Ferdinand Gregorovius: Poesie and Science. Collected German and Italian Letters
General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
Modern and Contemporary History
Final Report Abstract
The aim of the project was to edit and annotate a representative selection of the German and Italian letters of Ferdinand Gregorovius (1821-1891) and make them digitally accessible. The edition allows a new reading of an important 19th-century historian in a German-Italian context, who advocated and practised the unity of historiography and literature. The research project provides access to approximately 1,100 previously mostly unedited German and Italian letters from the years 1852 to 1891. They are now available as a critical edition in the respective original language with comprehensive scholarly commentaries. The design of the digital edition is reader-friendly with full-text search, bilingual regesta, various filter functions and indexes. Furthermore, a searchable database of the entire correspondence „Gesamtdatenbank der Korrespondenz“, comprising 3,500 letters to and from Gregorovius, has been made available on the website, providing information on the storage locations of the letters and, where applicable all print editions. The correspondence conveys the views and opinions of an attentive and critical witness of his times, who, as a second-generation student of Hegel and disappointed revolutionary, left East Prussia for Italy in 1852, closely followed the political upheavals in Italy and Germany and returned to Germany more than twenty years later as a renowned historian and successful author. His correspondence with scholars, aristocrats, politicians, writers, artists, translators, publishers, family and friends constitutes a unique document of 19th century European history of politics, society, culture, publishing and academia. It provides deep insights into his extensive transnational epistolary and personal networks, as well as into the working conditions of an independent historian who saw himself primarily as a writer. Although without a professorship, which he was offered several times, Gregorovius was a highly esteemed member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and of the most significant Italian academies even before completing his eight-volume "History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages" (1859-1872). His letters are indispensable for understanding the history of the creation and the reception of Gregorovius's works, which have been translated many times and span the fields of literature, science, politics and culture. They also serve for identifying his numerous anonymously published contributions to German and Italian journals and newspapers. Through his correspondence, the publicist and commentator on current affairs now becomes visible alongside the historian.
Publications
-
Die Edition: „Ferdinand Gregorovius: Poesie und Wissenschaft. Gesammelte deutsche und italienische Briefe“
Angela Steinsiek
-
Die „Gesamtdatenbank der Korrespondenz“ von Gregorovius
Angela Steinsiek
-
Tagungsbeitrag: Ferdinand Gregorovius e la famiglia Caetani, in: Ninfa. Percezioni nella scienza, letteratura e belle arti nel XIX e all’inizio del XX secolo, hrsg. von Michael Matheus, Regensburg 2022, S. 215–229.
Angela Steinsiek
-
Ferdinand Gregorovius in seinem Jahrhundert. Böhlau Verlag.
Steinsiek, A. (Ed.)
-
Tagungsbeitrag: Private und öffentliche Kommunikationsstrategien in den Korrespondenzen und Briefen von Ferdinand Gregorovius, in: Soziales Medium Brief. Sharen, Liken, Retweeten im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert. Neue Perspektiven auf die Briefkultur, hrsg. von Markus Bernauer, Selma Jahnke, Frederike Neuber und Michael Rölcke, Darmstadt 2023, S. 293–309.
Angela Steinsiek
