Ferdinand Gregorovius: Poetry and Science. Collected German and Italian Letters

Dr. Angela Steinsiek (together with Prof. Dr. Martin Baumeister)

Ferdinand Gregorovius at his desk, watercolour by K. Lindemann-Frommel, BSB München, Gregoroviusiana 30.a.9

Ferdinand Gregorovius lived in Rome for more than 20 years, where he wrote his main work, the Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter, which in 1876 made him an honorary citizen of Rome. In addition to his historiographical and literary oeuvre he has left several thousand letters in which he, a contemporary witness, sheds light on Italian and German history of science as well as on politics and culture of the 19th century. On the basis of systematic research, the Collected German and Italian Letters will offer a representative selection of around 1000 letters by Ferdinand Gregorovius as a critical digital-born edition in their original language with comprehensive commentary. The web version follows a digital edition model that implements a visual, textual, and content-related approach to the (primarily) handwritten sources. The current state of work on the texts and datasets should already be presented during the project as a beta web version. All letters are to be published as digital facsimiles of the original manuscript, where the existing collections permit. The content of the bilingual edition is additionally carried out by regesta in German, Italian and English, which conveys the implicit or explicit content of the underlying letter. The project is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) since 2017. The letters are prepared digitally in cooperation with the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (BBAW). In addition, the project is generously supported by the Gerda Henkel Foundation since 2018.

In October 2019 the website of the project was launched.


Dr. Angela Steinsiek

Project Researcher DFG-financed project (Project Management)
(2017–2023)