Johann Ignaz Schiffermüller

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Johann Ignaz Schiffermüller

Johann Ignaz Schiffermüller (born November 2, 1727 in Hellmonsödt , † June 21, 1806 in Linz ) was a theologian, professor of civil and military architecture and an important Austrian lepidopterologist (butterfly researcher) and zoologist .

Life

36 shades of blue from an attempt at a color system

After attending grammar school, Ignaz Schiffermüller joined the order of the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1746. He studied in Vienna theology and dealt with next botanical, mineralogical and ornithological studies and numismatics . After ordination he became subregent in the seminary at St. Pankraz . In 1759 he was appointed to the kk Theresianum in Vienna, where he taught architectural drawing for civil and military architecture for 15 years. He also occupied himself with the natural sciences, especially butterfly studies, which nourished his fondness for studying colors. Schiffermüller occupies a prominent position in the development of scientific color nomenclatures. The starting point for his attempt at a color system was the desire to introduce a standardized taxonomy for the countless colors of the natural world. As a whole, Schiffermüller's pioneering work shows a keen sense of color nuances and their precise lexical expression. In 1776 his 300-page systematic directory of butterflies in the Vienna region was published .

In 1777 (the Jesuit order had been abolished in 1773 ) Schiffermüller went to the "Nordic Stift" in Linz, a boarding school for Catholic children from Scandinavian countries (" Collegium Nordicum ") and received the title of Imperial Councilor . For the Collegium am Froschberg (near today's Bergschlössl ) he created an "economic-botanical garden" according to the system of Carl von Linné , which was intended primarily for teaching purposes, but also for numerous botanically interested travelers such as B. Friedrich Nicolai or Franz de Paula cabinet was visited. After the monastery was dissolved in 1787 and the garden was sold, Schiffermüller went to the deanery in Waizenkirchen and finally returned to Linz as titular canon, where he died in 1806.

Schiffermüller left a handwritten autobiography ("biography"), which was written towards the end of his life. Part of his extensive insect collection went to the Imperial Court Natural History Collection and was burned there in 1848.

plant

Frontispiece by Denis and Schiffermüller's announcement of a systematic work on the butterflies of the Viennese region , 1775
Frontispiece from Denis and Schiffermüller's Systematic Directory of Butterflies in the Vienna Region , 1776

Attempt a color system

Earlier attempts for a color system had proven to be inadequate, which is why Schiffermüller published an attempt in 1772 for a color system and order of the color class . As inadequate attempts he mentions z. B. Giovanni Antonio Scopoli (1723–1788) ( Entomologia Carniolica , 1763) and August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof (1705–1759) ( Insect amusement , 1746–1761). To illustrate his own model, Schiffermüller presented a hierarchical classification of 36 shades of blue with 81 German names, their Latin and French equivalents and a color card with 36 hand-painted patterns in tabular form. The work also contains a twelve-part color wheel, which reflects the optical theories of Louis-Bertrand Castels (1688–1757).

Systematic inventory of butterflies in the Vienna region

Together with Michael Denis he collected and worked on the butterflies of the Vienna area and as a result published in 1776 the systematic directory of the butterflies of the Vienna area, published by some teachers at the kk Theresianum . In 1775 there was a small edition of the work entitled Announcement of a Systematic Work on the Butterflies of the Vienna Region, edited by some teachers at the kk Theresianum . It differs only slightly from the later edition, among other things, the images on two panels have been reversed, for example, and the numbering of two figures reversed. The changes were not reproduced in the text, so that the edition from 1776 contains incorrect illustration references. Schiffermüller and Denis originally wanted to create a comprehensive work on the natural history of butterflies, which describes their first stages (egg, caterpillar , pupa ), the food plants of the caterpillars and the moths. To this end, Schiffermüller had painted miniature paintings of 400 caterpillars. Nothing came of the comprehensive work, instead the “Vienna Directory” was published in 1776, which deals with 1150 butterflies and lists around 150 new species, but often does not describe them. As a result, the authorship of some species is controversial, as there is no valid initial description in the sense of the International Rules for Zoological Nomenclature .

Schiffermüller stated that the editor was only published by a few teachers at the kk Theresianum . He does not mention his own name, as some friends have contributed their own observations and Michael Denis in particular helped a lot in identifying and organizing, as he wrote to Linnaeus. Since the work was published anonymously and the announcement is regarded by the International Commission for Zoological Nomenclature as a separate work, the species described in these books are cited with the author's name in brackets and the year of the announcement: [ Denis & Schiffermüller ], 1775.

