Franz Anton von Sporck
Encyclopedia
Franz Anton von Sporck, Count (Franz Anton Reichsgraf von Sporck in German
, František Antonín hrabě Špork in Czech
) (born 9 March 1662 in Lysá nad Labem
or Heřmanův Městec; died 30 March 1738 in Lysá nad Labem
) was a German-speaking literatus and patron of the arts who lived in the province of Bohemia
in what is now the Czech Republic
. He was one of the most notable cultural and intellectual figures in central Europe
in the early 18th century.
, but was rewarded handsomely for distinguished military leadership in the service of the Hapsburg dynasty during the Thirty Years' War
. It was a habit of the Habsburg emperors to reward favorites with lands confiscated from dispossessed Protestant Bohemian nobles who refused to convert to Catholicism
after the defeat of the Estates of Bohemia at the Battle of White Mountain
in 1620. Count Sporck's father was an archetypal example of this sort of favorite, first ennobled with the rank of baron in 1647, then imperial count in 1664. He was given vast amounts of land in Bohemia that Count Sporck would later inherit. Typical of the Germanized Catholic nobility in Bohemia of his day, Count Sporck considered himself ethnically German and exhibited scant interest in Czech culture. He attended school first in Heřmanův Městec, then at the Jesuit Latin School in Kutná Hora. In 1675 he began to attend lectures in philosophy and law at Charles-Ferdinand University in the Prague Clementinum
. He graduated in 1678 at the age of sixteen. In 1680 he embarked on a Grand Tour
of Europe that brought him to Rome
, Turin
, southern France
, Spain
, Paris
, England
, The Hague
, and Brussels
. He traveled for a second time to Paris in 1682 after returning to Bohemia in 1681. He acquired a life-long appreciation of French literature from his travels in France. As he was still a minor at the time of his father's death, he was able to assume control of his inheritance only in 1684. This included the estates of Lysá, Konojedy
, Choustníkovo Hradiště
, and Malešov
. It was on the estate of Choustníkovo Hradiště in northern Bohemia that he later built his own residence of Kuks
. He also inherited the family palace in Prague and a considerable sum of money.
In 1686 he married the Franziska Apollonia, née von Swéerts zu Reist (1667–1726), a member of a Silesian
family originally from Brussels. The marriage was a happy one. Together the couple had two daughters, Elenora Franziska (1687–1717) and Anna Katherina (1689–1754), and a son, Johann Franz Anton Joseph Adam (born 1699), who did not survive infancy. In 1718 Count Sporck adoted the husband of his daughter Anna Katherina, Franz Karl Rudolph von Swéerts zu Reist, and it was he who inherited the Sporck estates, taking the name Swéerts-Sporck.
Much of Count Sporck's early adulthood was spent improving and expanding his estates and participating in public affairs. In the early 1690s he was awarded a number of prestigious imperial offices, including steward (Kämmerer) and Statthalter in 1690 and privy counselor (Wirklicher Geheimer Rat) in 1692. His title of Statthalter, which indicates merely that he held a seat on the Statthalterei, a committee of nobles that served as the highest local civil authority in the province of Bohemia at the time, has led to confusion in the English-language literature. Sometimes Count Sporck is referred to as the "Viceroy
of Bohemia," a title that did not exist. In 1695 he founded a noted hunting society known as the Order of St. Hubert.
In 1694 the Prague physician J. F. Love confirmed the healing properties of the spring that originated on the left side of the river in the southern portion of the estate of Choustníkovo Hradiště. Here was built the Kuks spa, later famous for its curative powers and the charity hospital attached to it. For the overall concept, design and execution of the building of the spa and castle of Kuks, Count Sporck commissioned the architect Giovanni Battista Alliprandi and the master mason Giovanni Pietro della Torre The complex included the Church of the Holy Trinity, built for the benefit of war veterans and retired retainers as part of a foundation that he founded. The sculptor Matthias Bernhard Braun beautified the grounds of Kuks with some of his finest works.
Count Sporck's intellectual interests led him to found a branch of Freemasonry
in Bohemia, but they also had the effect of arousing the suspicion of the Habsburg ecclesiastical authorities for his flirtations with Jansenist philosophy and anti-Jesuitical polemicism. In 1729, the his entire collection of books was carted away for investigation on the orders of the emperor Charles VI
and he himself was temporarily arrested. He was cleared of all wrongdoing in 1734 after a great deal of political maneuvering and substantial expenditure of money, but he never recovered emotionally. The last four years of his life were spent in quiet retirement.
that still lacks clarification.
