Radovljica, Linhart’s Town

Linhart developed a gift for languages ​​very early, as his mother mostly spoke Slovenian at home, while his father spoke German and Czech. He was educated in Radovljica and in Ljubljana at the Jesuit high school (his classmate Jurij Vega was there), for a while he entered the Stiška monastery, then left and studied commerce and finance in Vienna with the help of the local nobility. After his return, he got a job as an apartment archivist.

In 1787, he married Jožefina Detel from Ljubljana, they had two daughters. They lived in Ljubljana: in 1792 they moved from Zois’s house in Breg to the new lyceum building, and in 1795 Linhart started building a house, but he suffered a stroke in the middle of the construction. The widow completed the construction, and three years later sold the house and went to Vienna with her two children.

In the last years of his life, he no longer wrote original works, but he helped his friends, especially Valentin Vodnik and Žigo Zois, who wrote on his death: “I lost a literary friend and critic with him, whose association was my only rest and joy …” (Mirko Zupančič, 1984).

There is a permanent exhibition in Radovljica’s Municipal Museum where you can find out more about the life and works of Anton Tomaž Linhart.

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