FESSLER, IGNAZ AURELIUS (1756-1839), Hungarian scholar, was born on May 18, 1756, at Zurany, Hungary. He be came a capuchin, and made many enemies by exposing the abuses of the monasteries to the emperor, Joseph II., who ordered a searching examination in consequence. He held a chair at Lemberg university for a short time, but had to leave Hungary after the publication of his tragedy Sidney (1788), attacking the English Roman Catholics. He was converted to Lutheranism, and wandered from place to place. In 1796 he was in Berlin and was commissioned, with Fichte, to reform the statutes of the free masons' lodge there. In 1809 Alexander I. offered him a chair at St. Petersburg (now Leningrad), of which he was soon de prived on account of his heterodox opinions. In Nov. 1820 he was appointed consistorial president of the evangelical communities at Saratov, and subsequently became superintendent of the Luth eran communities in St. Petersburg. Fessler died at St. Peters burg on Dec. 15, Among his numerous works are Die Geschichten der Ungarn and ihrer Landsassen (10 vols., Leipzig, 1815-25) ; Mathias Corvinus (2 vols., Breslau, ; Die drei grossen Konige der Ungarn ails dem Arpadischen Stamme (Breslau, 1808) ; and the autobiographical Ruckblicke auf seine siebzigjiihrige Pilgerschaft (Breslau, 1824; 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1850. See J. Koszo, A. 1. Fessler (1923) .