Die Diarien und Tagzettel des Kardinals Ernst Adalbert von Harrach (1598 - 1667) Band 1: Kommentar und Register

The diaries and Tagzettel (daily notes) of Cardinal Ernst Adalbert of Harrach (1598-1667) are all in all a personal testimonial and - owing to their size, the diverse range of their content and the specific circumstances of their origin - must be considered singular in the German speaking area during the 17th century. The size and the range of contents can be compared with well-known records such as the diary of Samuel Pepys, the memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz and the letters of Elisabeth Charlotte d`Orléans. Now for the first time the entire corpus is presented in an edition and made accessible to the scientific community. While the diaries written in Italian correspond in their mode of appearence and writing to various other examples of diaries, the corpus of German Tagzettel represents - as far as we currently know - a unique source: The Tagzettel of Cardinal Harrach must be qualified as a written newspaper used by the author to distribute information among his wide circle of family members and friends. In this newspaper Harrach writes about his private life and personal experiences in Prague, Vienna and Rome, about his acquaintances and family members, as well as about political and military events throughout Europe. As regard to their content the diaries and Tagzettel complement one another, and they permit to elucidate diverse aspects of Harrach`s view of the world between 1630 and 1667. The present edition includes 27 volumes of diaries and 27 volumes of Tagzettel partly overlapping each other. The corpus represents interesting and important sources for diverse historical sciences like political and cultural history in European perspectives, ecclesiastical history, history of theater and arts, history of medicine and environment, history of princely court and ceremonial, genealogy and so on. For all these fields of research Harrach`s notices will deliver substantial new material. The first volume of the edition includes the editorial apparatus, comments as regards content on important aspects of the diaries as well as Tagzettel and specifications on the characteristics of these forms of writing as a personal testimonial. Moreover the user can find additional material like short biographies of persons most frequently mentioned by Harrach, an itinerary and the indices of places and names. The text of the diaries and the Tagzettel will be published only in print, but the indices will be published also open access on the project`s website (www.univie.ac.at/geschichte/harrach). By doing so, scholars from all over the world can obtain information about the contents of the edited primary sources ahead of using the printed edition.