Vincent Maria Gredler

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Vinzenz Maria Gredler (born September 30, 1823 in Telfs , Tyrol ; † May 4, 1912 in Bozen , South Tyrol ) was a Franciscan (OFM) and Tyrolean naturalist.

Father Vinzenz Maria Gredler OFM

Life

Vinzenz Maria Gredler was born the tenth of fourteen children in Telfs into a farming family. Even in his youth he showed a great interest in the diversity of nature. It attended the Franciscan high school in Bolzano and in 1841 entered the Order of St. Francis a. Although he had doubts about his religious vocation at the beginning of his novitiate , he stayed in the monastery with the help of the novice master and well-known musician Father Peter Singer . He studied theology and was ordained a priest in 1846.

After Gredler worked for a year as an assistant teacher at the Franciscan high school in Hall in Tirol in 1848 , he came to Bolzano, where he taught natural history . He worked as an autodidact and acquired his knowledge by studying scientific literature and making excursions to the Tyrolean mountains. In 1852 he passed the state examination for natural history and German at the University of Innsbruck with distinction , even without a previous university degree . In 1855 he went on a study trip through Europe. As a scientist, he was always in contact with the leading naturalists of his time. In 1867, Father Vinzenz Maria Gredler was appointed to the University of Buenos Aires , which he was unable to attend for internal reasons. In 1871, Emperor Franz Josef I awarded him the Golden Cross of Merit with Crown for his scientific merits .

Gredler taught as a professor in Bozen and in 1872 campaigned for the establishment of a private Franciscan high school in Bozen, of which he also became the first director. He held this office until 1889 and retired in 1901 (at the age of 78 and after 53 years of service) as a teacher at the Bolzano grammar school. In addition to his research and teaching activities, Father Vinzenz Maria Gredler was also repeatedly active in the management of the Tyrolean Franciscan Province . After 90 years of life, including over 70 years in the Order of St. Francis, he died in the Franciscan monastery in Bolzano .

plant

Gredler was a pioneer of the natural sciences that were emerging in the 19th century. He was mainly concerned with the world of small animals, with particular attention to the description of snails , beetles , ants and amphibians of his Tyrolean homeland . Since he was also supplied with study material by the missionaries of the Tyrolean Franciscan Province, he wrote works on snails and mussels in Bosnia , North Africa and China . In his geological work he was particularly concerned with the Tyrolean glaciers . He also wrote poetic works that illuminate nature philosophically and theologically.

Fonts

Vinzenz Maria Gredler edited around 340 publications, including:

  • scientific publications
    • Tyrol's land and fresh water conchylia , Bozen 1856
    • The ants of Tyrol , Bozen 1856
    • The beetles of Tyrol after their horizontal and vertical distribution , Bolzano 1863
    • The primeval glacier moraines from the Eggenthale , Bozen 1868
    • On the Conchylia fauna of China , Bozen 1893
    • The porphyries around Bolzano and their mineralogical inclusions: Sketches for a petrographic-oryctognostic local study , Bozen: Auer 1895 ( online )
    • Nature pictures , Bozen: Auer 1902 ( online )
  • Poetic works
    • Ethical images of nature , Innsbruck 1876
    • Spruchform chips , Bolzano 1902

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Gredler, Vincent Maria
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gredler, Vincenz Maria; Gredler, Ignaz (baptismal name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Franciscan and naturalist
DATE OF BIRTH September 30, 1823
PLACE OF BIRTH Telfs
DATE OF DEATH May 4, 1912
Place of death Bolzano