Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg (8 February 1744 – 10 February 1817) was a Catholic German bishop and statesman. In various capacities, he served as Archbishop of Mainz, Prince of Regensburg, Arch-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire, Bishop of Constance and Worms, Prince-Primate of the Confederation of the Rhine and Grand Duke of Frankfurt. Dalberg was the last Archbishop-Elector of Mainz.
Early life and career
thumb|[[Fürstenberg China|Fürstenberg vase commemorating Dalberg's election in 1787 as Coadjutor of Mainz and Worms (Collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art)]]
Born in Mannheim, as a member of the House of Dalberg, he was the son of (1716–1776), administrator of Worms, one of the chief counsellors of the Prince-elector and Archbishop of Mainz and his wife, Baroness Maria Sophie Anna von Eltz-Kempenich (1722–1763). Karl devoted himself to the study of canon law, and entered the church. At the beginning of 1765 he entered the administrative service of the ministry in Mainz.
Having been appointed in 1772 governor of Erfurt, he won further advancement by his successful administration. He was rector of the cathedral school in Würzburg in 1780. at the same time, he became titular archbishop of Tarsus in Cilicia and was ordained priest (11/11/1787) and bishop (8/31/1788). After succeeding the respective bishops in Constance (1800) and Worms (1802), he also succeeded in Mainz as the last archbishop-elector, albeit temporally only in the electorate's left bank territories and also, de facto, in the pastoral ones as far as the right bank of the Rhine.
As statesman, Dalberg was distinguished by his patriotic attitude, whether in ecclesiastical matters, in which he leaned to the Febronian view of a German national church, or in his efforts to galvanize the atrophied machinery of the Holy Roman Empire into some sort of effective central government of Germany. Failing in this, he turned to the rising star of Napoleon, believing that he had found in him the only force strong enough to save Germany from dissolution.