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Spanning thirteen generations, the descendants of the famous polymath J. V. Valvasor (1641–1693) feature a host of interesting figures, ranging from scientists, artists, and politicians to a martyr of the Catholic Church and an Italian female terrorist. The monograph at hand presents those five, along with their families, who were, each in their own way, the last Valvasorians in Slovenian territory. The oldest, Franc Knight Gadolla (1797–1866), left an admirable, almost completely unused handwritten opus on local history. Officer Anton Aleks Baron Dienersperg (1820–1889) was saved from oblivion by his unfinished memoirs. Janez Nepomuk Knight Resingen (1812–1885) was an eminent public figure in Slovenian Styria. Composer Rudolf von Weis-Ostborn (1876–1962), a native of Graz, who worked in Ljubljana in the early twentieth century, is now among the best known descendants of Valvasor. The most tragic figure and the very last of Valvasor's descendants living in Slovenian territory was the Maribor-born German Karl Mayer (1890–1941), whose mental illness made him the victim of Nazi euthanasia.
paperback 17 × 24 cm 196 pages