Joseph Wilpert

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Joseph Wilpert, ca.1930

Joseph Wilpert (born August 22, 1857 in Eiglau near Bauerwitz , Silesia , † February 13, 1944 in Rome ) was a German Christian archaeologist .

Life

Joseph Wilpert came from a farming family in Eiglau (Polish: Dzielów) in Upper Silesia. He was the second of five children born to his parents Anastasius and Marianna. As a twelve year old he moved to the grammar school in Leobschütz ( Głubczyce ). After finishing school in 1877, he began to study philosophy in 1878, then after a year of military service from 1880 on theology in Innsbruck . During his studies he became a member of the AV Austria Innsbruck in the CV in 1878 . He was ordained a priest on July 2, 1883.

On October 10, 1884, Wilpert began a "chaplaincy" at Campo Santo Teutonico in Rome to train as an archaeologist. Here he met the rector of Campo Santo Anton de Waal and, among the other chaplains and convicts, Johann Peter Kirsch , with whom he made a lifelong friendship. As a result, Rome remained Wilpert's home, which, apart from the years of the First World War , when he had to leave Italy as a German, he almost only left for research trips, especially in connection with his sarcophagus research to France, Spain, Algeria and Tunisia . The example of the founder of Christian archeology as an independent science, Giovanni Battista de Rossi, had a great influence on his work . In 1891 Wilpert left the Campo Santo and from then on lived in the house of Monsignor Germano Straniero near the Lateran.In 1921 he moved to the Collegio Teutonico di Santa Maria dell'Anima , where he died as a result of a fall in 1944. He was buried in the cemetery of Campo Santo Teutonico.

Scientific achievement

Already at the beginning of his work in the catacombs , Wilpert recognized the inadequacy of the images that had been circulating up to then, which he identified as the cause of the interpretations he regarded as wrong. So he made the publication of reliable images one of his life's tasks. In the following years he therefore took on all the hardships to make photographs and reliable copies of the paintings in the narrow corridors of the catacombs in front of the originals. After he had published a series of individual investigations, case studies and fundamental considerations in advance, he was able to present the result in two folio volumes with illustrations in a quality that was previously unattainable and for a long time unsurpassed, simultaneously in a German and an Italian edition. The four-volume corpus of church paintings and mosaics appeared after similarly extensive preparatory work in the middle of the First World War in 1916; the corpus of the sarcophagi, which this time also included the non-Roman monuments, in five folio volumes 1929–1936.

Wilpert always tried to interpret the representations that strictly adhered to the recognizable traces. In this regard, he has made considerable progress compared to his predecessors. However, his interpretation of early Christian works of art as direct visualizations of church beliefs, which he had probably already taken with him from teaching at Innsbruck University, remained unaffected. This and his tendency, shared with the majority of Christian archaeologists at the time, to also assign everyday scenes to a biblical story or a church custom, was rejected by many researchers during his lifetime. His much too early dating, especially of the catacomb paintings, had led him to believe that the origin of all Christian art was to be sought in Rome. This conviction led him to devalue the artifacts of the eastern half of the empire, which, like his dating, were already corrected by some of his contemporaries.

Wilpert's enduring achievement is the creation of the exhaustive corpora of early Christian catacomb paintings, church mosaics and paintings and sarcophagi with reliable images, which have only recently been gradually replaced by more recent collections.

Offices and honors

Wilpert never held an office or a professional position. But already his first publications had in 1891 earned him the title of pontifical secret chamberlain, 1892, the theological faculty of the awarded Royal Academy of Münster Wilpert an honorary doctorate, and in 1893 he received the honorable task of Emperor Franz Joseph the Kardinalsbirett for the Hungarian Primate Kolos Ferenc Vaszary to deliver. Wilhelm II awarded him his first order in 1893. In 1896 he was given the title of papal house prelate. In 1903 he became apostolic protonotary de numero (i.e. member of the commission of the seven papal notaries), an office that was endowed with at least a small salary, and finally dean of the apostolic protonotaries. In 1926, the Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia , founded only a year earlier and directed by his friend Johann Peter Kirsch, appointed Cristiana Wilpert honorary professor; he taught there until 1936.

Fonts (selection)

A complete list of publications can be found in: Stefan Heid (Ed.): Giuseppe Wilpert archeologo cristiano (= Sussidi allo studio delle antichità cristiane. Vol. 22). Atti del Convegno (Roma, 16-19 maggio 2007). Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, Città del Vaticano 2009, pp. 649-677.

  • Principal questions of Christian archeology with special consideration of the "research" of Schultze, Hasenclever and Achelis. Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1889.
  • The catacomb paintings and their old copies. An iconographic study. Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1891.
  • A cycle of Christological paintings in the catacomb of Saints Peter and Marcellinus. Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1891.
  • Fractio panis. The oldest representation of the Eucharistic Sacrifice in the "Cappella Greca". Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1895. (In French: Fractio panis. La plus ancienne représentation du sacrifice eucharistique à la “Capella greca”. Firmin-Didot et Cie, Paris 1896).
  • The paintings of the Sacrament Chapels in the Catacomb of St. Callistus. Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1897.
  • The garb of Christians in the first centuries. Depicted mainly after the catacomb paintings (= Görres Society for the Care of Science in Catholic Germany. Association publication . 1898, 3, ZDB -ID 517218-4 ). Bachem, Cologne 1898.
  • The paintings of the catacombs of Rome. 2 volumes (text volume, table volume). Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1903 (also in Italian: Le pitture delle catacombe romane. Desclée et al., Rome)
  • The papal tombs and the Cäciliengruft in the catacomb of St. Callistus (= La Roma sotterranea cristiana. Erg.-H. 1). Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1909 (In Italian: La cripta dei papi e la cappella di Santa Cecilia nel cimitero di Callisto. Desclée, Rome 1910).
  • The Roman mosaics and paintings of church buildings from IV.-XIII. Century. 5 volumes (Vol. 1–4, supplementary volume). Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1916.
  • I sarcofagi cristiani antichi. 5 volumes. Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, Città del Vaticano 1929-1936;
    • Volume 1 in 2 volumes: Tafelbd., Textbd. 1929;
    • Volume 2 in 2 volumes: Tafelbd., Textbd. 1932;
    • Supplemento. 1936.
  • Experiences and results in the service of Christian archeology. Review of forty-five years of academic activity in Rome. Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) 1930.
  • La fede della Chiesa nascente. Secondo i monumenti dell'arte funeraria antica. Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, Città del Vaticano 1938.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ So always Wilpert's own spelling in his publications, as long as he does not use the Italian form of the name Giuseppe, and his handwritten signature under the cover of his memoirs. To the alternative spelling ›Josef‹ s. Sörries p. 8.
  2. ↑ For uncertainties regarding the date of birth (August 21 or 22) s. Sörries p. 14.
  3. ↑ Complete directory of the CV The honorary members, old men and students of the Cartell Association (CV) of the cath. German student associations. 1912, Strasbourg i. Els. 1912, p. 194.
  4. ↑ For discrepancies regarding the date (July 26th?) S. Sörries p. 20 note 66.
  5. ^ The Royal Order of the Crown, 2nd class. Sörries mentions other orders on page 11, note 10, without listing them in detail; Sörries' Fig. 7 shows Wilpert in 1903 with the Austrian Order of the Iron Crown.

Web links

Commons : Joseph Wilpert  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Wilpert, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Christian archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH August 22, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH Eilau
DATE OF DEATH February 13, 1944
Place of death Rome