Augustin Emil Hofmann von Hofmannsthal
Austrian businessman
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Augustin Emil Hofmann von Hofmannsthal (26 January 1815 – 31 August 1881) was an Austrian industrialist.
Early life
Hofmann was born in Vienna, Austria on 26 January 1815.[1] He was a younger son of Therese (née Schefteles) von Hofmannsthal and Isaak Löw Hofmann, Edler von Hofmannsthal.[1] Among his siblings was Elise von Hofmannsthal (whose sister-in-law, Adelheid Herz, married Carl Mayer von Rothschild).[1]
His father was a Jewish tobacco farmer who was made a member of the hereditary nobility,[2] as "Edler von Hofmannsthal," by the Emperor of Austria in 1835.[3][a]
Career
He was a silk breeder, factory owner, and the head of his father's subsidiary business-house in Milan.[5] He was a recipient of the Cross of Merit of Austria-Hungary.[6]
Personal life
He converted to Catholicism and, on 5 May 1839, married Petronilla Antonia Cäcilia (née von Rhò) Ordioni (1815–1898) in Milan.[5] The marriage was later found to be invalid due to a legal defect when it was conducted, so they married again Vienna on 8 April 1850.[b] Petronilla, a daughter of Anton Maria von Rhò and widow of Pietro Ordioni (who died in 1835), was from an aristocratic Italian family.[8] Together, they were the parents of:[9]
- Hugo August Peter von Hofmannsthal (1841–1915), a director of the Boden-Credit-Anstalt who married Anna Maria Josefa Fohleutner, a daughter of Laurentz Fohleutner (whose family came to Vienna from the Sudetenland via Bavaria).[10]
- Sylvius Silvio Arvinius Leo von Hofmannsthal (1852–1921), an engineer who married Emerica Albertina "Emma" Burián von Rajecz, a member of an ancient Hungarian noble family.[11]
- Guido von Hofmannsthal (1854-1925),[c] an art collector and banker with Wiener Bankverein who married Franziska "Fanny" Opatalek-Treis in Bad Ischl in 1885.[12][13][14]
Hofmannsthal died on 31 August 1881 at Krems in Lower Austria.[1]
Descendants
Through his son Hugo, he was a grandfather of Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874–1929), an Austrian novelist, librettist, and dramatist, and great-grandfather of writer Raimund von Hofmannsthal (1906–1974).[15]
Notes
- Edler was, until 1919, the lowest rank of nobility in Austria-Hungary and Germany, just beneath a Ritter (hereditary knight), but above untitled nobles, who used only the nobiliary particle von before their surnames.[4]