Traditions of French horn playing were introduced in Bohemia after Count Sporck brought the instrument back with him from a visit to the court of Versailles
in the spring of 1682. Its cultivation spread in Bohemia until the Bohemian horn players were generally acknowledged to be the best in Europe by the 18th century.
Count Sporck had long sponsored theatrical performances at Kuks and his palace in Prague, but in 1724 permitted an Italian opera company to perform in his Prague palace free of charge. The impetus for this move was the coronation of Charles VI in Prague in 1723, an event accompanied by lavish operatic productions on the grounds of Prague Castle
. There was a recognition that Prague should have a permanent theater capable of presenting the "aristocratic" entertainment of opera, and Count Sporck saw fit to encourage the efforts of the Italian impresario Antonio Maria Peruzzi in founding the Prague theater, then Antonio Denzio
, who soon supplanted Peruzzi, in continuing productions. There were also operatic productions for a few years at Kuks during the summer months. The Denzio company succeeded in attracting some of the most prominent singers in Italy to Prague, and used Antonio Vivaldi
as a source of repertory and singers. Vivaldi himself visited Prague in the early 1730s as a result of his connections with the Sporck theater. Many creative operatic works were first performed in the Sporck theater, including the first opera to use the original settings and character names from the tradition of Don Juan
dramatizations: the opera La pravità castigata
(1730) with words by Antonio Denzio and music mainly by Antonio Caldara
. Count Sporck did not provide financial support for the opera company beyond permitting the impresario to use the theater in his Prague palace free of charge, however, nor did he attend performances after the confiscation of his library in 1729. The Prague nobility gradually lost the interest in the Denzio productions, his company suffered serious financial reversals, and finally it collapsed in bankruptcy in 1735 with appeals to Count Sporck for assistance contemptuously dismissed.
Count Sporck is known to have maintained connections with the poet Picander
in Leipzig
, an individual well known to J. S. Bach, who set many of his texts to music. It is possible that this connection led Bach to try to cultivate Count Sporck, who was passionately interested in German poetry and even employed the poet Gottfried Benjamin Hancke permanently as a member of his household. The autograph score of the "Sanctus" of the Bach's Mass in B minor contains an annotation that a copy was sent to Count Sporck in Bohemia. There is no record in the voluminous surviving correspondence of Count Sporck that this gesture was ever acknowledged or rewarded with a payment to Bach. It is also not certain that the two ever met.
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, František Antonín hrabě Špork in Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
) (born 9 March 1662 in Lysá nad Labem
Lysá nad Labem
Lysá nad Labem is a town in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 8,500 inhabitants.The first historical references date back to 1052. In 1291, Queen Guta issued a charter to unite settlements of the Lysá estate into one economical unit.-External links:* *...
or Heřmanův Městec; died 30 March 1738 in Lysá nad Labem
Lysá nad Labem
Lysá nad Labem is a town in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 8,500 inhabitants.The first historical references date back to 1052. In 1291, Queen Guta issued a charter to unite settlements of the Lysá estate into one economical unit.-External links:* *...
) was a German-speaking literatus and patron of the arts who lived in the province of Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
in what is now the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
. He was one of the most notable cultural and intellectual figures in central Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
in the early 18th century.
Life
Count Sporck was born the eldest of four children of Count Johann (Jan) von Sporck (c. 1595-1679) and his second wife Maria Eleonora of Fineke. His father had been born in rather humble circumstances in WestphaliaWestphalia
Westphalia is a region in Germany, centred on the cities of Arnsberg, Bielefeld, Dortmund, Minden and Münster.Westphalia is roughly the region between the rivers Rhine and Weser, located north and south of the Ruhr River. No exact definition of borders can be given, because the name "Westphalia"...
