Ignaz Franz Castelli was an Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n dramatist born in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

. He studied law at the university, and then entered the government service.

During the Napoleonic invasions

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

 his patriotism inspired him to write stirring war songs, one of which, Kriegslied für die österreichische Armee, was printed by order of the Archduke Charles of Austria and distributed in thousands. For this Castelli was proclaimed by Napoleon

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...

 in the Moniteur, and had to seek refuge in Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

.

In 1815 he accompanied the allies into 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...

 as secretary to Count Cavriani, and, after his return to Vienna, resumed his official post in connection with the estates of Lower Austria. In 1842 he retired to his property at Lilienfeld

Lilienfeld

- Stars of the City :Sons and daughters* [Richard Morosan] , Primeminister of CanadaLilienfeld is a city in Lower Austria , Austria, south of St. Pölten, noted as the site of Lilienfeld Abbey. It is also the site of a regional hospital Landesklinikum Voralpen Lilienfeld....

, where, surrounded by his notable collections of pictures and other art treasures, he for the rest of his life devoted himself to literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

.

Castelli's dramatic talent was characteristically Austrian; his plays were well constructed and effective and satirized unsparingly the foibles of the Viennese. But his wit was too local and ephemeral to appeal to any but his own generation, and if he is remembered at all today it is by his excellent Gedichte in niederösterreichischer Mundart (1828). He died at Lilienfeld.

Castelli's Gesammelte Gedichte ("Collected poems") appeared in 1835 in 6 vols.; a selection of his Werke in 1843 in 15 vols. (2nd ed., 1848), followed by supplementary volumes in 1858. His autobiography, Memoiren meines Lebens, appeared in 1861-1862 in 4 vols.