Leo Bruhns

Leo Bruhns , actually Leopold Paul Bruhns (born November 26, 1884 in Nissi ( Estonia ), † December 27, 1957 in Rome ) was a German art historian and professor at the Universities of Rostock and Leipzig . From 1934 to 1953 he was director of the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome.

Life

Leo Bruhns, son of a Protestant pastor in Nissi, initially enjoyed home schooling. In 1902 he passed the Abitur at the grammar school of the German St. Anne's School in Saint Petersburg . After studying classical philology and then art history at the Universities of Dorpat , Bonn , Freiburg / Br., Basel and Würzburg , Wilhelm Pinder received his doctorate in 1913. phil. in art history at the University of Würzburg with the work: The grave sculpture of the former diocese of Würzburg during the years 1480–1540. A contribution to the history of the German Renaissance . In 1920 he completed his habilitation in art history at the Art History Institute of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main via Würzburg sculptors of the Renaissance and the nascent Baroque 1540–1650 .

From 1920 to 1924 Bruhns worked as a private lecturer for art history at the University of Frankfurt am Main, then from 1924 to 1927 as professor for art history at the University of Rostock , and from 1927 to 1934 at the University of Leipzig. One of his students there was Otto Müller . From 1934 to 1953 Bruhns was director of the Bibliotheca Hertziana ( Kaiser Wilhelm Institute or Max Planck Institute for Art History ) in Rome. In the course of the persecution of the Jews, Bruhns was involved in an art theft in 1943 by a special task force of the Reichsleiter Rosenberg task force , which confiscated the evacuated Bibliotheca della Communità Israelitica. 7000 manuscripts and incunabula were deported to Germany and are lost there.

He was a member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig . He was also a member of the Societa Storia Patria in Rome, Corresponding Member of the Estonian Literary Society in Reval (1926), President of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Italy. He received the Great Cross of Merit with Star of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany .

Like his teacher Wilhelm Pinder, Bruhns was a supporter of the Nazi regime and signed the professors' commitment to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist state at German universities and colleges in November 1933.

He is buried in the Protestant cemetery at the Cestius pyramid in Rome.

Fonts

The German soul of the Rhenish Gothic , Freiburg 1924.
German baroque sculptor . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1925 ( Library of Art History 85–87)
German painting a. XV. u. XVI. Century , Leipzig 1926.
The history of art, illustrated in its masterpieces , 8 vols., Hamburg 1927–1932.
The art of the city of Rome. Your story from the earliest beginnings to the romantic era , Vienna-Munich 1950.
Hohenstaufenschlösser in Germany and Italy , most recently in 1964

literature

Ralph-Miklas Dobler: Leo Bruhns and the Bibliotheca Hertziana. National Socialism, Closure and Reopening . In: 100 Years of the Bibliotheca Hertziana . Volume 1: The history of the institute 1913–2013 , edited by Sybille Ebert-Schifferer . Munich 2013, pp. 74-89, ISBN 978-3-7774-9051-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ The dates of birth are sometimes also April 19 and November 13, 1884. Source: Authority data entry (GND 118674706 ) of the German National Library . Query date: January 27, 2017. - November 13 according to the Julian calendar corresponded to November 25. according to Gregorian.

personal data
SURNAME	Bruhns, Leo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Bruhns, Leopold Paul (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German art historian
DATE OF BIRTH	November 26, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH	Nissi
DATE OF DEATH	December 27, 1957
Place of death	Rome

[1] The dates of birth are sometimes also April 19 and November 13, 1884. Source: Authority data entry (GND 118674706 ) of the German National Library . Query date: January 27, 2017. - November 13 according to the Julian calendar corresponded to November 25. according to Gregorian.