Segnitz


Segnitz is a municipality in the district of Kitzingen in Bavaria in Germany, 25 km south of Würzburg on the Main river. The village is well known as the home of Renaissance master builder :de:Hans Keesebrod|Hans Keesebrod, horticulture and wine and has less than 850 inhabitants.

Italo Svevo, Samuel Spier and Segnitz

Segnitz is especially famous as the place in which Triestine writer Italo Svevo and his Brother Adolfo spent four school years in a famous private boarding school, called the Brüsselsche Institut. Another Brother, Elio, came to Segnitz 1876-78. In contrast to his brothers he got homesick, but wrote a diary about his time in Segnitz. This diary is now an important source for the obviously "social" background in Svevos writing.
The Brüsselsche Institut existed from 1838 until 1881 and was run by director :de:Samuel Spier|Samuel Spier, who had been one of the founding fathers of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Spier had come to Segnitz 1872 after the Franco-Prussian War in a self-imposed exile after he had been accused in the first high treason trial of the newly founded German Empire. Samuel Spier is "Mr. Beer" in Svevos Novella "L'avvenire dei ricordi" whose action takes place in Segnitz.