Counts of Gallas: Baroque Chevaliers and Patrons (1630-1757)

Gallas nobility, originally from Trident region, came in Bohemia due to the property gains of the imperial general Mathias Gallas (1588 - 1647), who acquired the incolat in Bohemia in 1647. The three following generations of his descendants have assimilated and successfully adapted to the environment of the Central European Habsburgian aristocracy. The Gallas estate properties had been the sixth largest in the Bohemian Kingdom shortly after the first half of the 17th century. Skilful social strategy and property management by Franz Ferdinand Gallas (1635 - 1697) was a necessary prerequisite for the ambassador career of his son Johann Wenzel Gallas (1671 - 1719). The Gallas family - chronically lacking in descendants - died here out in the fourth generation by Filip Josef Gallas (1703 - 1757). Both their name and coat of the arms were then inherited by an allied Clam family, who were taking care of the Gallas properties for four generations as well. The beginning as well as end of the Gallas activities in Bohemia is symbilically bordered by the distrubed social-political events of the Thirty Years' War and the Austro- Prussian war. In 1630, Matyas Gallas went to besiege the distant Italian Mantova, expecting rich spoils. In the 1757, however, the Gallas properties in Bohemia were plundered by the Prussian..