Wolfgang II of Hohenlohe

Weikersheim Palace was extensively expanded from around 1590 under Count Wolfgang

Knight's Hall in Weikersheim Castle with the furnishings completed around 1605

Wolfgang II., Count of Hohenlohe and Herr zu Langenburg , also Wolfgang von Hohenlohe-Weikersheim , (* 1546 in Waldenburg (Württemberg) ; † 1610 in Weikersheim ) was a nobleman from the Hohenlohe family who resided in Weikersheim and built the new building there of Weikersheim Castle according to the ideals of the Renaissance . He was also a fan of alchemy .

Life

He was the son of Countess Anna zu Hohenlohe, née Countess zu Solms-Laubach († 1594), and Count Ludwig Casimir zu Hohenlohe-Neuenstein. From 1558 he attended the University of Tübingen for two years, spent two years studying in Paris and then in imperial service in Vienna, where he also took part in a campaign against the Turks. In 1567 he married Magdalena, Countess of Nassau-Katzenelnbogen (1547–1633), a sister of Wilhelm von Oranien and daughter of Wilhelm von Nassau-Dillenburg and Countess Juliane von Nassau, née Countess von Stolberg (1506–1580). After his father's death in 1568, he ruled Langenburg, initially with a brother and his mother, and from 1574 alone. In 1586 the country was divided between him and his brothers (Hohenlohe-Neuenstein, -Langenburg and -Weikersheim), and he moved to Weikersheim in 1587.

In Weikersheim he replaced the old moated castle, a medieval moated castle, with a renaissance castle, resided from there, reorganized the Hohenlohe administration, revised the Protestant church order of Hohenlohe, promoted the school system and, shortly before his death, abolished serfdom for Weikersheim.

He dealt with horse breeding and medicine, loved music and did alchemy in his own laboratory in the castle, which was initially provisionally set up shortly after moving to Weikersheim, which then became a two-storey building equipped with ovens on the site of the former castle kennel. Since the construction drawings and invoices have been preserved (also for chemical devices), it was possible to reconstruct the equipment of a princely alchemical laboratory of the Renaissance. In addition to the laboratory, there was a distillation building for brandy in the castle, with the count selling the product. There was also a pharmacy in the castle, which was run by Wolfgang's wife Magdalena. In Weikersheim he had a saltpeter factory built, which existed from 1596 to 1602 and was privately operated by a craftsman. In his library of 500 volumes (including some manuscripts) were 15 practical chemistry books (e.g. by Georg Agricola and Lazarus Ercker on mining and the distilling book by Hieronymus Brunschwig ), 33 on alchemy (including pseudo-Geber , Ramon Llull , Bernard von Trevisan , Heinrich Khunrath ), 69 from Paracelsus and 12 from chemiatry (such as Leonhard Thurneysser , Johann Isaac Hollandus , Alexander von Suchten ). Judging by the contents of the library, the count was more interested in practical chemistry and also in iatrochemistry (his personal physician Eucharius Seefridt (died 1611) in Öhringen was one of its representatives). The count himself experimented with an assistant and after the funeral sermon of his court preacher Johannes Assum primarily as a means of distraction from day-to-day business.

His sons included Philipp Ernst (Hohenlohe-Langenburg) and, as his successor in Weikersheim, Count Georg Friedrich von Hohenlohe .

In the knight's hall of Weikersheim Castle there is a likely allusion to chemistry in the ceiling painting: In alchemy, the hunt for the white stag corresponds to the hunt for volatile mercury and the Castle Württemberg in the background alludes to the Duke of Württemberg who is interested in alchemy . The count corresponded with the duke on alchemical questions (although after many unsuccessful attempts he let his doubts about the transmutation of metals through) as well as z. B. with the Margrave Georg Friedrich von Brandenburg-Ansbach, who asked him to examine ores. Mercury, which was included in the coat of arms of Weikersheim along with the sun and moon during his reign, is an alchemical symbol (it stands for mercury).

The count had had bad experiences with gold makers. So he gave an alchemist Michael Polhaimer (from Braunau am Inn and Jesuit pupil in Munich) a large sum in 1595 so that he could teach him the transmutation of mercury into silver. Polhaimer immediately disappeared with the money, but the count had him arrested and extradited in Nuremberg. Instead of executing him like other princes, he locked him in the castle prison so that he could pay off his debt through paperwork. He later pardoned him and hired him as a clerk, but he soon died in a duel.

literature

• Jost Weyer : Alchemy at a princely court of the Renaissance. Count Wolfgang II of Hohenlohe (1546–1610) and Weikersheim Castle. Chemistry in our time, Volume 26, 1992, p. 241
• Jost Weyer: Count Wolfgang II of Hohenlohe and alchemy. Alchemical studies in Weikersheim Castle 1587–1610. Research from Württembergisch Franken, Vol. 39, Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1992
• Jost Weyer: Prince-Bishop Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn and Count Wolfgang II von Hohenlohe. Their correspondence and their position on alchemy. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 13, 1995, pp. 253-266.
• Georg Schwedt : Chemical experiments in castles, monasteries and museums , Wiley-VCH, 2nd edition 2009.
• Kurt Futter: Wolfgang II., Count of Hohenlohe 1546–1610. In: Life pictures from Swabia and Franconia. Volume 7, 1960, pp. 62-69.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Jost Weyer: Prince-Bishop Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn and Count Wolfgang II. Von Hohenlohe. Their correspondence and their position on alchemy. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 13, 1995, pp. 253-266; here: p. 261 f.
2. ↑ Not the Alchemia by Andreas Libavius , which was mentioned in the correspondence