Philipp Hainhofer

Philipp Hainhofer, drawing by Lucas Kilian , 1623

Philipp Hainhofer (born July 21, 1578 in Augsburg ; † July 23, 1647 ibid) was a German businessman , art agent, news correspondent and diplomat. Due to his wide range of activities, he is one of the most dazzling figures in Augsburg in the 17th century and is now well known among art and cultural historians .

Life

family

Pedigree of Philipp Hainhofer

The Hainhofer family can be traced back to Augsburg since 1370 . Its members were traditionally active in the textile trade. Philipp Hainhofer's grandfather Melchior Hainhofer (1500–1577) managed to rise from a simple trader in the textile sector to a merchant with wealth and reputation. The Hainhofer family was also able to consolidate its social advancement through clever marriage connections with the most respected Augsburg families. Already in 1544 the mentioned Melchior received by Emperor Charles V a letter crest, 1578 by his son, Philip's father, Emperor Rudolf II. In the knightly nobility with arms Mehrung levied. The family was accepted into the Augsburg city patriciate, however, only in 1632, under Philipp Hainhofer's aegis.

Childhood and youth

Philipp Hainhofer was born on July 21, 1578, the eleventh of fifteen children of Melchior Hainhofer (1539–1583) and Barbara Hörmann von und zu Gutenberg. After the early death of the father, the mother moved to Ulm sometime between 1583 and 1586 with her children, with the exception of the eldest son Christoph . In general, this move is associated with the calendar dispute, which was particularly fierce in Augsburg , although the more precise circumstances and chronological sequence have proven to be unclear. In any case, Philipp Hainhofer did not return to Augsburg until around 1593/94, but only a short time later with his younger brother Hieronymus and the preceptor Dr. Hieronymus Bechler to embark on an extensive educational journey.

The journey led from Augsburg first to Padua , where the Hainhofer brothers devoted two years to studies at the famous university there , then on to Siena , where a few more months are spent on university studies. In between and on the way home, long detours were made to get to know the sights and cultural treasures of the wider area, including Rome and Naples .

In autumn 1596 the Hainhofer brothers arrived back in their native Augsburg. They parted ways there, and Philipp Hainhofer left just a month later, this time to Cologne , to continue his studies there. His learning goal was to learn the French language after the Italian. But since his teacher, with whom he also lived, was originally from Brabant, he also had the opportunity to learn Flemish. In 1597 a plague epidemic raging in Cologne forced the teacher's entire household, including students, to leave the city and flee to Amsterdam . Here, too, Hainhofer conducted his studies and traveled around the city. In the autumn of 1598 he finally made his way home to Augsburg, but not without using the trip again for numerous visits and detours.

Hainhofer's education and training is based on a combination of trips and university visits, as was customary at that time for sons of the nobility and wealthy merchant families. Her goal was not erudition in the abstract sense, but rather those skills were to be acquired in a strategic training program which the young Hainhofer would find useful in dealing with his future upscale customers in the family's business. This included languages ​​and mathematics as well as jurisprudence and humanistic cultural assets as well as a cosmopolitanism and fluency in the general sense, which inevitably developed through the many journeys.

Business and Social

After returning from his study trips in the fall of 1598, Hainhofer settled in Augsburg and, apart from short business and beach trips, never left the city. Presumably he first worked in the office of the family business. After his mother's death in 1604, he began trying to set up his own business by sending advertising letters in his own name and having goods manufactured or imported for his own account. At the same time he sometimes worked in foreign services, for example for Christoph Fugger . The reason for these steps were probably the differences between the various shareholders of the Hainhofer family business. By 1610/11 the cohesion between the partners had loosened so much that the company only existed nominally and a complete dissolution was considered.

On October 29, 1601, Hainhofer married Regina Waiblinger, a maternal cousin from the best family. This marriage was extremely advantageous for the young businessman from an economic point of view, as he - himself already wealthy - was able to increase his fortune considerably through the dowry of his bride. The marriage resulted in the daughters Barbara, Judith and Regina in 1604, 1606 and 1608, followed by a son, Philipp, in 1612, who died of children already in 1617 . Georg Ulrich was born in 1614, the only son of Hainhofer who survived into adulthood. Two more daughters, Augusta and Sophia, followed in 1616 and 1618. Except for Judith, all of the children survived their father, and except for Sophia and Georg Ulrich, all were properly married.

In addition to his professional activity as a businessman and soon also as a service provider for upscale clients in the broader sense (see fields of activity), Hainhofer was also active in Augsburg's city policy. In the course of his life he held various municipal offices: in 1605 he was elected to the Grand Council, in 1614 appointed to the penal seat, in 1628 appointed as caretaker of St. Anna , in 1629 elected as assessor at the city court.

War years

A significant part of Hainhofer's adult life was overshadowed by the Thirty Years War . He was spared the epidemics that were repeatedly devastating in times of war. But the war caused considerable economic difficulties. As a financier, Hainhofer was involved in credit transactions with the public sector, which, however, became insolvent due to war and inflation and could no longer satisfy the creditors. Due to the inflation, outstanding debts of clients at Hainhofer lost considerably in value. Apart from these losses, which of course were at Hainhofer's expense, the willingness of most customers to pay decreased at all. Since Hainhofer pre-financed many of his deliveries from his own coffers, this meant that the actually extremely wealthy Hainhofer had to go into high debts, which he could no longer fully reduce throughout his life.

