Franz Anton von Sporck, Count (german: Franz Anton Reichsgraf von Sporck, cs, František Antonín hrabě Špork) (9 March 1662 in
Lysá nad Labem
Lysá nad Labem (; german: Lissa an der Elbe) is a town in Nymburk District in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 9,700 inhabitants. It is situated on the Elbe river. The town centre is well preserved and is protected b ...
or
Heřmanův Městec
Heřmanův Městec (; german: Hermannstädtel) is a town in Chrudim District in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 4,700 inhabitants. The historic town centre with the castle complex is well preserved and is protected by law a ...
– 30 March 1738 in
Lysá nad Labem
Lysá nad Labem (; german: Lissa an der Elbe) is a town in Nymburk District in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 9,700 inhabitants. It is situated on the Elbe river. The town centre is well preserved and is protected b ...
) was a German-speaking
literatus
An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or a ...
and patron of the arts who lived in the province of
Bohemia
Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...
in what is now the
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...
. He was one of the most notable cultural and intellectual figures in central
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
in the early 18th century.
Life
Count Sporck was born the eldest of four children of Count
Johann von Sporck
Johann von Sporck (1595 – 6 August 1679) was a German nobleman and Generalfeldmarschall. Sporck was born in 1595 and he began his military career at the start of the Thirty Years' War as a private. His personal bravery and mastery of cavalry ta ...
(1595–1679) and his second wife Maria Eleonora of Fineke. His father had been born in rather humble circumstances in
Westphalia
Westphalia (; german: Westfalen ; nds, Westfalen ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants.
The territory of the regio ...
, but was rewarded handsomely for distinguished military leadership in the service of the
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg (), alternatively spelled Hapsburg in Englishgerman: Haus Habsburg, ; es, Casa de Habsburgo; hu, Habsburg család, it, Casa di Asburgo, nl, Huis van Habsburg, pl, dom Habsburgów, pt, Casa de Habsburgo, la, Domus Hab ...
dynasty during the
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...
. It was a habit of the Habsburg emperors to reward favorites with lands confiscated from dispossessed
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
Bohemian nobles who refused to convert to
Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
after the defeat of the Estates of Bohemia at the
Battle of White Mountain
), near Prague, Bohemian Confederation(present-day Czech Republic)
, coordinates =
, territory =
, result = Imperial-Spanish victory
, status =
, combatants_header =
, combatant1 = Catholic L ...
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
Charles University ( cs, Univerzita Karlova, UK; la, Universitas Carolina; german: Karls-Universität), also known as Charles University in Prague or historically as the University of Prague ( la, Universitas Pragensis, links=no), is the oldest an ...
in the Prague
Clementinum
The Clementinum (''Klementinum'' in Czech) is a historic complex of buildings in Prague. Until recently the complex hosted the National, University and Technical libraries; the City Library was also nearby on Mariánské Náměstí. In 2009, the ...
. He graduated in 1678 at the age of sixteen. In 1680 he embarked on a
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a tuto ...
of Europe that brought him to
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
,
Turin
Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...
, southern
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
,
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
,
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
,
The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
, and
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
. He traveled for a second time to Paris in 1682 after returning to Bohemia in 1681. He acquired a lifelong 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 is a municipality and village in Prague-East District in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it i ...
,
Choustníkovo Hradiště
Choustníkovo Hradiště (german: Gradlitz) is a market town in Trutnov District in the Hradec Králové Region of the Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known ...
, and
Malešov
Malešov (german: Maleschau) is a market town in Kutná Hora District in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 1,000 inhabitants. The historic centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument zone.
A ...
. It was on the estate of Choustníkovo Hradiště in northern Bohemia that he later built his own residence of
Kuks
Kuks (german: Kukus) is a municipality and village in Trutnov District in the Hradec Králové Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 300 inhabitants. It lies on the Elbe river. Its main feature is a Baroque spa building with famous sculpture ...
. 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 adopted 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
A viceroy () is an official who reigns over a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. The term derives from the Latin prefix ''vice-'', meaning "in the place of" and the French word ''roy'', meaning "k ...
of Bohemia," a title that did not exist. In 1695 he founded a noted hunting society known as the
Order of St. Hubertus.
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 Giovanni may refer to:
* Giovanni (name), an Italian male given name and surname
* Giovanni (meteorology), a Web interface for users to analyze NASA's gridded data
* ''Don Giovanni'', a 1787 opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, based on the legend of ...
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 Bernard 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 or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...
in Bohemia, but they also had the effect of arousing the suspicion of the Habsburg ecclesiastical authorities for his flirtations with
Jansenist
Jansenism was an early modern theological movement within Catholicism, primarily active in the Kingdom of France, that emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace, and predestination. It was declared a heresy by th ...
philosophy and anti-Jesuitical polemicism. In 1729, 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.
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 Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...
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
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...
in the spring of 1681. 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 ( cs, Pražský hrad; ) is a castle complex in Prague 1 Municipality within Prague, Czech Republic, built in the 9th century. It is the official office of the President of the Czech Republic. The castle was a seat of power for kin ...
. 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 (23 September 1689 – after 1763) 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 ...
, 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 Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist and impresario of Baroque music. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lifetime was widespread a ...
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 (), also known as Don Giovanni (Italian), is a legendary, fictional Spanish libertine who devotes his life to seducing women. Famous versions of the story include a 17th-century play, '' El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra'' ...
dramatizations: the opera ''
La pravità castigata
''La pravità castigata'' ("Depravity Punished") 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. It was also the first opera ...
'' (1730) with words by Antonio Denzio and music mainly by
Antonio Caldara
Antonio Caldara (ca 1670 – 28 December 1736) was an Italian Baroque composer.
Life
Caldara was born in Venice (exact date unknown), the son of a violinist. He became a chorister at St Mark's in Venice, where he learned several instruments, ...
. 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
Christian Friedrich Henrici (January 14, 1700 – May 10, 1764), writing under the pen name Picander, was a German poet and librettist for many of the cantatas which Johann Sebastian Bach composed in Leipzig.
Henrici was born in Stolpen. He studi ...
in
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
, 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
The Mass in B minor (), BWV 232, is an extended setting of the Mass ordinary by Johann Sebastian Bach. The composition was completed in 1749, the year before the composer's death, and was to a large extent based on earlier work, such as a Sanctu ...
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.
References
Bibliography
*Pazaurek, Gustav Edmund. ''Franz Anton, Reichsgraf von Sporck : ein Mäcen der Barockzeit und seine Lieblingsschöpfung, Kukus''. Leipzig, 1901.
*Benedikt, Heinrich. ''Franz Anton Graf von Sporck. Zur Kultur der Barockzeit in Böhmen''. Vienna, 1923.
*Jelínek, Hanus. ''Histoire de la littérature tchèque''. Paris, 1930.
*Preiss, Pavel. ''Boje s dvouhlavou saní: František Antonín Špork a barokní kultura v Čechách''. Prague, 1981.
*
Freeman, Daniel E. ''The Opera Theater of Count Franz Anton von Sporck in Prague''. Stuyvesant, New York, 1992.
External links
Geschichte des St.-HubertusordnungInternationales Bibliotheksverzeichnis, Kuks
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sporck, Franz Anton Von
1662 births
1738 deaths
People from Lysá nad Labem
Bohemian nobility
German Freemasons
Counts of Germany
18th-century Bohemian people
German Bohemian people