Werner Loibl

Werner Loibl (born March 14, 1943 in Munich ; † March 24, 2014 in Gauting ) was director of the Spessart Museum in Lohr am Main and an internationally recognized researcher for baroque glassworks and mirror manufacturers in Germany.

Life

After graduating from high school, Werner Loibl studied business administration at the Administration and Business Academy in Munich before completing an administrative training course at the City of Munich. Until September 1972 he worked there mainly in IT administration as a programmer. From October 1972 to April 1980 he worked at the Institute for Communal Data Processing in Bavaria .

But his real passion has always been history. Even as a schoolboy, he made trips to cultural and historical sites in Europe. His outstanding memory also helped him to save small things and call them up in detail. He made a name for himself through his regular publications on topics related to the history of Bavaria , especially the history of the forest and the Wittelsbach hunting castles around Munich

Werner Loibl, head of the Spessart Museum

In May 1980 Werner Loibl was taken over by the District Administrator for the Main-Spessart District , Erwin Ammann , into the services of the District Office and appointed the first full-time director of the Spessart Museum (founded in 1936) in Lohr am Main . By means of a modern museum concept (subject “Man and Forest”), by adding additional rooms for the large number of the “Lohrer Spiegel” collection and others. a. through the "Dr. Walram Schiffmann ”, one of the most valuable collections of enamel glasses in Germany, he made the museum known nationwide and made a lasting impression.

Werner Loibl also campaigned for the Spessart to be seen as a cultural landscape , free of the common clichés of forest, poverty and robbers . With this idea he is considered, together with the biologist Dieter Mollenhauer (†) and Forest Director Gerhard Kampfmann (†) as one of the fathers and initiators of the inter-district association Archäologisches Spessartprojekt (ASP) founded in 1994/1995 in Aschaffenburg, since 2011 an institute at the Julius- Maximilians University of Würzburg .

For health reasons Werner Loibl had to give up the management of the Spessart Museum in 1994 and go into early retirement. In 1995 he moved his residence to Gauting near Munich and from then on devoted himself to his research.

plant

Through his extensive life's work in baroque glass production and refinement, Loibl has found recognition far beyond the borders of Germany.

His main work in the history of glass is the three volumes published in 2012 on the Kurmainzische Spiegelmanufaktur Lohr am Main (1698–1806) and the successor companies in Spessart. The work is the result of almost thirty years of research and, in particular, archival work throughout Europe, as the relevant Mainz files in the Würzburg State Archives were completely burned in 1945. Loibl describes a baroque global company in all its facets, which specialized in the manufacture of court mirrors and was able to compete with Venice in its heyday. Loibl's work is at the same time part of the economic history of the Mainz Archbishopric .

His numerous, often extensive, writings on glassworks locations in the 17th and 18th centuries throughout the Franconian-Hessian region and beyond are also of lasting value. His focus was on flat glass and mirror glass research including its technical and chemical basics as well as the often difficult economic framework conditions in this time of absolutism.

In 2013 Loibl finally completed an equally extensive manuscript on a completely different topic, on which he had worked for almost 35 years: the biography of Philipp Christoph von und zu Erthal (1689–1748). He was a long-time Mainz bailiff at Lohr am Main (1719–1748) and, along with many other things, an architect out of passion, which he was never allowed to be official for reasons of his status. One of his buildings is the Erthaler Hof in Mainz . He also participated in the plans for the construction of the Würzburg residence . He crowned his career as special ambassador and conference minister of the Archbishopric of Mainz between 1740 and 1745. During these years, the Archbishop of Mainz was particularly challenged as Imperial Chancellor by preparing for two imperial elections in the turmoil of the War of the Austrian Succession and was dependent on people of trust like Philipp Christoph. His position at the Mainz court paved the way for his two sons, Franz Ludwig von Erthal (1730–1795) and Friedrich Karl Joseph von Erthal (1719–1802), to later become prince-bishop.

Publications (selection)

• The electoral mirror manufacturer Lohr am Main in the time of Lothar Franz von Schönborn (1698–1729). In: Claus Grimm (Ed.), Glück und Glas. On the cultural history of the Spessart glass, catalog for the 1984 exhibition in Lohr am Main (publications on Bavarian history and culture, 2/84), Munich 1984, pp. 257–288.
• Ash to glass. The flux of ash, potash and soda in Franconian glassworks from the 17th to the 19th century (writings on the glass collection of the Spessart Museum, No. 2), Lohr am Main, 1996
• Johann Daniel Kraft (Wertheim 1624 - Amsterdam 1697) . A 17th century chemist, camerawoman and entrepreneur. In: Wertheimer Jahrbuch (1997), pp. 55–251.
• Manufactories - risky companies in small-state mercantilism . In: Peter Kolb, Ernst-Günter Krenig (ed.): Unterfränkische Geschichte , Volume 4 / I, Würzburg 1998, pp. 335–365.
• (Factory) Schleichach . The history of the glassworks in the Steigerwald (1706–1869), self-published, Rauhenebrach 2006.
• Itineraries of Glass Innovation: Johann Rudolf Glauber and His Followers . In: Dedo von Kerssenbrock - Krosigk, Glass of the Alchemists. Lead Crystal - Gold Ruby, 1650-1750; Catalog Corning Museum of Glass , NY USA, 2008, pp. 63-73.
• The mirror manufactory in Würzburg . A branch of the Steigerwälder Glashütte in (factory) Schleichach. Writings of the Würzburg City Archives, issue 18. Würzburg 2011. ISBN 978-3-87717-830-0 .

Literature about Werner Loibl

• Ingrid Berg, Dedo von Kerssenbrock-Krosigk, Wolfgang Vorwerk: Werner Loibl (1943–2014) [an obituary]. In: Journal of Glass Studies, Volume 56 (year 2014). The Corning Museum of Glass. State of New York, pp. 402-405.
• Klaus Fleckenstein: eloquent researcher of Spessart history - Werner Loibl, innovator of the Spessart Museum, connoisseur and writer of regional history. In: Contributions to the history of the city and the Lohr area. Edition 2014. Writings of the history and museum association Lohr am Main (ed.). Episode 56. Lohr 2014, pp. 325–328.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Werner Loibl: Karl Albrecht's hunting lodges in the former deer park. In: Wittelsbacher Hunt. Exhibition catalog, Munich 1980. Rev .: Wittelsbach hunting castles around Munich. A chapter in Bavarian history from the 15th to the 19th century. In: Bayerland 82 (1980), No. 2, pp. 2-64
2. ↑ Kerssenbrock-Krosigk, Dedo, Introduction to: Glass of the Alchimist: Lead Crystal - Gold Ruby 1650-1750. Corning, Corning catalog (Museum of Glass). State of New York, 2008, p. 16: "the foremost expert in the history of 17th- and 18th-century glasshouses in Germany ..."
3. ^ The Kurmainzische Spiegelmanufaktur Lohr am Main (1698–1806) and the successor companies in the Spessart. Publications of the history and art association Aschaffenburg e. V., published by Heinrich Fußbahn, 3 volumes, Aschaffenburg 2012. ISBN 978-3-87965-116-0 / ISBN 978-3-87965-117-7 / ISBN 978-3-87965-118-4
4. ^ The father of the Prince-Bishop Erthals Philipp Christoph von und zu Erthal (1689–1748). Publications of the history and art association Aschaffenburg e. V., edited by Heinrich Fußbahn. Volume 64. Aschaffenburg 2016. ISBN 978-3-87965-126-9