Vinzenz Maria Gredler

Vinzenz Maria Gredler ( born September 30, 1823 in Telfs, Tyrol, † May 4, 1912 in Bolzano, South Tyrol) was a Franciscan ( OFM) and known natural scientist.

Life

Vinzenz Maria Gredler was born as the tenth of fourteen children in Telfs into a peasant family. Already in his youth he showed a great interest in the diversity of nature. It attended the gymnasium of the Franciscans in Bolzano in 1841 and entered himself into the Order of St.. Francis a. Although he had doubts about his religious vocation at the beginning of his novitiate, he remained through the help of the master of novices and well-known musician Father Peter Singer in the monastery. He studied theology and was ordained a priest in 1846.

After Gredler 1848 worked for a year as a substitute teacher at the high school of the Franciscans in Hall in Tirol, he came to Bolzano, where he taught natural history. He worked as a self-taught and his knowledge appropriated by studying the scientific literature and excursions in the wonderful mountain world. He also laid in 1852 without a preceding higher education Staatsprüfung of Natural History and German at the University of Innsbruck with honors. In 1855, he led a study trip through Europe. As a scientist, he was always in contact with the leading naturalists of his time. 1867 was Father Vincent Maria Gredler an appointment at the University of Buenos Aires, but he could not perceive of orden internal reasons. In 1871, Emperor Franz Josef I gave him because of his scientific merits the Golden Cross of Merit with Crown.

Gredler taught as a professor in Bolzano and sat down in 1872 for the establishment of a private Franciscan High School in Bozen, its first director, he was also. This office he held until 1889 and went in 1901 ( at the age of 78 years and after 53 years of service ) as a teacher at the high school in Bolzano retirement. In addition to his research and teaching, Father Vincent Maria Gredler was always active in the leadership of the Franciscan Province of Tyrol. After 90 years of life, including over 70 years in the Order of St.. Francis, he died in the Bolzano Franciscan Monastery.

Work

Gredler was a pioneer of emerging in the 19th century science. It dealt mainly with the small animal world, where he particularly describing the snails, beetles, ants and amphibians his Tyrolean homeland devoted himself. Because it did also supplied by the missionaries of the Franciscan Province of Tyrol with study material, he wrote works on snails and mussels in Bosnia, North Africa and China. In his geological work, he has focused particularly on the Tyrolean glaciers. He also wrote poetic works that shed light on the nature of philosophical and theological.

Writings

Father Vincent Maria Gredler were about 340 publications:

• Important scientific publications Tyrol 's land and freshwater mollusca, Bolzano 1856
• The ants Tyrol 's, Bolzano 1856
• The beetles of the Tyrol to its horizontal and vertical distribution, Bolzano 1863
• The Urgletscher moraines from the Eggen valley, Bolzano 1868
• To Conch Fauna of China, Bolzano 1893
• The porphyries around Bolzano and their mineralogical inclusions, Bolzano 1895

• Poetic works Ethical Nature pictures, Innsbruck 1876
• Verdict form chips, Bolzano 1902