Ignatius Knoblecher

He studied at the secondary school in Rudolfswerth (now Novo Mesto), at the lyceum and the theological seminary in Laibach (now Ljubljana), and at the College of Propaganda in Rome.

Towards the end of September, 1847, he left Cairo in company of Maximilian Ryllo, the Pro-Vicar Apostolic of Central Africa, and four other missionaries, and arrived at Khartoum on 11 February 1848.

In the mid-1850s, some of the children were transferred to Ljubljana, where they were accepted as objects of curiosity and with public contempt, baptised, and educated by local notables (e.g. Josip Stritar).

He ascended the White Nile (Bahr-el-Abiad) and was the first European to penetrate into the land of the Bari people, as far as 4° 10′ N. In 1850 he went back to Austria to recruit missionaries and collect money for the African missions.

His extensive ethnographical and ornithological collections are preserved in museums in Vienna and Ljubljana, and the studies that he prepared on the Dinka and Bari languages are in the Austrian National Library.