Peter Pavel Glavar

Who is Peter Pavel Glavar?

Peter Pavel Glavar was a Carniolan Roman Catholic priest, beekeeper, writer, and businessman.

Glavar was born in Ljubljana and was an illegitimate and abandoned child of the Maltese noble Peter Jakob de Testaferrata and of a local servant. He was raised in Vopovlje in northern Carniola. As he was a quick learner, he went to study for a priest to Ljubljana and about 1738 to Graz, where he became a master of liberal arts. There he also got acquainted with economic theories of French physiocrats. His education was wide and he was fluent in several European languages.

Glavar returned to Carniola around 1743. He settled in Komenda in the northern Carniola, where he established a school in 1751, and erected a benefice building with a library in 1752. The library still stands and comprises around 2000 books from a multitude of fields of science and arts. A mighty lime tree in Komenda was presumably planted by Glavar in 1748 and has been named after him. Glavar collaborated with artists and ordered Franc Jelovšek to paint the beneficiary house and the local church. From 1754 until 1760, he edited the first Slovene-language parish family book, writing the data about the inhabitants of Komenda. In 1761–66, he erected a High-Baroque church of St. Anne in Tunjice.