Peter Pavel Glavar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
beekeeper
writer
businessman
Peter Pavel Glavar | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 2 May 1721 |
| Died | 24 January 1784 (aged 62) |
| Occupations | Roman Catholic priest beekeeper writer businessman |
Peter Pavel Glavar (2 May 1721 – 24 January 1784) was a Carniolan Roman Catholic priest, beekeeper, writer, and businessman.
Glavar was born in Ljubljana as an illegitimate child of the Maltese noble Pietro Giacomo de Testaferrata and a local servant.[1][2] While Testaferrata did not acknowledge him, he contributed to his upkeep; the boy was raised in Vopovlje in northern Carniola.[1] A quick study, he was sent to seminary in Ljubljana and (in about 1738) Graz, where he was granted a master of liberal arts (Latin: magister artium liberalium) degree,[2] and became acquainted with the economic theories of the French physiocrats. His education was broad, and he was fluent in several European languages.[1]
Glavar returned to Carniola around 1743.[2] He settled in Komenda in northern Carniola, where he established a school in 1751; the following year, he endowed a library,[3] which is still extant and comprises around 2,000 books on diverse subjects.[1][3] A mighty lime tree in Komenda bears Glavar's, and is thought to have been planted by him around 1748.[4] Glavar was a supporter of poor students,[1] and a patron of the arts; he commissioned the painter Franc Jelovšek to decorate the beneficiary house and the parish church.[3] From 1754 until 1760,[5] Glavar edited the first Slovene-language parish family book, in which he recorded the actuarial data of the inhabitants of Komenda.[1] In 1761–66, he erected the high-baroque St. Anne's Church in Tunjice.[6]
In 1766, Glavar bought Lanšprež Castle (German: Landspreis) in Gomila near Mirna in the central Carniola,[2] where he kept an apiary with about 200 quite profitable hives.[1] He also established a beekeeping school there, and wrote several texts on beekeeping. These included the Pogovor o čebelnih rojih (Discourse on Bee Swarms) from 1776–78, notable as the first Slovene-language scholarly text; lost for almost two centuries, a copy was discovered and published only in 1976.[7]
Glavar died at Lanšprež Castle in 1784, aged 62. He left his assets to the poor; some of them were used to endow the Glavar Hospital in Komenda in 1804.[1]
In 2006, RTV Slovenia produced a documentary about him.[3]