, but was rewarded handsomely for distinguished military leadership in the service of the Hapsburg dynasty during the Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
. It was a habit of the Habsburg emperors to reward favorites with lands confiscated from dispossessed Protestant Bohemian nobles who refused to convert to Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
after the defeat of the Estates of Bohemia at the Battle of White Mountain
Battle of White Mountain
The Battle of White Mountain, 8 November 1620 was an early battle in the Thirty Years' War in which an army of 30,000 Bohemians and mercenaries under Christian of Anhalt were routed by 27,000 men of the combined armies of Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor under Charles Bonaventure de Longueval,...
in 1620. Count Sporck's father was an archetypal example of this sort of favorite, first ennobled with the rank of baron in 1647, then imperial count in 1664. He was given vast amounts of land in Bohemia that Count Sporck would later inherit. Typical of the Germanized Catholic nobility in Bohemia of his day, Count Sporck considered himself ethnically German and exhibited scant interest in Czech culture. He attended school first in Heřmanův Městec, then at the Jesuit Latin School in Kutná Hora. In 1675 he began to attend lectures in philosophy and law at Charles-Ferdinand University in the Prague Clementinum
Clementinum
The Clementinum is a historic complex of buildings in Prague. Until recently the complex hosted the National, University and Technical libraries, the City Library also being located nearby on Mariánské Náměstí. The Technical library and the Municipal library have moved to the Prague National...
. He graduated in 1678 at the age of sixteen. In 1680 he embarked on a Grand Tour
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...
of Europe that brought him to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
, southern France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
, and Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
. He traveled for a second time to Paris in 1682 after returning to Bohemia in 1681. He acquired a life-long appreciation of French literature from his travels in France. As he was still a minor at the time of his father's death, he was able to assume control of his inheritance only in 1684. This included the estates of Lysá, Konojedy
Konojedy
Konojedy is a village and municipality in Prague-East District in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic.-Notes:* This article was initially translated from Czech Wikipedia....
, Choustníkovo Hradiště
Choustníkovo Hradiště
Choustníkovo Hradiště is a village and municipality in Trutnov District in the Hradec Králové Region of the Czech Republic.-Notes:...
, and Malešov
Malešov
Malešov is a market town in Kutná Hora District, Central Bohemia, Czech Republic. It has a population of 906 .- External links :...
. It was on the estate of Choustníkovo Hradiště in northern Bohemia that he later built his own residence of Kuks
Kuks
Kuks is a village in the Czech Republic, Hradec Králové Region, Trutnov District. Its main feature is a baroque spa building with famous sculptures by Matthias Braun.- History :...
. He also inherited the family palace in Prague and a considerable sum of money.
In 1686 he married the Franziska Apollonia, née von Swéerts zu Reist (1667–1726), a member of a Silesian
Silesians
Silesians , are the inhabitants of Silesia in Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic. A small diaspora community also exists in Karnes County, Texas in the USA....
family originally from Brussels. The marriage was a happy one. Together the couple had two daughters, Elenora Franziska (1687–1717) and Anna Katherina (1689–1754), and a son, Johann Franz Anton Joseph Adam (born 1699), who did not survive infancy. In 1718 Count Sporck adoted the husband of his daughter Anna Katherina, Franz Karl Rudolph von Swéerts zu Reist, and it was he who inherited the Sporck estates, taking the name Swéerts-Sporck.
Much of Count Sporck's early adulthood was spent improving and expanding his estates and participating in public affairs. In the early 1690s he was awarded a number of prestigious imperial offices, including steward (Kämmerer) and Statthalter in 1690 and privy counselor (Wirklicher Geheimer Rat) in 1692. His title of Statthalter, which indicates merely that he held a seat on the Statthalterei, a committee of nobles that served as the highest local civil authority in the province of Bohemia at the time, has led to confusion in the English-language literature. Sometimes Count Sporck is referred to as the "Viceroy
Viceroy
A viceroy is a royal official who runs a country, colony, or province in the name of and as representative of the monarch. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning "in the place of" and the French word roi, meaning king. A viceroy's province or larger territory is called a viceroyalty...
of Bohemia," a title that did not exist. In 1695 he founded a noted hunting society known as the Order of St. Hubert.
In 1694 the Prague physician J. F. Love confirmed the healing properties of the spring that originated on the left side of the river in the southern portion of the estate of Choustníkovo Hradiště. Here was built the Kuks spa, later famous for its curative powers and the charity hospital attached to it. For the overall concept, design and execution of the building of the spa and castle of Kuks, Count Sporck commissioned the architect Giovanni Battista Alliprandi and the master mason Giovanni Pietro della Torre The complex included the Church of the Holy Trinity, built for the benefit of war veterans and retired retainers as part of a foundation that he founded. The sculptor Matthias Bernhard Braun beautified the grounds of Kuks with some of his finest works.
