Georg Voigt

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Georg Voigt

Georg Ludwig Voigt (born April 5, 1827 in Königsberg i. Pr. , † August 18, 1891 in Leipzig ) was a German historian . Along with Jacob Burckhardt, he is one of the founders of modern Renaissance research . His main focus is on humanism in the 15th and 16th centuries and the history of the Schmalkaldic War .

Life

Georg Voigt was born in Königsberg as the son of the historian Johannes Voigt . In 1854 he received his doctorate from the University of Königsberg under Wilhelm Drumann with a thesis on the life of Alcibiades , which is not available in print. In 1859/1860 he worked for the historical commission of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich under Heinrich von Sybel . There he was initially busy with the edition of the Reichstag files. The historical magazine in its first year contains the framework plan developed by Voigt for this edition series. In 1860 he was appointed professor of history in Rostock on Sybel's recommendation .

In 1866 he became professor of history at the University of Leipzig as the successor to the ancient historian Wilhelm Wachsmuth , who had proposed Voigt before all other candidates. The proposal was predominantly supported by both the Saxon Ministry of Culture and the Faculty . The only noteworthy resistance, which also became publicly known, came mainly from Heinrich Wuttke . It cannot be proven whether Sybel was also involved in this change. However, based on the personnel files from the Leipzig University Archives, it is certain that the Philosophical Faculty appointed both Carl von Noorden and later Wilhelm Maurenbrecher to their chairs with Voigt's consent. Voigt was a professor in Leipzig until 1891. In practice, however, he had already left in 1889 due to a serious illness, according to Eduard Meyer it was diabetes. His hearing loss since the end of the 1870s also affected his teaching activities, so that he carried out extensive lecturing activities. a. had to give up in the commercial association in Leipzig.

Voigt was a member a. a. the Royal Saxon Society for Sciences in Leipzig and the Imperial and Royal Academy of Sciences in Vienna . Voigt was also a member of the Princely Jablonowskische Gesellschaft , where he also acted as a reviewer for the prize papers submitted. Heinrich Zeißberg and Aleksander Brückner are among the most important authors whose prize publications he examined . Further important pupils of Voigt later were Richard Georg Erler (1850-1913) and Otto Richter . Even Bruno Stübel received his doctorate with him.

Voigt's successor at the Leipzig chair was Karl Lamprecht , who incidentally u. a. had studied with him.

plant

Georg Voigt is one of the founders of modern Renaissance research alongside Jacob Burckhardt. But Voigt's approach is very different from Burckhardt's. Burckhardt comes from an art-historical approach with the aim of illuminating the state of the entire Italian Renaissance. So he stays in Italy . Voigt, however, is concerned with the influence and importance of humanism, which is spreading from Italy across Europe . For him, humanism is the essence of what this age of the Renaissance differs from the Middle Ages. It is about the self-knowledge of humans through a reflection on antiquity (especially Cicero ) as a "self", an individual who emerges from the corporate medieval association. The first who, according to Voigt's assessment, should be called a humanist in the true sense of the word, is Francesco Petrarca . In 1859 Voigt was the first to use the term humanism to describe a historical epoch. Voigt, with a universal historical understanding similar to that of Leopold von Ranke , takes a more literary and philological approach. He came to the comprehensive realization that the regained interest of scholars in Italy in antiquity led to the rediscovery of lost Greek and Latin antiquities. The concept of humanitas , which originates from Cicero, from whom Dante Alighieri is also strongly influenced, has a particularly strong influence on the image of man . As a result, libraries and humanistic school facilities were built in the courts and republics in and outside Italy. Both Burckhardt and Voigt come to the conclusion that the Renaissance introduced modernity .

