KAUNITZ, ANTON WENZEL. - Austrian statesman, b. Feb. 2, 1711 in Vienna, d. there June 27, 1794. Entrusted in 1741 with a special mission to the courts of Florence, Rome and Turin, to which he was to announce the birth of the crown prince Joseph (the future Joseph II), he later became minister in Turin (1742-44), high court intendant in Brussels to Archduchess Maria Anna (1744-46), plenipotentiary at the Congress of Aachen and finally ambassador in Paris, where he remained from 1750 to 1753 and prepared the ground for the Franco-Austrian alliance of 1756. Appointed chancellor in 1753, he directed the foreign policy of the Habsburg monarchy until 1792, under Maria Theresa and Joseph II.

Although he showed himself an observant Catholic, he supported in every way the policy of Joseph II, tending toward the assertion of the superiority of the State over the Church, and upheld the founding of the general state seminaries. Even his relations with Cardinal Archbishop Migazzi were not marked by cordiality, nor did K. neglect any occasion to reaffirm toward the prelate the preeminence of state authority over ecclesiastical authority.

KAUNITZ, ANTON WENZEL - PORTRAIT.(from W. Oechs, Das Zeitalter Friedrichs des Grosses, Berlin 1888, p. 13)

Bibliography7 works

BIBL.: A. von Arneth, Biographie des Fürsten K. Ein Fragment, in Archiv für österreichische Geschichte, 88 (1900), pp. 1-201; G. Künzel, Fürst K.-Rittberg als Staatsmann, Frankfurt 1923; Pastor, XVI, parts 2 and 3, passim; A. Novotny, Staatskanzler K. als geistige Persönlichkeit, Vienna 1947; F. Maass, Vorbereitung und Anfänge des Josephismus im amtlichen Schriftwechsel des Staatskanzlers Fürsten von K.-Rittberg..., 1767 bis 1770, in Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs, 1 (1948), pp. 289-444; id., Der Josephismus. Quellen zu seiner Geschichte in Österreich, 1760-90, Amtliche Dokumente aus dem Wiener Haus-, Hofund Staatsarchiv, part 1; Ursprung und Wesen des Josephismus, 1760-69, Vienna 1951.

Silvio Furlani

@incollection{ec7_kaunitz_anton_wenzel, author = {Furlani, Silvio}, title = {Kaunitz, anton wenzel}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VII}, pages = {662--663}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/kaunitz-anton-wenzel} }

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Kaunitz, Anton Wenzel

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