In the systematic index he consistently applies the binary nomenclature created by Linnaeus a few years earlier, preferring and emphasizing this when naming the species, which was a decisive contribution to the spread of the new nomenclature. Schiffermüller was of the opinion that all animals and plants are related in their manifestations and that one can always find transitional forms. He mentions the flying fish as the connection between fish and birds and the bat between birds and quadrupeds . He lines up the butterflies directly to the birds above the hawk moths , which are followed by the moths and day moths (the thorn apple hawk is the skull hawk ( Acherontia atropos )):

“First consider the structure of the evening and night butterfly against that of the day butterfly. The first have a large, fat, heavy body, densely covered with feathers, on which the rings or incisions are hardly noticeable. Their rolled-up tongue is mostly horn-like, their eyes are more like the eyes of birds, in that some even have apples removed, their feet have more invasive claws. The thorn apple hawk makes a chirping sound to himself ... "

Honors

The Ignaz Schiffermüller Medal , which is awarded for an important monographic work with a taxonomic and zoogeographical focus, commemorates Schiffermüller and his work.

The subspecies Pseudophilotes vicrama schiffermuelleri (Hemming 1929) from the family of the blues (Lycaenidae) and the genus Schiffermuelleria Hübner 1825 from the family of the rotten wood moths (Oecophoridae) were named after him.

literature

Web links

Commons : Ignaz Schiffermüller  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
  • Ignaz Schiffermüller: Attempting a color system . Bernardi, Vienna 1772 ( digitized version )
  • Ignaz Schiffermüller and Michael Denis: Systematic directory of butterflies in the Vienna region . Bernardi, Vienna 1776 ( digitized version )

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Klaus Sattler: The “Vienna Directory” from 1775 . In: Journal of the Vienna Entomological Society . 1969, p. 2 ff .
  2. ↑ a b c d Emil Hoffmann: Ignaz Schiffermüller . In: Journal of the Vienna Entomological Society . tape 63 , no. 4/5 , October 15, 1952, pp. 57–65 ( PDF on ZOBODAT [accessed January 11, 2014]).
  3. ↑ a b Werner Spillmann (ed.): Color Systems 1611–2007. Color documents in the Werner Spillmann Collection . Basel: Schwabe 2009, pp. 28–31; William Jervis Jones: German Color Terms. A Study in their Historical Evolution from Earliest Times to the Present . Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamin 2013 (Studies in the History of the Language Sciences 119), pp. 213-218.
  4. ↑ a b Christian Promitzer, Franz Speta: Natural History in Josephine Linz. Ignaz Schiffermüller and the "economic-botanical garden" at the Bergschlössl . In: Archive of the City of Linz (ed.): Historical yearbook of the city of Linz . tape 1989 . Linz 1990, p. 45–66 ( online (PDF) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at).
  5. ↑ Oberösterreichisches state archive, Museal archive, handwriting 197 (partially edited in Promitzer / Speta [4])
  6. ↑ Ignaz Schiffermüller, the first scientifically working lepidopterologist, a son of Upper Austria . In: apollo - newsletter of the natural history station of the city of Linz . No.  19 , 1970, pp. 1–2 ( PDF on ZOBODAT [accessed on January 11, 2014]).
  7. ↑ Nymphalis xanthomelas (ESPER, [1781]) - Eastern Great Fox. In: lepiforum.de. Lepiforum eV, accessed on March 13, 2020 (note on nomenclature).
  8. ↑ Nymphalis vaualbum ([DENIS & SCHIFFERMÜLLER], 1775) - Weißes L. In: lepiforum.de. Lepiforum eV, accessed on March 13, 2020 (note on nomenclature).
  9. ↑ Malicky: A visit to Ignaz Schiffermüller . In: Journal of the Vienna Entomological Society . No. 4 , April 1961, p. 1–4 ( PDF on ZOBODAT [accessed January 11, 2014]).
personal data
SURNAME Schiffermüller, Johann Ignaz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schiffermüller, Ignaz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian author and zoologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 2, 1727
PLACE OF BIRTH Hellmonsödt
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 1806
Place of death Linz