Adolf Mussafia

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Adolf Mussafia, photography by Rudolf Krziwanek
Bust of Adolf Mussafia in the arcade courtyard of the University of Vienna

Adolf Mussafia (born February 15, 1835 in Split as Adolfo Mussafia , † June 7, 1905 in Florence ) was an Austrian Romance scholar of Italian origin who founded Romance studies at the University of Vienna .

life and work

Adolfo Mussafia came from a Sephardic rabbi family from Dalmatia . His father was the rabbi Jacob (Johann) Amadeo Mussafia († 1854), author of several studies on Jewish theology, and his mother Rachele Levi, called Nina from Sarajevo .

He came to Vienna at the age of seventeen to study medicine. Here he studied this subject from 1852 to 1854. However, Mussafia soon worked as an Italian teacher and repetitor for candidate teachers and from 1857 (until 1876) was employed at the court library . At that time, on September 28, 1855, he converted to Catholicism. Thanks to his great talent and restless research in Romance philology - without any regular linguistic studies - he was appointed, as it were, by decree by the Imperial and Royal Ministry of Education, which recognized his abilities, as an extraordinary professor of Romance languages ​​and literatures - incidentally the first of his kind Vienna - then in 1867 to full professor and in 1869 - to attempt to disguise his official Ungeprüftheit - the honorary doctorate of the University of Vienna . In Bonn , the thirty-four-year-old had the opportunity to meet Friedrich Diez , forty years his senior , who valued his writings very much: He is said to have been astonished by the youthfulness of his academic counterpart.

Adolf Mussafia, bust, created 1910–1912 by Caspar von Zumbusch , in the arcade courtyard of the main building of the University of Vienna

Mussafia was on the board of the German Dante Society from 1865 , from 1866 he was a corresponding, from 1871 full member of the Vienna Academy of Sciences , from 1901 a member of the Herrenhaus and from 1900 a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences . Calls to Strasbourg in 1872 and Florence he refused. The exchange he later proposed with Hugo Schuchardt in Graz did not materialize. Mussafia founded the Viennese seminar for French and English in 1870 (separated in 1891) and in 1890 took Wilhelm Meyer-Lübke as a colleague.

“Mussafia's scientific interests were in text editing, source research and the history of motifs, all in the area of ​​the Middle Ages. He moved in the areas of Old Italian, Old French, Old Provençal and Old Spanish, with a clear preference for Old Italian, especially Old Upper Italian texts that contain dialectal elements or have Franco-Italian character. "

- Hans Helmut Christmann : Italian Studies Annual Journal Vienna (1978–2000); (1982) 5, p. 154

Habilitation at Mussafia: Wendelin Foerster , Wolfram Zingerle , Antonio Ive , Matthias Friedwagner and Jan Urban Jarník .

  • In the arcade courtyard of the University of Vienna - the university's hall of fame - there has been a bust of Mussafia, created by Caspar von Zumbusch , since 1917 . As part of “purges” by the National Socialists in early November 1938, ten sculptures by Jewish or supposedly Jewish professors in the arcade courtyard were overturned or smeared with paint in connection with the “ Langemarck Celebration ”. At this point in time, the acting rector Fritz Knoll had the Arkadenhof sculptures checked; on his instructions, fifteen monuments were removed and placed in a depot, including that of Adolf Mussafia. After the end of the war, all damaged and removed monuments were put back in the arcade courtyard in 1947.

His grave is in Florence on the Cimitero degli Ingles .

Together with Adolf Tobler , he formulated the Tobler-Mussafia-Law , which states that in the Romance languages ​​an unstressed element must not open a sentence.

Works (selection)

  • Italian language teaching in rules and examples. Vienna 1860, 32nd edition 1925, then under the title Der neue Mussafia , Vienna 1935, 11th edition 1962, then ud T. The newest Mussafia , Vienna 1981, 15th edition 1999
  • Scritti di filologia e linguistica , ed. by Antonio Daniele e Lorenzo Renzi, Padua 1983
  • Contributions to the customer of the northern Italian dialects in the XV. Century. 1873
  • The Austro-Hungarian monarchy in words and pictures. Band Dalmatia, Vienna 1892
  • Building blocks for Romance philology. Festgabe, Halle 1905.
  • Monumenti antichi di dialetti italiani. Vienna (Vienna) 1864
  • Sul testo della Divina Commedia. Vienna (Wien) 1865
  • About the source of the old Spanish "Vida de S. Maria Egipciaca". Vienna 1863

literature

Web links

Commons : Adolf Mussafia  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Carlo Cetteo Cipriani: Un documento della famiglia Mussafia.
  2. ^ Austria Forum. Mussafia, Adolf.
  3. ^ Mitchell G. Ash, Josef Ehmer: University - Politics - Society . Vienna University Press, June 17, 2015, ISBN 978-3-8470-0413-4 , p. 118.
personal data
SURNAME Mussafia, Adolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mussafia, Adolfo; Mussafia, Abraham Arturo Adolfo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Romanist
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1835
PLACE OF BIRTH Split
DATE OF DEATH June 7, 1905
Place of death Florence