Placidus Much
Placidus Much OSB (* May 1, 1685 in Straning ; † August 15, 1756 in Altenburg ) was abbot in Altenburg Abbey and builder during the Baroque era of the monastery.
Life
Placidus Much was baptized as the son of the wine grower Johann Michael Much and his wife Barbara in the name of Johann Philipp. At the University of Vienna he studied philosophy and later theology and entered the Benedictine monastery of Altenburg Abbey in 1707 , where he made his vows in 1708 and assumed the religious name Placidus. In 1711 he was ordained a priest and began to teach at the philosophical-theological home school founded by Abbot Maurus Boxler .
In 1715 Placidus Much became the 40th abbot of the monastery. Through his school connections to the Piarist High School in Horn , Abbot Placidus established the Altenburg Abbey as a spiritual center, which he had also modernized by master builder Joseph Munggenast . During the renovation in 1729/1730, the older parts of the Gothic church were included in the new baroque building and the prelate's courtyard, but the 200-meter-long eastern front with the marble wing and library and the large monastery courtyard were redesigned. Abbot Placidus won over important artists such as Paul Troger for the frescoes or Johann Georg Schmidt for the altarpieces for the interior decoration . Behind the ingenious picture puzzles one suspects the abbot himself, who was familiar with the ancient philosophers and also with the ideas of the Enlightenment.
Abbot Placidus' contribution to the construction of the pilgrimage church Maria Dreieichen was equally significant , where he put the funding on a broad basis.
literature
- Constantin von Wurzbach : Much, Placidus . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 19th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1868, p. 306 ( digitized version ).
- Honorius Burger : Historical presentation of the founding and fate of the Benedictine monastery St. Lambert zu Altenburg in Lower Austria. Carl Gerold's Sohn, Vienna 1862, p. 100 ff.
Web links
- Entry on Placidus Much in the database of the state's memory for the history of the state of Lower Austria ( Museum Niederösterreich )
Individual evidence
- ↑ A baroque puzzle game in the monastery , accessed on September 20, 2014.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Much, Placidus |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Much, Johann Philipp |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian Benedictine, abbot |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 1, 1685 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Straning |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 15, 1756 |
| Place of death | Altenburg |