Ernst Steinmann

Ernst Steinmann's long-term living and working place, the Palazzo Zuccari in Rome.

Ernst Theodor Karl Steinmann (born September 4, 1866 in Jördenstorf ; † November 23, 1934 in Basel ) was a German art historian who specialized in the Italian Renaissance and above all Michelangelo . He was the founding director of the Roman Bibliotheca Hertziana .

Life

Ernst Steinmann was the younger son and one of six children of Pastor Adolf (1819–1899) and his wife Betty, b. Ritzerow, born. The folklorist Ulrich Steinmann was his nephew.

From 1887 he studied theology and art history in Tübingen , Rostock and Leipzig , the professors who supported him were mainly Johannes Overbeck and Anton Springer . Even before his doctorate on medieval tituli (1892), he became a research assistant at the Archaeological Institute in Leipzig in 1891 . After completing his military service , he began researching in Rome in 1893, supported by various scholarships and private sponsorships, where he prepared a monumental work on the Sistine Chapel , which caused a sensation, not least because of the splendid decoration of photographs taken especially for this publication. Other longer research stays took him to Florence during these years .

On June 1, 1901, Steinmann married Olga von Gerstfeld (born January 28, 1866 in Łowicz ), who died in Rome on April 29, 1910.

From 1903 to 1911 Steinmann was director of the Grand Ducal Museum in Schwerin . In 1913 he became the first director of the newly founded Bibliotheca Hertziana , which goes back to a private initiative and foundation of his close friend Henriette Hertz . The renovation of the institute's building, the Palazzo Zuccari built by Federico Zuccari in the late 16th century, was coordinated by Steinmann, who also moved into an official apartment there. Although politically explosive phases such as the acquisition of the institute during the First World War , later the threatened appropriation under Benito Mussolini and the beginning pressure on the liberal research community after the National Socialists came to power occurred during the time of his activity as director , Ernst Steinmann continued his intensive research and published numerous articles and books that are now considered standard works, especially on Michelangelo . At the same time, however, his writings often polarized and met with criticism from some of his contemporaries, as they occasionally stand in stark contrast to the sober, scientific language of their colleagues due to their hymnic and distant tone, and because some of them were lavishly furnished and printed in large format with lavish illustrations Volumes were dismissed as early " coffee table books ".

In 1934 Steinmann, already seriously ill, retired, and Leo Bruhns became his successor at the Hertziana . Immediately thereafter, he died after two strokes in Switzerland , where he had gone for recovery and care. The extensive estate of Steinmann, including the diaries kept for many years, is now kept in the Bibliotheca Hertziana; a smaller part of his extensive Michelangelo library has been handed over to the Vatican Apostolic Library .

Works (in selection)

(A complete bibliography of Ernst Steinmann's writings can be found in Tesche 2002, pp. 275–280.)

• The tituli and ecclesiastical wall painting in the West from the V to the XI. Century. Seemann, Leipzig 1892.
• Botticelli . Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld u. a. 1897.
• Pinturicchio . Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld u. a. 1898.
• The Sistine Chapel . Bruckmann, Munich 1901–1905.
• Rome in the Renaissance from Nicolaus V to Leo X. 2., redesigned. u. probably an edition of Seemann, Leipzig 1902.
• The secret of Michel Angelo's Medicigraeber . Hiersemann, Leipzig 1907.
• The tomb of Paul III. in St. Peter in Rome. Poeschel & Trepte, Leipzig 1912.
• The portraits of Michelangelo. Klinkhardt & Biermann, Leipzig 1913.
• Pilgrimages in Italy. 3rd edition Klinkhardt & Biermann, Leipzig 1914 (together with Olga von Gerstfeldt).
• Michelangelo Bibliography: 1510 - 1926. Klinkhardt & Biermann, Leipzig 1927 (together with Rudolf Wittkower ).
• Michelangelo in the mirror of his time. Poeschel & Trepte, Leipzig 1930.

literature

• Joseph Imorde : Steinmann, Ernst Theodor Karl. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie , 25, 2013, pp. 217–218.
• Sybille Ebert-Schifferer : Ernst Steinmann (1866–1934). The founding director of the institute. In: Marieke von Bernstorff (Ed.): 100 Years of the Bibliotheca Hertziana. 2 Vols. Hirmer, Munich 2013, Vol. 1, pp. 36–61.
• Doreen Tesche: Ernst Steinmann and the founding history of the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome. Hirmer, Munich 2002.
• Otto Lehmann-Brockhaus : Ernst Steinmann: His personality and the development of the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome. In: Festschrift for Hermann Fillitz on his 70th birthday. Dumont Schauberg, Cologne 1994, pp. 451-464.
• Christine Maria Grafinger: The dispute over the 'Michelangelo Library' Ernst Steinmann in the years 1935–1938. In: Sources and research from Italian archives and libraries , 72, 1992, pp. 438–467.
• Leo Bruhns , Federico Hermanin and Bartolommeo Nogara: Speeches held at the funeral service for Ernst Steinmann in the Goethersaal of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Art and Cultural Studies Bibliotheca Hertziana on January 10, 1935. Poeschel & Trepte, Leipzig 1935.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Entry in the Rostock matriculation portal
2. ↑ Tesche 2002, p. 243f; Ebert-Schifferer 2013, p. 37.
3. ↑ Ebert-Schifferer 2013, p. 39f.
4. ↑ Tesche 2002, p. 233.

Web links

• Literature about Ernst Steinmann in the state bibliography MV
• Entry in the Dictionary of Art Historians