Franz Töpsl
(1711–96)

Other names: Joachim Joseph Martin

Positions Held

Provost of Polling Abbey 1744-96
Augustinian canon 1728

Biographical

Töpsl was the son of Joseph Felix Töpsl (1670–1731, son of Bonaventura Töpsl), a merchant and landlord in Munich, and of Maria Mittermayr. He attended the Jesuit grammar school in Munich, and then joined the Augustinian canons of Polling in 1728 where he received instruction under the scholar Eusebius Amort. He afterwards attended university at Ingolstadt. In 1735, he was ordained a priest, and was elected dean in 1742, and provost in 1744. In almost fifty-two years of administration, Töpsl endeavoured to develop the abbey in all directions, particularly by improving the educational institute there, and expanding its library which became one of the largest monastery libraries in northern Germany. He was also a historian, and proponent of science and culture, and was involved in the development stages of the Academy of Sciences, of which he became a member in 1759. Töpsl commissioned a painting cycle with more than 200 portraits of important European Augustinian canons, and compiled a lexicon (unpublished) of scientifically active canons comprising more than 2,700 entries. His Succinta informatio de Canonia Pollingana, a history of the monastery, was published in 1760.

Place of birth Munich
Place of death: Munich