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Belsazar de la Motte Hacquet (alsoBalthasar or Balthazar Hacquet) (c. 1739 – 10 January 1815) was aCarniolan physician ofFrench descent in theEnlightenment Era. He was awar surgeon, a surgeon in the mining town ofIdrija, and a professor ofanatomy andsurgery inLaibach (now Ljubljana). He researched the geology and botany ofCarniola,Istria, and nearby places, and was the first explorer of theJulian Alps. He also didethnographical work among theSouth Slavic peoples, particularly among theSlovene-speaking population. He self-identified primarily as achemist and introduced the methods ofchemical analysis to Carniola.
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Hacquet was mysterious about the time and place of his birth and the two have remained uncertain, although sources agree that he was anillegitimate child. Most sources have cited the information from his autobiography that he was born in 1739 or 1740 inLe Conquet,Brittany to an aristocratic father. When he lived in Ljubljana, he toldSigmund Zois that he was born to a Russian grandee, but this has not been supported by any sources. In 1821, the German lexiconDas Gelehrte Teutschland mentioned that he had been born inMetz,Lorraine. A 2003 investigation in the town archives in Metz has given further credence to the claim that Hacquet had been born in this town or its vicinity. The author hypothesised that Balthasar Hacquet was a son of a poor mother and an unknown father, baptised on 11 August 1736 as Jean. However, the question remains unsettled pending further research.[1]
Hacquet studied inVienna, and was a militarysurgeon during theSeven Years' War (1756–1763). From 1766 until 1773 he was the miners' surgeon and obstetrician inIdrija. In 1772 he became member of theCarniolan Agricultural Society. In 1773 he became a teacher ofanatomy,physiology andobstetrics atLjubljana Lyceum. From 1787 until 1805 he was a professor at theLviv University (University of Lemberg). Then he worked inKraków, where he stayed until 1809. In 1807 he became dean of theMedical Faculty. From 1810, when he retired, he lived in Vienna.[2]
Hacquet is remembered for his scientific journeys throughout theAustrian Empire. He was apolymath, and performed research in the fields ofgeology,mineralogy,botany,chemistry,ethnography,petrology andkarstology. He is recognized as the first scientist to perform extensive exploration of theJulian Alps. In 1777 he was the first to try to ascend to the top ofTriglav (2864 m), the highest peak in Slovenia, and reachedMali Triglav (2725 m). In 1789 he published a description of the 1786debris flow at theSlano Blato Landslide.[3] He was the first afterCarl Linnaeus to distinguish the mineraldolomite from thelimestone and described it already in 1778, 13 years earlier thanDéodat Gratet de Dolomieu, as the "stinking stone" (German:Stinkstein,Latin:lapis suillus). He met with Dolomieu in Laibach in 1784.[4][5]
Among Hacquet's written works is the four-volumeOryctographia Carniolica, which included a geological and mineralogical study ofCarniola,Istria, and surrounding districts. In this work, published inLeipzig from 1778 until 1789, he provided an in-depth report of theIdrija mercury mine, where he worked for some time with the physician and naturalistGiovanni Antonio Scopoli. He was also the author of anethnographical study of South Slavic peoples calledSlavus Venedus Illyricus. From 1774 to 1787, he was the secretary of theCarniolan Agricultural Society, members of which were also other prominent members of the Enlightenment, such asSigmund Zois,Blaž Kumerdej,Gabriel Gruber,Peter Pavel Glavar, andAnton Tomaž Linhart.
As a botanist Hacquet wrote a book onalpine flora from Carniola calledPlantae alpinae Carniolicae. The botanical genusHacquetia (now sunk intoSanicula) is named after him, as well as the plant speciesPedicularis hacquetii (Hacquet'slousewort). On one of his excursions, he discovered "on the evening, Trenta side of Triglav, a new species of scabious" and picked it for hisherbarium collection, nowadays preserved in theNatural History Museum of Slovenia. He called the speciesScabiosa trenta in the published description, and drew it. Many botanists have sought the mysterious pale yellowscabious, among them also the youngJulius Kugy. He searched for the mysterious flower, and though he was not able to find it, this led him to become a great explorer and describer of the Julian Alps. The Austrian botanist,Anton Kerner von Marilaun, later proved Belsazar Hacquet had not found a new species, but a specimen of the already known submediterraneanCephalaria leucantha.
Hacquet was a fervent collector. In Ljubljana he operated anatural history cabinet (German:Naturalienkabinet), which was appreciated throughout Europe and was visited by the highest nobility, including the Holy Roman Emperor,Joseph II, the Russian grand dukePaul andPope Pius VI, as well as by famous naturalists, such asFrancesco Griselini [it] andFranz Benedikt Hermann [de]. It included a number of minerals, including specimens of mercury from the Idrija mine, aherbarium vivum with over 4,000 specimens of Carniolan and foreign plants, a smaller number of animal specimens, a natural history and medical library, and ananatomical theatre.[6]
A memorial relief to Belsazar Hacquet was erected in 1987 in Ljubljana atUpper Square (Slovene:Gornji trg) on the facade of the house No. 4, where he lived from 1773 to 1787 and operated his cabinet. The relief is work of the sculptor Albin Ambrožič.[8] He has been also commemorated in a new species of fossil coral:Aulopora hacqueti Zapalski, 2005[9]
