Hippolyt Guarinoni (also Ippolito Guarinoni and Hippolytus Guarinonius) (November 18, 1571 in Trento – May 31, 1654 in Hall in Tirol) was a physician and polymath who practiced in Hall. As a proponent of militant Catholicism, he was instrumental in the construction of St. Charles’s Church in Volders and founded the anti-Semitic Anderl von Rinn cult.
Hippolytus spent his childhood in Trento. He later moved with his father to Vienna and finally followed him to the court of Emperor Rudolf II in Prague in 1583, where he received a thorough and comprehensive education at the Jesuit Gymnasium there. The Jesuit education left a lasting impression on the inquisitive young man. From 1593 to 1597, Guarinoni studied medicine at the University of Padua; he also attended lectures in theology and philosophy.
An outward symbol of Guarinoni’s religious zeal is St. Charles’s Church in Volders, which he had built according to his plans using his considerable fortune. The almost oriental-looking church – art historians describe its style as “Venetian Baroque” – is one of the most remarkable sacred buildings in Tyrol. Construction, whose floor plan is modeled on St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, had to be repeatedly interrupted due to Guarinoni’s financial difficulties and was therefore only consecrated on July 25, 1654, 34 years after the laying of the foundation stone on April 2, 1620. Guarinoni did not live to see this joyous day, having died in Hall two months before the consecration. St. Charles’s Church also became his burial place. In front of the steps of the Epiphany Altar, a white marble plaque bearing the founder’s coat of arms indicates that Guarinoni, his wife, and two of his sons were laid to rest here, according to his last will.
Guarinoni also commissioned the construction of the chapel on the Stiftsalm in the Voldertal Valley and the Borgia Chapel in Volderwald (Tulfes). The chapel at the Volderer Wildbad (Wildbad) burned down several times, so the current building is only indirectly attributable to Guarinoni. Across the Inn Valley, he designed the plan for the Annenkirchlein church in Bad Baumkirchen.
Guarinoni is known in Tyrol not only for his architectural work, but even more so for his medical, religious, and rhetorical writings.
His most important work is Grewel der Verwüstung Menschenrechte (The Devastation of Human Sex), published in Ingolstadt in 1610. It is a voluminous tome whose prolixity in form and content defies clear classification. Among other things, Guarinoni deals with the following subjects in this work: “Doctor and Apothecary, Dück der Weiber. Dawung (digestion), Ebene (plains) and Birg (mountains), Eaters and Drinkers, English Comedians, Calendaric Foolishness, Anecdotes from Eulenspiegel, Foxtails, The Fencing Schools. Dog Law among the Germans, Jews and Heretics Like to Eat Meat. Praise of the Old Wives. Hymns of the Gerhaben (guardians), Marx and Lucas Brothers, Mill and Miller Fraud. The Nature of Geese and Women. Noodles and Plenten, Peasants’ Food. Predicants, Freßdeckanten, etc.” Guarinoni’s Grewel is also a treasure trove for German linguistics, especially for unusual provincial expressions, as it is a not inconsiderable source of provincial references of all kinds, rich in both genuine German proverbs and sayings, allusions, and similes.
The Botanist
A herbarium created by Guarinoni, which has been in the possession of the Ferdinandeum State Museum since 1876 through a donation from Wilten Abbey, is one of the oldest collections of its kind in Central Europe. Created between 1610 and 1630 in book form with a wooden cover and beveled edges, the collection begins with a 13-page Latin-German index and contains 633 pasted plants collected in the vicinity of Innsbruck on 106 pages.