Peter Hessel

Peter Hessel , also Petrus Hesselius (born December 15, 1639 in Hamburg , † December 26 or 27, 1677 there ) was a German pastor and writer .

Life

Peter Hessel was born in Hamburg, where his rich father worked as a cheese maker. He received a school education at the learned school of the Johanneum and at the academic high school . From 1662 to 1664 he studied theology at the University of Giessen . He then returned to his hometown, where he took over the office of preacher at the Pesthof in 1671 . He turned down five appointments in communities outside Hamburg.

Works

Peter Hessel wrote a chronicle about the Hanseatic city with the Hamburg palm tree . The work was never published and is now considered lost. He also wrote an extensive description of the Elbe. "Heart-flowing considerations from the Elbe river". The book gives an insight into everyday and economic life on the Elbe in the 17th century: shipping, fishing including whaling and processing, trade and commerce, shipping and natural disasters, especially storm surges. Hessel used a baroque language and adhered to well-known descriptions of the earth in the form. The work can be seen as an early form of the later established topography. In the history of language it is one of the first works that can be described as independent German literature.

Detailed information on Hessel's life and the description of the Elbe is provided by Dr. Gerhard Ahrens in the afterword of the facsimile edition from 1982. In the brochure for the exhibition "Alles im Fluss" in the Altona Museum 2006, the book is presented as an "extraordinary testimony to the Baroque age" including content rendering and interpretation. 7 of the 28 copper engravings in the book are printed.

literature

• Petrus Hesselius: "Heart-flowing considerations from the Elbe river", Altona, Victor de Leeu 1675.
• Otto Beneke :  Hessel, Peter . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1880, pp. 308-311.
• Gerhard Ahrens: Hessel, Peter . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 1 . Christians, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7672-1364-8 , pp. 134-135 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ The Elbe - a curriculum vitae , catalog of the German Historical Museum Berlin 1992, p. 398. ISBN 3-87584-395-9 .
2. ↑ Heart-flowing considerations Von dem Elbe-Strom , facsimile edition Th. Schäfer GmbH 1982, 4 pages at the end of the book, no page number. ISBN 3-88746-032-4 .
3. ↑ Michael Diers: The Elbe in a baroque portrait and parable - A Hamburg house book from 1675 , in Alles im Fluss , Publications of the Altona Museum for Art and Art History 2006, p. 22ff. ISBN 978-3-927637-49-8 .