In addition to his revival of classical antiquity or the first century of humanism, his three-volume biography of Pope Pius II is of fundamental importance . This Pope is in a sense the exponent of the age. In addition to his spiritual and political qualities and functions, he also describes Pius as a historian, letter writer, art and antiquity expert and patron as well as the town planner of Pienza . It should be mentioned that the portrait of the Pope shown at the beginning of the biography he said he owed Peter Kandler in Trieste . In addition to Vienna and Prague, Voigt's Pius biography in Trieste had the largest source of sources to which he had access. It should be noted that, despite extensive specialist research, it was only decades later that a new biography of Pius appeared in 2013, which corresponds to the diversity of his work and personality.

His work on Elector Moritz von Sachsen and the Schmalkaldic War are also important . In this work Voigt is the first to implement Wilhelm Maurenbrecher's demand for an unbiased assessment of Prince Elector Moritz of Saxony. Like the former, he does not follow the previous tendency to evaluate his position towards Emperor Charles V in the Schmalkaldic War until 1547, which earned him the electoral dignity, and then with the Passau Treaty of 1552 in league with the Protestants, the Emperor to recognize the Protestants to force. Moritz was often called "Judas von Meißen". Maurenbrecher and Voigt, following him, placed greater emphasis on the political conditions that determined Moritz's actions. Of course, both recognize that Moritz also has his own striving for power.

Fonts

  • Enea Silvio de 'Piccolomini as Pope Pius the Second and his age. 3 volumes. Berlin 1856–1863.
  • The revival of classical antiquity or the first century of humanism , 2 volumes. 3rd edition Berlin 1893 (first edition in one volume, Berlin 1859), ed. by Max Lehnerdt .
  • Moritz of Saxony , Leipzig 1876.
  • The history of the Schmalkaldic War , Leipzig 1873.

literature

  • Wilhelm Wilmanns :  Voigt, Georg . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 40, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1896, p. 204. (contains chronological errors).
  • Max Lehnerdt : Georg Voigt . In: Biographisches Jahrbuch für Alterthumskunde 17 (1894), pp. 43–68.
  • Wallace Klippert Ferguson : Renaissance Studies . University of Western Ontario, London (Ontario) 1963 (Reprinted: Harper & Row, New York 1970).
  • Ders .: The Renaissance in Historical Thought. Five Centuries of Interpretation , Mifflin, Boston 1948 (reprinted by AMS, New York 1981).
  • Mario Todte: Georg Voigt (1827-1891). Pioneer of historical research on humanism. Leipziger Universitäts-Verlag, Leipzig 2004, ISBN 3-937209-22-0 .
  • Vers .: Georg Ludwig Voigt (1827-1891). A critical review , Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-656-53544-7
  • Paul F. Grendler : Georg Voigt: Historian of Humanism. In: Christopher S. Celenza, Kenneth Gouwens (Eds.): Humanism and Creativity in the Renaissance. Essays in Honor of Ronald G. Witt. Leiden 2006, ISBN 90-04-14907-4 , pp. 295-326.
  • Karl Adolf von Cornelius : Georg Voigt (obituary) . In: Meeting reports of the philosophical-philological and historical class of the KB Academy of Sciences in Munich . 1892, p. 183–184 ( online [PDF; accessed May 8, 2017]).

Web links

Wikisource: Georg Voigt  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Already the title of his main work The Revival of Classical Antiquity or the First Century of Humanism , 2 vol., 3rd edition, Berlin 1893 (first edition in one volume, Berlin 1859) suggests this.
  2. ↑ August Buck : The beginning of modern Renaissance research in the 19th century: Georg Voigt and Jacob Burckhardt. In: Il Rinascimento nell`Ottocento in Italia e Germania (= Annali dell`Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento , Contributi 3), ed. by August Buck and Cesare Vasoli, Bologna-Berlin 1989, pp. 23–36, here p. 23 f.
  3. ^ Volker Reinhardt : Pius II. Piccolomini. The Pope with whom the Renaissance began. A biography. Beck, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-65562-3 .


personal data
SURNAME Voigt, Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Voigt, Georg Ludwig (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian
DATE OF BIRTH April 5, 1827
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigsberg
DATE OF DEATH August 18, 1891
Place of death Leipzig