Johann Franz Bessel

In 1699 he was summoned to the electoral court of Mainz by Archbishop Lothar Franz von Schönborn, who immediately sent him to Rome to study the curial practice of the Rota Romana.

He was also employed on various diplomatic missions, as, for instance, to the court of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in connection with the conversion of Duke Anton Ulrich and his granddaughter, the Princess Elisabeth Christine, later the wife of Emperor Charles VI.

On 7 February 1714, he was elected Abbot of Göttweig, and from that time forward was commissioned by the emperor to conduct diplomatic negotiations, in addition to being made imperial theologian and serving twice as honorary rector of the University of Vienna.

Besides several comparatively unimportant works, such as "Mararita pretiosa", "Curiae Romanae praxis", and "Austriae ritus", he published (Vienna, 1732) two letters of Augustine of Hippo to Optatus, Bishop of Mileve, which had been until then unknown.

He is erroneously credited with the authorship of "Quinquaginta Romano-catholicam fidem omnibus aliis praeferendi motiva" (Mainz, 1708), a controversial work written originally in Latin, but translated into almost every European tongue.