Count Sporck's intellectual interests led him to found a branch of Freemasonry
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
in Bohemia, but they also had the effect of arousing the suspicion of the Habsburg ecclesiastical authorities for his flirtations with Jansenist philosophy and anti-Jesuitical polemicism. In 1729, the his entire collection of books was carted away for investigation on the orders of the emperor Charles VI
Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles VI was the penultimate Habsburg sovereign of the Habsburg Empire. He succeeded his elder brother, Joseph I, as Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia , Hungary and Croatia , Archduke of Austria, etc., in 1711...
and he himself was temporarily arrested. He was cleared of all wrongdoing in 1734 after a great deal of political maneuvering and substantial expenditure of money, but he never recovered emotionally. The last four years of his life were spent in quiet retirement.
Musical interests
There are three aspects of musical patronage that make Count Sporck notable to music lovers both inside and outside the Czech Republic: his introduction of the French horn into Bohemia, his foundation of the first permanent opera theater in the Bohemian lands, and a certain connection with the composer Johann Sebastian BachJohann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
that still lacks clarification.
Traditions of French horn playing were introduced in Bohemia after Count Sporck brought the instrument back with him from a visit to the court of Versailles
Versailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
in the spring of 1682. Its cultivation spread in Bohemia until the Bohemian horn players were generally acknowledged to be the best in Europe by the 18th century.
Count Sporck had long sponsored theatrical performances at Kuks and his palace in Prague, but in 1724 permitted an Italian opera company to perform in his Prague palace free of charge. The impetus for this move was the coronation of Charles VI in Prague in 1723, an event accompanied by lavish operatic productions on the grounds of Prague Castle
Prague Castle
Prague Castle is a castle in Prague where the Kings of Bohemia, Holy Roman Emperors and presidents of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic have had their offices. The Czech Crown Jewels are kept here...
. There was a recognition that Prague should have a permanent theater capable of presenting the "aristocratic" entertainment of opera, and Count Sporck saw fit to encourage the efforts of the Italian impresario Antonio Maria Peruzzi in founding the Prague theater, then Antonio Denzio
Antonio Denzio
Antonio Denzio was an Italian impresario, tenor, and librettist. Born in Venice to a family of musicians and operatic personnel, he pursued a career mainly as a singer until 1724, when he traveled to Bohemia as a member of the opera company of Antonio Maria Peruzzi, probably his uncle...
, who soon supplanted Peruzzi, in continuing productions. There were also operatic productions for a few years at Kuks during the summer months. The Denzio company succeeded in attracting some of the most prominent singers in Italy to Prague, and used Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe...
as a source of repertory and singers. Vivaldi himself visited Prague in the early 1730s as a result of his connections with the Sporck theater. Many creative operatic works were first performed in the Sporck theater, including the first opera to use the original settings and character names from the tradition of Don Juan
Don Juan
Don Juan is a legendary, fictional libertine whose story has been told many times by many authors. El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra by Tirso de Molina is a play set in the fourteenth century that was published in Spain around 1630...
dramatizations: the opera La pravità castigata
La pravità castigata
La pravità castigata is a 1730 pastiche with music by multiple composers and an Italian language libretto by Antonio Denzio. It is the first 18th-century opera based on the Don Juan legend...
(1730) with words by Antonio Denzio and music mainly by Antonio Caldara
Antonio Caldara
Antonio Caldara was an Italian Baroque composer.Caldara was born in Venice , the son of a violinist. He became a chorister at St Mark's in Venice, where he learned several instruments, probably under the instruction of Giovanni Legrenzi...
. Count Sporck did not provide financial support for the opera company beyond permitting the impresario to use the theater in his Prague palace free of charge, however, nor did he attend performances after the confiscation of his library in 1729. The Prague nobility gradually lost the interest in the Denzio productions, his company suffered serious financial reversals, and finally it collapsed in bankruptcy in 1735 with appeals to Count Sporck for assistance contemptuously dismissed.
Count Sporck is known to have maintained connections with the poet Picander
Picander
Picander was the pseudonym of Christian Friedrich Henrici , a German poet and librettist for many of Johann Sebastian Bach's Leipzig cantatas...
in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, an individual well known to J. S. Bach, who set many of his texts to music. It is possible that this connection led Bach to try to cultivate Count Sporck, who was passionately interested in German poetry and even employed the poet Gottfried Benjamin Hancke permanently as a member of his household. The autograph score of the "Sanctus" of the Bach's Mass in B minor contains an annotation that a copy was sent to Count Sporck in Bohemia. There is no record in the voluminous surviving correspondence of Count Sporck that this gesture was ever acknowledged or rewarded with a payment to Bach. It is also not certain that the two ever met.