From 1629 onwards, Hainhofer, who was a Protestant denomination, lost all of his public offices in the course of restitution. As a result of the harassment of the Catholics who had come to sole power as well as the weakening of the economy as a whole caused by contributions , epidemics and inflation , he lost a large part of his wealth in the following years, after having even been able to increase it despite economic difficulties in the first years of the war. During this time, Hainhofer tried to use his remaining influence in the city to stand by oppressed Protestant fellow citizens, but had to be careful not to be suspected of being an enemy of the Catholics himself. In fact, in the spring of 1632, a letter from Hainhofer, which was interpreted as an insult to the authorities, was intercepted by the censors, who then placed him under house arrest and sentenced him to accept a riding company into his house and to pay a heavy fine. Only through his dexterity in dealing with people, in this case through the skilful flattery of the officers responsible, Hainhofer succeeded after some time in averting the restrictions on him and reducing the fine to half the amount.

When Swedish troops approached the city of Augsburg threateningly in April 1632, the city officials entrusted Hainhofer with organizing a gathering of Augsburg Protestants to determine their attitude towards a possible handover of the city to the Swedes. This proves his prominent position within the (Protestant) Augsburg citizenship. After the Swedes moved into Augsburg, the tide turned again in favor of Hainhofer, he became an important and busy man who was showered with honors by the Swedish King Gustav Adolf . The Hainhofer family was one of the thirteen Protestant families in Augsburg who were elevated to the patriciate by Gustav Adolf. As a result, Hainhofer was not only able to return to the Grand Council, but was now also eligible for the office of superintendent of urban buildings, in which the Swedish king now installed him. Contrary to what the name suggests, a master builder in Augsburg was not only responsible for the construction industry, but also and above all for the expenses of the city's budget. The office was therefore one of the most important in the course of city politics, and it was certainly an honor for Hainhofer to be awarded it.

There are numerous anecdotes about Hainhofer from the so-called Swedish Era, although a certain degree of caution is required when evaluating them, as most of them are exclusively from Hainhofer himself. Hainhofer's role at this time, as he provided the Swedish king with a large number of services, some of which were dubious, is controversial in that it is difficult to decide how much he was guided by real political convictions and how much instead by coercion or opportunism . The time in Sweden was undoubtedly a successful time for Hainhofer, during which he was able to advance socially, make a political career and record business successes. At the same time, however, personal losses in the family and a further decline in wealth also occur.

Hainhofer probably died in 1647 as a result of a stroke. The main heir was his son Georg Ulrich Hainhofer (1614–1659). Duke August II of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, for whom he had been active as agent, factor and correspondent for decades since 1610, sought Hainhofer's written estate. Therefore, after the death of Georg Ulrich (1659) Philipp Hainhofer's travel relations, all copy books of his letters, two of his four family books and his lute books came to Wolfenbüttel, where they were entered in the catalog of the ducal library from 1660 to 1663.

Works

• Travel diary containing descriptions from Franconia, Saxony, the Mark Brandenburg and Pomerania . Stettin 1834 ( Online, Google ).
• The correspondence between Philipp Hainhofer and Duke August the Younger of Braunschweig-Lüneburg , arr . by Ronald Gobiet, Munich 1984.
• Travel reports and descriptions of collections 1594–1636 . Edition and data collection on art and cultural history of the first half of the 17th century. Edited by Michael Wenzel. Wolfenbüttel 2020ff.
• Large family register , 1596–1647.

literature

• Philipp Hainhofe's curriculum vitae , in the foreword to his travel diary , Stettin 1834, pp. XXI-XXXII ( Online, Google ).
• Oscar Doering :  Hainhofer, Philipp . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 49, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1904, pp. 719-721.
• Oscar Doering: The Augsburg patrician Philipp Hainhofer's relationship with Duke Philip II of Pomerania-Stettin Correspondences from the years 1610–1619 (= sources for art history and art technology of the Middle Ages and modern times 6). Graeser, Vienna 1896.
• Friedrich Blendinger:  Hainhofer, Philipp. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 524 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Sven Limbeck: Philipp Hainhofer's lute books , in: Klaus Niehr / Judith Tralles (ed.): Welfen Sammeln Dürer (exhibition catalogs of the Herzog August Library 100), Wiesbaden 2019, pp. 252-257.
• Joachim Lüdtke: The Lute Books Philipp Hainhofers (1578-1647) . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1999, ISBN 3-525-27904-3 . (An investigation on a special topic, which, however, is preceded by Hainhofer's most detailed general biography to date)
• Barbara Mundt: Duke Philipp II as an art collector and his agent Philipp Hainhofer . In: Pomerania. Journal of Culture and History. Issue 3/2009, ISSN  0032-4167 , pp. 38-44.
• Bernd Roeck: Philipp Hainhofer. Entrepreneurs in the field of art , in: Louis Carlen / Gabriel Imboden (ed.): Entrepreneurship of the Alpine region in the 17th century. Lectures of the second international symposium on the history of the Alpine region , Rotten-Verlag, Brig 1992, ISBN 3-907816-13-7 .
• Michael Wenzel: Philipp Hainhofer's relationship with Duke August the Younger of Braunschweig-Lüneburg , in: Christoph Emmendörfer / Christof Trepesch (ed.): Wunderwelt. The Pomeranian Art Cabinet, Berlin-Munich 2014, pp. 152–163.
• Michael Wenzel (Ed.): Philipp Hainhofer (1578-1647): dealing with art and politics (Wolfenbütteler Barock-Nachrichten 41, 2014, 1/2), Wiesbaden 2014.
• Michael Wenzel: Philipp Hainhofer: Acting with Art and Politics , Berlin: de Gruyter 2020, ISBN 9783422980730 .
• Michael Wenzel: Philipp Hainhofer: dealing with art and politics , Berlin, 2020

Web links

Commons : Philipp Hainhofer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files