b. 1782, Vienna – d. 1849, Sibiu. Historiographer, ethnographer, professor of Austrian Law at the Saxon Judiciary Academy in Sibiu.
After Benigni’s death, the state bought, through an imperial decision (11 July 1855) his 15.000 volume library and donated it to the most representative libraries in Transylvania. An important part of this donation also arrived in Cluj.
His father was an aulic agent, a lawyer and a notary at the Commercial Court in Vienna. The child was educated in the spirit of the love for learning, but the premature death of his father compelled him, in order to ensure his means of subsistence, to embrace a military career. His poor health, however, did not allow him to make a career in the military field. As such, starting in 1798, he held different official positions in the Austrian administrative system. As a military clerk, he was detached in 1802 in Transylvania, in Sibiu. After a short hiatus (1807-1810), when he returned to Vienna as part of the Aulic War Chancellery, Joseph Heinrich Benigni von Mildenberg settles in Sibiu, where he lived all of his remaining years. Here, he held different official positions and, in the end, he became the director of the chancellery of the Commandment in Sibiu, a position he held until his retirement in June 1834. On 1 May 1822, he was awarded his rights of citizenship in Sibiu, thus becoming a member of the Saxon community of the city.
He was a contributor for the magazines Transilvania and Siebenbürger Boten and he became the editor in chief of the latter. He excelled in many fields: geography, statistics, as well as literature, law and history. He spoke several languages and his passion for the humanities helped him gather an impressive library. He died defending his political convictions, having been shot on the night of 11 March 1849 by a Hungarian revolutionary because Benigni was opposed to the unification of Transylvania and Hungary; in the interest of Austria, he militated for autonomy.
