Kaspar Maria von Sternberg

Kaspar Count Sternberg (also: Caspar Graf Sternberg, Czech: Hrabě Kaspar Maria Šternberk ) * January 6, 1761 in Prague; † December 20, 1838 in Brzezina at Rokitzan ) was a theologian, politician, mineralogist and botanist. He is considered the founder of modern paleobotany. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Sternb. ".

Sternberg founded the Patriotic Museum of the Kingdom of Bohemia in Prague (now the National Museum ). In 1820, he used friendship with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Life

Childhood and youth

Kaspar Sternberg was born as the youngest of three sons of Count Johann von Sternberg and Countess Anna Josepha, born Kolowrat Krakowsky.

Already at the age of eleven he was destined for the ecclesiastical career began in 1778 with the priestly education at the Collegium Germanicum in Rome, enjoyed after the end of yet another year in Rome and Naples, and finally in 1783 to move to Regensburg, where his spiritual career to. start

Regensburg

Here he became canon in 1785 and entered the age of 24 for the first time with the Masonic Lodge in contact, which he joined in and probably also coined his enlightened Gesinnungsart that should accompany him throughout his life.

The French Revolution and the subsequent struggles of the French against Germany affected the lifestyle of Sternberg's considerably.

1800 Sternberg was appointed under the enlightened Prince Primate Karl Theodor von Dalberg for canon in Regensburg, and in 1802 he climbed as a representative of the Prince of Thurn and Taxis, the head of the local political administration, the country's Board. This office he faced for four years. During this time he was ambassador at the Perpetual Diet and representatives of the Bishopric of Freising at Reichsdeputationshauptschluss.

But Shortly thereafter began the political conditions under the Napoleonic Wars in Germany its agreement with Dalberg, which was previously friendly to tarnish. Dalberg was a staunch supporter of Napoleon, while Sternberg saw the need of the hour in the defense of a united Greater Germany against the ruler of France.

The year 1804 brought Sternberg as one of the companions Dalberg to Paris, where he joined the occasion of the coronation of Napoleon to strengthen the position of Regensburg with Talleyrand in negotiations and reached the union of the bishoprics of Mainz and Regensburg to a metropolitan chapter, but withdrew the remainder in this politically turbulent and uncertain time in the meantime both in Bohemia and Germany -based of public ecclesiastical transactions more and more back to eventually turn all of science.

With them, his brother Joachim had already familiarized him in youth. In the 1790s he had begun to deal more effectively with the botany, in 1799, founded by David Heinrich Hoppe 1790 Botanical Society was joined in Regensburg, directed in 1804 a corresponding botanical garden and finally founded in 1806, the Regensburg Academy of Sciences, which he board as president.

With the death of his second brother Joachim 1808 on his estate in Brzezina ( at Radnitz in the Plzen region ) and with the destruction of his hopes to the position of coadjutor to the Dalberg page - Napoleon Dalberg had to accept his step- uncle, Cardinal Joseph Fesch, obliged - looked Sternberg faced with the choice to experience the fragmentation of the German Empire into many smaller landing on the spot and to suffer or to cancel his spiritual career and continue the Bohemian estate of his family as the only survivor. In 1810, when Regensburg went to Bavaria, he decided finally to move its vital interests to Bohemia, to manage his estate in Liblín and Radnitz and thus to assume patronage over twelve villages with a total of 3000 inhabitants, who were employed mostly as farmers, in However, the minority in the Sternberg ironworks in the black coal basin, and in forestry earned their keep.

In the dedication to his scientific interests he knew the maintenance of the estate in Brzezina happy to be connected with the exploration and exploitation of animate and inanimate nature. This Sternberg laid the foundation for his last period of life.

Bohemia

Sternberg recognized in scientific events of his time, the need for an intensive exchange of ideas, which should go beyond the country's borders. So he was eager Mitwirker to the Lorenz Oken in 1822, launched scientific meetings within the framework of the meetings of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians.

Moreover, in order to institute but Bohemia to some scientific and cultural validity, he founded in 1818 together with his cousin Franz Graf Sternberg - Manderscheid, Franz Graf Klebelsberg - Thumburg and the Colonel Castle Count Franz Anton von Kolowrat Liebsteinsky the Patriotic Museum in Bohemia, as an associated society in Prague, a historical- artistic- literary and Kaspar Sternberg managed a branch of natural history under Franz Sternberg - Manderscheid.

Here, the scientific areas were varied: the museum possessed in his natural history part soon about botanical, mineralogical, and geognostical collections. This also corresponded to the pressure exerted by Sternberg sciences. Meteorological studies, which he carried out, inter alia, in Brzezina have been added yet. The above four scientific areas include a significant proportion also started the 1820 correspondence with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

The establishment of the monthly magazine of the Society of Patriotic Museum in 1827 sealed the dissemination of scientific and cultural development of Bohemia and abroad. Your task they saw it, the " locals, Bodenwüchsige, Stand-alone to care in all fields, in history and science, in art and poetry ."

The Sternberg family had been long been known for their constant efforts for the welfare of the country. In this spirit Sternberg took over in 1826 and presided over the Patriotic -Economic Society in Bohemia, an already launched by Maria Theresa Society for the Promotion of the Czech economy, and used up since 1827 for the construction of a railway transport from Prague to Pilsen and 1836 should be used for the construction of a chain bridge over the Vltava River, connecting the separate parts of Prague by the river transport links and thus create a transportation option to and from on the Mala Strana (Prague- Smíchov) thriving industrial center.

Age

The personal contacts that Sternberg not only held within the empire, but in the entire German-speaking area - even after Regensburg he found again and again - used the aging continued tirelessly; the 1824, 1827 and 1830 also led him to Weimar, as Goethe did not return to Bohemia after 1823.

Beginning in January 1838 succumbed Sternberg, who became almost blind in recent years and more and more lonely, on his estate in Brzezina a stroke.

His family tomb is in the cemetery at Horni Stupno Břasy in the Plzen region.

Work

Sternberg's scholarly work includes over 70 publications, mainly in the field of botany, paleobotany, and geology, but also for the commercialization and exploitation of the Bohemian soil products.

His main work was the publication of an attempt [s ] a geognostisch botanical representation of the flora of the ancient world (1820-1838), which was considered at its time as a standard work, and its scientific implications to the side of the work of Ernst Friedrich von Schlotheim and Adolphe is to provide Brongniart. Sternberg pursued and reached there the target, the prehistoric plant witnesses according to Linnaeus' system to determine extant plants and systematically integrate - recognizing that fossil species lived under specific ecological conditions and in biotopisch certain communities. He distanced himself thus also from the biblical notion of a pre-Flood life of his predecessor the 18th century. The plant genus Sternbergia Waldst. et Kit. from the family of Amaryllis ( Amaryllidaceae ) has been named after him.

  • Outlines a history of mining and mountain legislation of the Kingdom of Bohemia. 2 volumes, Prague 1836/38 Digitized Vol 1-1
  • Digitized Vol 1-2
  • Digitized Vol 2
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