Peter Michael Vigil von Thun and Hohenstein

Peter Michael Vigil von Thun and Hohenstein (born December 13, 1724 in Trient ; † January 17, 1800 at Castel Thun ) was Prince-Bishop of Trento from 1776 to 1800 .

Origin and education

Peter Michael Vigil von Thun and Hohenstein belonged to the South Tyrolean noble family Thun . He was the second eldest son of the Prince-Bishop's Court Marshal and Imperial Privy Councilor and Chamberlain Franz Augustin von Thun and Hohenstein and Maria Antonia Countess von Spaur. The Trento bishop Dominikus Anton von Thun and the Trento auxiliary bishop Johann Michael Wenzel von Spaur were uncle of Peter Michael Vigil, the Passau bishop Thomas Johann von Thun and Hohenstein and the Trent cathedral capitular Philipp Joseph Michael von Thun and Hohenstein were his brothers.

He attended high school in Trento and studied at the Accademia dei Nobili in Rome. In 1739 he became canon in Trento. In 1743, after the death of his uncle Johann Michael Wenzel von Spaur, the auxiliary bishop of Trento, he followed him as archdeacon . In Salzburg he became cathedral capitular in 1743, cathedral dean in 1775 and was at times consistorial president. He was ordained a priest on May 24, 1755.

bishop

Thun and Hohenstein were defeated by Cristoforo Sizzo de Noris in 1763 in spite of imperial support, when they were elected Bishop of Trent. After his death, he was unanimously elected as his successor on May 28, 1776. The papal confirmation took place on September 16 and the episcopal ordination by Andrea Minucci, Bishop of Feltre , on November 30, 1776.

Thun von Hohenstein stayed frequently in Salzburg and, in contrast to his predecessor, showed little interest in pastoral care. Also visitations of his diocese were rarely performed.

He barely opposed the dismantling of the high esteem rights and the creeping integration into the County of Tyrol . He agreed to the extension of Austrian laws and taxes to the bishopric by Maria Theresa in 1777. He even offered Emperor Joseph II the secularization of the diocese in return for a life annuity, which he did not respond to.

The cathedral chapter disapproved of the financing of a prison through gambling and Thun von Hohenstein's refusal to involve the chapter in drafting the code of law proposed by Joseph II in 1786. Even in matters of canon law, the bishop was yielding to Austria. In 1781 he recognized the Josephine tolerance patent and did not offer any resistance to the dissolution of the contemplative orders in the following year and the establishment of a general seminar in Innsbruck in 1784 . He only opposed the reorganization of the diocesan borders planned by Kaiser, which would have led to the loss of the German-speaking areas to Brixen . When the border was cleared with the neighboring Italian Dioceses in 1785, Trento received the Valsugana . The Emser punctuation accepted Thun 1787 with few restrictions.

When Austrian troops marched through the Hochstift in the coalition wars of 1796, Thun secretly fled to his brother Thomas Johann in Passau. During the French occupation, the bishopric was headed by the cathedral dean and two cathedral capitulars. After the French withdrawal, an Austrian war council, later a civil council, administered the bishopric. As compensation, Thun received an annual pension of 18,000 guilders. After his return from Passau, he no longer resided in Trento, but in the family castle in Val di Non , where he died on January 17, 1800. He was buried in the Cathedral of Trento .

literature

• Josef Gelmi : Thun and Hohenstein, Peter Michael Vigil Reichsgraf von. In: Erwin Gatz (Ed.): The Bishops of the Holy Roman Empire. 1648 to 1803. Dunker and Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-06763-0 . P. 513 f.

Web links

• Entry on Peter Michael Vigil von Thun and Hohenstein on catholic-hierarchy.org ; accessed on February 23, 2018.

predecessor	Office	successor
Cristoforo Sizzo de Noris	Prince-Bishop of Trento 1776–1800	Emanuel Maria Count Thun