Biographical memoir by Heinrich Frh. v. Handel-Mazzetti
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Heinrich Freiherr (Baron) von Handel-Mazzetti was born in Vienna on 19th February 1882. His family, still well represented in Austria today, trace their origins to a Franz Handel in Dettingen near Frankfurt in 1556, his forebears having migrated from Handel in Brabant a century earlier. Handel-Mazzetti's grandfather, Heinrich Freiherr von Handel, was a senior officer in the Austrian Army. He married Caroline Freiin (Baroness) von Mazzetti, and as she was the last of her family they decided to perpetuate her family name by joining it to his. Their son Eduard, born in Pavia in 1838, was the botanist's father. Perhaps the most widely known member of the family is the novelist Enrica von Handel-Mazzetti (1871-1955), a daughter of one of Eduard's brothers, the author of "Die Hochzeit von Quedlinburg" and other historical romances.
This biographical memoir is based on the detailed obituary by Handel-Mazzetti's friend and contemporary Erwin Janchen(1) (Berichte der deutschen botanischen Gesellschaft, 57, 179-201 [1940], with portrait and bibliography). This information has been supplemented by reminiscences kindly provided by Hofrat Professor K.H. Rechinger(2), who worked in the same room as Handel-Mazzetti in the Vienna University Botanical Institute in the twenties and thirties, acted as an emissary between Handel-Mazzetti and Keissler, the Director of the Department of Botany in the Natural History Museum, after their quarrel, and got to know him as intimately as was possible for anyone outside his family circle. Further details have been gleaned from his own writings and those of his contemporaries.