down the crown of the Holy Roman Empire and declared the empire over. This meant that Nikolaus II was never able to use his newly acquired voice on the German Reichsfürstenbank; it remained the titular rise of the Esterházy princes under the ruling houses of Germany (from 1815 referred to as mediatized houses ). A persistent legend, however, is that Napoléon is said to have offered the Hungarian royal crown to Nicholas II Esterházy after his victory over Austria in the Fifth Coalition War with the Battle of Wagram in 1809 . The legend, however, testifies to the importance of the prince around 1810, who bought a house in Paris and even offered Luigi Cherubini the position of court conductor at the Esterházyhof. Cherubini composed the monumental Messa solenne per il Principe Esterházy in D minor, which he completed on October 7, 1811. However, due to financial problems, the prince later withdrew his offer.
Because with the burdens of the coalition wars for Austria and the huge court holdings, the majority finances were increasingly affected. After the wedding of the Hereditary Prince Paul Anton to Princess Therese von Thurn und Taxis in Regensburg in 1812, Esterházy was on the verge of bankruptcy. When all building projects had to be stopped and the court had to be curtailed drastically, Nicholas II fled to Nice and later to Rome in April 1813 to avoid the disgrace.
Retreat and founding of the Mariahilfer Museum (1814–1824)
When Napoléon I was overthrown in the spring of 1814, preparations were made in Vienna for the arrival of the highest diplomats and the European nobility, all of whom wanted to attend the political and social event of the Congress of Vienna . Prince Nicholas II stayed away from this century event of the renewal of aristocratic power in Europe: He cured himself of depression and exhaustion in Nervi near Genoa and traveled through Europe with his lover, the French Marie Louise Plaideux. Again he began to buy and order art here, so numerous commissions to the sculptors Bertel Thorvaldsen , Rudolf Schadow , Pietro Tenerani and Adamo Tadolini are known.
With this extremely modern and important collection of contemporary sculptures, Prince Nikolaus II set up a museum of his art treasures in his newly acquired garden palace in Mariahilf (the former Palais Kaunitz ) from 1817 . An extension was created for the so-called museum, the sculpture collection. The paintings, graphics, books and stone collections were placed in the garden palace and opened to the public.
Nikolaus had withdrawn completely from the public with the Congress of Vienna and spent most of the winters traveling in Italy or his Palazzo in Naples , acquired in 1817 , but the so-called Mariahilfer Museum made him appear to the public as a liberal patron patronage .
The purchase of the famous Burke Collection in 1820/21 was spectacular , which enriched the Esterházy Gallery with works by Murillo , el Greco and Francisco de Goya with its Spanish baroque painters , which was an art-historical sensation and testified to the prince's advisor for quality.
In 1824 Nicholas II made a final impression on the European public when he was sent to London as a coronation ambassador for the coronation of George IV (with whom he was friends). The prince wore the family's legendary diamond uniform - Sir Walter Scott wrote: "... he glimmered like a galaxy!". The jewels were auctioned off at Christie's in London in 1867 and thus came to Charles Lewis Tiffany , who founded “Tiffany and Co” with them.
Escape to Mainau Island (1825–1833)
As the self-confident Nikolaus, as a member of the Hungarian state parliament, had too often messed with his sovereign Kaiser or King Franz, the debts of the Majorate became more and more overwhelming and the social reputation of the prince had suffered severely because of his long-term relationship with Marie Louise Plaideux, he withdrew Fürst continues to return to private life away from Vienna and Eisenstadt.
For this he acquired the dominions Pfannberg in Styria (1818), Jeutendorf and Ardagger in Lower Austria (1830) and Gailingen near Lake Constance (1831). These should also serve to care for his illegitimate children. As early as 1827, Nicholas II had acquired the island of Mainau in Lake Constance from Grand Duke Ludwig I of Baden , which he used as a frequent residence. The prince had gardens laid out here with exotic plants from the Eisenstadt plant collections, thereby establishing the island's reputation as the island of flowers. The Plaideux was bought with the two daughters and their son in 1828, the baron title of Mainau.
In the same year, the Majorat was also insolvent because of these large acquisitions, mismanagement and the Prince's increasing unpredictability in economic matters. In the end, the eternally driven and restlessly traveling prince had only a small appanage , since the majority had to be administered by a sequester since 1832 in order to prevent his bankruptcy.
Prince Nicholas II died shortly before his sixty-eighth birthday on November 25, 1833 on the way to Italy in Como . Shortly afterwards he was buried in the family crypt in Eisenstadt. His successor as majorate was his son Paul III. Anton .
Most of the collections were sold, auctioned and forgotten after his death. The important collection of paintings and graphics was exhibited in the new Hungarian Academy of Sciences from 1865 and in 1871 the family transferred it to the Hungarian state. Today it is the main part of the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts .
In 1862 the Esterházygasse in Vienna- Mariahilf (6th district) was named after Nikolaus II Esterházy. Since he was the owner of the Waldsteingarten in Vienna's Prater from 1823 , today's Waldsteingartenstraße in the 2nd district of Leopoldstadt was called Esterházystraße until 1908 .
literature
- Esterházy, Prince Nikolaus. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 1, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1957, p. 269.
- Johann Christoph Allmayer-Beck : Esterházy von Galántha, Nikolaus. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 662 ( digitized version ).
- Heinrich Benedikt: Esterházy, Prince Miklós . In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 1. Munich 1974, p. 470 f.
- Stefan Körner: Il Magnifico. Prince Nicholas II Esterházy 1765-1833. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-745-6 .
- Stefan Körner: Nikolaus II. Esterházy and the art. Biography of a manic collector . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2013, ISBN 978-3-205-78922-2 .
Web links
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Anton I. |
Majoratsherr of the Esterházy family 1794–1833 |
Paul III Anton |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Esterházy de Galantha, Nicholas II. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Esterházy de Galantha, Prince Nicholas II |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Prince from the Esterházy family |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 12, 1765 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vienna |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 25, 1833 |
| Place of death | Como |