Bronner, Franz Xaver 12/23/1758 - 08/12/1850

Franz Xaver Bronner (* December 23, 1758 in Höchstädt an der Donau; † August 12, 1850 in Aarau) was a Swiss poet, publicist and archivist with German roots.

The son of a brickmaker entered the Benedictine monastery Donauwörth in Bavaria in 1776, where he became familiar with the Catholic Enlightenment. In 1782 he joined the Illuminati Order and was ordained priest in 1783. In 1785 the Enlightenment philosopher fled the monastery to Zurich, where he became acquainted with the circle around Salomon Gessner. 1786-1793 he resided in Augsburg and then again in Zurich. In the years 1794-1798 he was editor of the ''Zürcher Zeitung'', became 1798 secretary of the government governor of the canton Zurich, Johann Kaspar Pfenninger. 1798-1801 he was head of the chancellery of the Helvetic minister. Philipp Albert Stapfer. In 1799 he published the ''Helvetisches Tagblatt'' and in 1799-1800 the ''Freyheitsfreund''. 1804-1810 and 1817-1827 he was a teacher at the ''Kantonsschule Aarau''; in the meantime he held a professorship in physics at the University of Kazan in Russia. From 1829 he was cantonal archivist in Aarau.

The estate of Franz Xaver Bronner is held in the Aargau State Archives.