Georg Zoëga

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Georg Zoëga, oil painting by an unknown painter around 1786
Zoëga, engraving by Anton Ferdinand Krüger (1793–1857) based on a drawing by Thorvaldsen , 1819

Johann Georg Zoëga (born December 20, 1755 in Dahler , † February 10, 1809 in Rome ) was a Danish antiquarian, archaeologist and consul general in the Vatican .

Life

Georg Zoëga was born as the son of the preacher Wilhad Christian Zoëga (1721–1790). He came from a widespread family of pastors whose ancestor had come to Schleswig-Holstein from Verona around 1570. His ancestors were preachers in Vilstrup for almost 100 years . In the year of his birth, his father took over the provost of Mögeltondern , which was next to his place of birth , where Georg received private lessons at home. He then attended high school in Altona for a year before going to Göttingen to study for three years in the spring of 1773 . There he came into contact with the Hainbund , but did not join it himself. In the summer of 1776 he undertook a journey that took him through southern Germany, Switzerland and northern Italy to Rome. In the autumn he came back and spent the winter in Leipzig , from where he returned to Denmark in the spring of 1777. He stayed for some time as a private tutor in his home country and with his uncle, the judiciary Jürgen Zoëga, and his cousin Georg Nikolaus Nissen , who later became Constanze Mozart's second husband , in Copenhagen . In Copenhagen he made the acquaintance of Balthasar Münter and his children Friedrich and Friederike . From 1779 he traveled through Germany and Italy for two years as the companion of the young nobleman Mr. von Heinen. On this trip in Rome he met the orientalist and later general superintendent of Schleswig Jacob Georg Christian Adler , who gave him various contacts.

As early as 1782 he moved south again, this time on royal commission and financially supported by Minister Ove Høegh-Guldberg , because he was supposed to deepen his knowledge of numismatics in order to subsequently take on a position as overseer of the royal coin cabinet . Changed political conditions - Crown Prince Friedrich had taken the government and dismissed Guldberg; his successor Andreas Peter von Bernstorff was not interested in Zoëga's services - but prevented this, and so he returned to Rome from a research stay in Paris in 1784. There he had many patrons, including Cardinal Stefano Borgia , who in 1785 gave him a post as overseer in the papal coin cabinet. He joined the Catholic Church and married Maria Pietruccioli († January 5, 1807), the daughter of a Roman painter, with whom he had eleven children, of which only three survived childhood.

Georg Zoëga became a corresponding member of the Society of Fine Sciences in Copenhagen, which secured him additional income in addition to the papal salary. In 1787 his work Numi Aegyptii imperatorii, prostantes appeared in Museo Borgiani Vellitis , after which he devoted himself to the study of obelisks and the bas-reliefs of Rome. In 1797 De origine et usu obeliscorum appeared , in 1808 the first part of Li bassirelievi antichi di Roma , which was translated into German posthumously (1811). In 1798 he became a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences , in 1806 a foreign member of the Prussian and 1808 of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences .

In 1802 Friedrich Karl von Reventlow , the curator of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel , appointed him professor of archeology and senior librarian. Zoëga did not accept the appointment for family reasons, but his salary relieved him of his financial worries, which had been pressing after the Treaty of Tolentino . Zoëga brokered several collections for the Copenhagen Coin Cabinet.

He died in Rome on February 10, 1809. His friend, the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen , closed his eyes.

Services

Along with Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Zoëga is one of the founding fathers of classical archeology. Hans B. Jessen characterizes it as a typical example of “Northern Storm and Drangs , bold enough preromanticism”. But Zoëga not only continued to develop Winckelmann's idealizing renaissance of ancient art monuments, he also introduced new methods into archeology under the influence of his teacher Christian Gottlob Heyne , which his last student and biographer Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker took up and further developed. Because of his power and his gloomy nature, Zoëga was also called the " Pythagoras of the North".

literature

Web links

Commons : Georg Zoëga  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans B. Jessen: Georg Zoëga. In: Reinhard Lullies , Wolfgang Schiering (Hrsg.): Archäologenbildnisse . Portraits and short biographies of classical archaeologists in the German language. von Zabern, Mainz 1988, p. 10.
  2. ↑ Hans B. Jessen: Georg Zoëga. In: Reinhard Lullies, Wolfgang Schiering (Hrsg.): Archäologenbildnisse. Portraits and short biographies of classical archaeologists in the German language. von Zabern, Mainz 1988, p. 11.
personal data
SURNAME Zoëga, Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zoëga, Johann Georg (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish antiquarian, archaeologist and consul general in the Vatican
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1755
PLACE OF BIRTH Dahler
DATE OF DEATH February 10, 1809
Place of death Rome