Perkeo

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Perkeo on a painting from the early 18th century, Palatinate Museum, Heidelberg

The diminutive , extremely hard-drinking Perkeo , actually Clemens Pankert , according to other sources Giovanni Clementi (* 1702 in Salurn , South Tyrol; † 1735) was the court dwarf of Elector Karl III. Philip of the Palatinate and keeper of the great barrel in Heidelberg Castle .

Life

Perkeo, who is said to have been a button maker, probably made the acquaintance of Karl Philip in 1718, at the age of sixteen, who had become governor of the Upper and Lower Austrian provinces in Innsbruck in 1712 and elector of the Palatinate in 1716 through the death of his brother. Impressed by his ability to drink and quick-witted, the prince took Perkeo into his service as a court dwarf and took him to Heidelberg, where he settled on August 18, 1718.

The artist name Perkeo is said to be derived from the fact that Perkeo liked to answer questions in Italian - for example whether he wanted to empty the big barrel in Heidelberg Castle: "perché no?" (Why not?) . In Heidelberg, the elector made him the guardian of this barrel, the predecessor of the slightly larger giant barrel from 1751, which has been preserved to this day.

Perkeo was famous for its incredible ability to drink. Its "dwarfism" is probably due to pseudoachondroplasia .

Victor Hugo wrote in 1840 after a visit to Heidelberg Castle:

“If you walk in the shadow of the large barrel, you suddenly notice a strange figure made of wood behind the supporting planks, onto which an opening in the wall lets a pale glimmer of light fall. You could say it's a funny little old man, dressed up grotesquely. […] The little old man is a court jester […] He was the court jester of Count Palatine Karl Philipp; Perkeo was his name. It was three feet six inches, like the statue under which his name is written. Every day he drank fifteen double bottles of Rhine wine . That was his strength. Around 1710 it made the Elector of Bavaria and the Emperor of Germany, these shadows that passed here at that time, laugh a lot. One day when several foreign princes were with the Count Palatine, Perkeo was measured against one of those "tall fellows" of Friedrich Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, who had to walk backwards down the steps of the palaces in their high-heeled boots and high helmets. The fool barely reached over the grenadiers' boot. That caused a lot of laughter, reports a contemporary narrator. Poor princes of a decrepit time who dealt with dwarves and giants and forgot about them! If Perkeo hadn't drunk his fifteen bottles, he was whipped. "

reception

Statue of Perkeo at the Perkeo Inn

Viktor von Scheffel included the drinking song Perkeo in his collection of Heidelberger Lieder, published under the title Gaudeamus .

The short actor Peter Brownbill recorded the drinking song Perkeo in 2014 in a classic and a modern version.

The figure of the Perkeo is considered specific to Heidelberg, but has also come down to us from other residences of the time. In Heidelberg it symbolizes the local wine culture. For several years now, Perkeo has been celebrating its resurrection in the Electoral Palatinate as a traditional figure in the Heidelberg Carnival , as well as in Salurn .

The appointment Perkeos as a guard of the barrel reads to Reinhard Hoppe like a parody :

“In Heidelberg, the elector had a colored uniform made for him, put a large medal on him and hung a huge cellar key on his side. Perkeo delighted the entire court and the citizens of the city with his jokes. A memorial that he designed and made himself was erected during his lifetime. Today it's on the wall next to the barrel. "

Namesake

  • Perkeo for lamps and lamp parts was registered on October 16, 1894 as the first trademark - under registration number 1 - at the then Imperial Patent Office ; the trademark has been extended since then - most recently in 2014.
  • An inn in Heidelberg's old town bears the name Gasthaus Perkeo . Perkeo is also the name of a neutron decay experiment at Heidelberg University .
  • In 1982 Ingobert Heieck named a new Hedera-helix variety from the ivy collection of the Neuburg Abbey in Heidelberg-Ziegelhausen with the variety name Perkeo .
  • Perkeo was the product name for a small, semi-automatic slide projector for magazines with 36 slides . The change from one slide to the other was made by moving a slide. The device was equipped with a "Stratat" 1: 3.0 / 85 mm lens from Voigtländer and a pin-base lamp 220 V / 150 W. The projector was built in 1961 by the Zett company and sold under Voigtländer .
  • Typewriter from Clemens Müller AG

literature

  • Walter Laufenberg : The dwarf from Heidelberg - Perkeo, court jester at the palace of the Palatinate electors. Engelhorn, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-87203-018-3 . (Biographical novel.)
    • New paperback edition under the title: Perkeo - Der Zwerg von Heidelberg. Regional culture publishing house, Ubstadt-Weiher 2008, ISBN 978-3-89735-539-2 .
  • Walter Laufenberg: Deadly multiplication table - a historical Heidelberg crime thriller. Morio-Verlag, Heidelberg 2017, ISBN 978-3-945424-63-6 . (Historical detective novel.)

Web links

Commons : Perkeo  - Collection of Images
Wikisource: Perkeo  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. Gudrun Rappold : Too small . In: Ruperto Carola , Heidelberg 2/2002
  2. The Fool's Laughter: From a letter from Victor Hugo from 1840 Original French: “En se promenant dans l'ombre que jette la large tonne, on aperçoit tout à coup, derrière des madriers qui l'étançonnent, une singulière statue de bois sur laquelle un soupirail jette un rayon blafard. C'est une espèce de petit vieillard jovial, grotesquement accoutré […] Ce petit vieillard, c'est un bouffon de cour […] C'était le fou du palatine Charles-Philippe. Il s'appelait PERKEO. Il était haut de trois pieds six pouces, comme sa statue, au-dessous de laquelle son nom est gravé. Il buvait quinze doubles bouteilles de vin du Rhin par jour. C'était là son talent. Il faisait beaucoup rire, vers 1710, l'électeur palatin de Bavière et l'empereur d'Allemagne, ces ombres qui passaient alors. Un jour que plusieurs princes étrangers étaient chez le palatin, on mesura Perkeo à l'un de ces grands grenadiers de Frédéric Ier, roi de Prusse, lesquels, bottés à talons hauts et coiffés de leurs immenses bonnets à poil, étaient obligés de descendre les escaliers des palais à reculons. Le fou dépassait à peine la botte du grenadier. Cela fit très-fort rire , dit un narrateur du temps. Pauvres princes d'une époque décrépite, occupés de nains et de géants, et oubliant les hommes! Quand Perkeo n'avait pas bu ses quinze bouteilles, on le fouettait. » ( Le Rhin. Lettres à un ami. Tome deuxiéme. ( Limited preview in Google Book search)
  3. Scheffel, Joseph Viktor von, Poems, Gaudeamus. Songs from the narrower and wider, Heidelbergisch, Perkêo. In: zeno.org. Retrieved January 20, 2015 .
  4. Reinhard Hoppe: Heimat um Heidelberg ( memento of the original from June 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.heidelberger-altstadt.de
  5. See entry in register number 1 , DPMA register.
  6. October 16, 1894: First trademark entered in the trademark register , WDR record date October 16, 2014. Accessed October 16, 2014.
  7. Physikalisches Institut Heidelberg: PERKEO - Neutron Decay Experiments. In: physi.uni-heidelberg.de. Retrieved January 20, 2015 .
  8. ^ Andreas Hönemann: Perkeo. In: efeu-ev.org. Retrieved January 20, 2015 .
  9. Sommeregger: Perkeo 1912–1933 typewriters.ch, Typewriters - Models, History (s), People, October 9, 2011, accessed July 1, 2018