Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.
DOBRIZHOFFER, MARTIN. - Jesuit, missionary, b. at Graz on 7 Sept. 1717, d. at Vienna on 17 July 1791. Sent to Paraguay in 1748, he spent eighteen years there among the indigenous Abiponi of the Gran Chaco and the northern tribes of the Guarani. After the expulsion of the Jesuits (1767), he returned to Austria and from 1773 was court preacher at Vienna, where the Empress Maria Teresa often invited him to recount his missionary adventures.
On this subject he left a much appreciated work: Historia de Abiponibus, equestri, bellicosaque Paraguaiana natione (3 vols., Vienna 1783-84), immediately translated, because of its objectivity and importance, into German by A. Kreil (ibid. 1783-84); then into English by S. Coleridge (London 1822). The work, still highly esteemed today, places him among the pioneers of ethnology.
BIBL.: Sommervogel, III, col. 108; A. Huonder, Deutsche Jesuitenmissionäre des 17. und 18. Jahrh., Friburgo in Br. 1891, p. 142; Streit, III, pp. 309-12, 515. Celestino Testore
Cite this article
“DOBRIZHOFFER, MARTIN.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. IV (1950), p. 1022. Azione Romana digital edition, https://azioneromana.com/article/dobrizhoffer-martin.
