Haaber, Johann Friedrich
Rüdesheim? 1706 – 1773 Mainz

Der Fromme, gerechte und standhaftige Fürst: vorgestellet In einer Lob- und Trauer-Rede über den Höchst-betrübten Todtes-Fall Des hochwürdigsten Fürsten und herrn, Herrn Joannis Friderici Caroli Des Heiligen Stuhls zu Mayntz Erz-Bischoffen… Da Höchst-Deroselben Leich-Besingnuß mit drey-tägigen Grosen Ehren-Gepräng In der allhiesigen Erz-Hohen Dhom-Kirchen Den 18. 19. und 20sten Julii 1763. gehalten worden.

Mainz, Johann Benjamin Waylandt, 1763

folio (340 × 220 mm), (28) ff. signed A–O², unpaginated, with a woodcut head-piece, and woodcut page borders; plus three anonymously engraved plates: folding frontispiece ‘Lectus Funeralis’ of the castrum doloris (platemark 340 × 430 mm, trimmed by binder along bottom, deleting the printmaker’s signature ‘Rucker delin et sculp: Mog:’), and two full-page plates (platemarks 275 × 180 mm), depict­ing respectively armorial insignia (inserted after folio A1) and a heart-shaped reliquary (after folio M2).

provenance Freiherren von Fechenbach, Schloß Laudenbach — Hartung & Hartung, Auktion 113 (‘Dabei Teil ii der Bibliothek des fränkischen Adels­geschlechts von Fechenbach’), Munich, 10 May 2006, lot 1828

Spine abraded, otherwise in fine state of preservation.

bound in black silk, silvered page-edges.

The Leichenpredigt delivered in Mainz Cathedral on 18 July 1763, for Johann Friedrich Karl von Ostein, Archbishop of Mainz and of Worms (died 4 June 1763). Johann Haaber, ‘Universitäts­kanzler and Dompfarrer’,¹ took as his text 1 Kings 2:26, ‘Puer autem Samuel proficiebat atque crescebat, et placebat tam Domino quam hominibus’ (Vulgata Clementina).

Documents in the Staatsarchiv Mainz newly pub­lished by Luzie Bratner supply many details of the planning and conduct of the obsequies. Among these is a letter – dated 7 June, before the wake had been concluded, and the body embalmed – from the ‘Dom-Capitulischer Kupfer-Stecher’, Wilhelm Christian Rücker, to the Cathedral Chapter, asking for permission to engrave the castrum doloris on which the remains would lie in repose, for public viewing and mourning, before interment in the Cathedral.² Permission was granted, and Rücker’s impressive print, depicting the corpse on a draped platform in the candle-lit Schloßkapelle St. Gangolph, guarded by soldiers, became the frontis­piece to our volume.

The two unsigned, full-page prints in the book most probably are also Rücker’s work. He is otherwise known for the portrait series Bildnisse der Mainzer Erzbischöfe und Kurfürsten von Willigis bis zu Johann Friedrich Karl von Ostein (Mainz 1757), and for Wappenkalen­ders produced from 1762 for the Mainz Domkapitals.³

These copies are known

● Fulda, Hochschul- und Landesbibliothek, 4°.Gesch.G32/54 ● London, British Library, 10703.h.31 ● Mainz, Stadtbiblio­thek, Mog m:2°/118 (copy 1), Mog: 4°/143, Nr.2 (copy 2) ● Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Res/2 Or.fun.229 ● Munich, Universitätsbibliothek, 0014/W 2 H. eccl. 935 ● Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, M–2640(15) ● Regensburg, Staatliche Bibliothek ● Trier, Bibliothek des Priesterseminars, M5 an K 2382 ● Worms, Stadtbibliothek, Mag W Ki 4º 31

An impression of the frontispiece in the Stadtarchiv Mainz (BPS V070m) is cited by Bratner.⁴

reference Katalog der Leichenpredigten und sonstiger Trauerschriften in Fuldaer Bibliotheken, edited by Rudolf Lenz et al. (Stuttgart 2004), pp.48–49 no. 85