Corpus Winckel­mann

The corpus of ancient monu­ments known to Johann Joachim Winckel­mann and his time was a project of the Winckel­mann Society, Stendal, dedi­cated to the know­ledge of ancient art in the 17th and 18th centu­ries in picto­rial and textual docu­ments. A parti­cular focus was on the work of Johann Joachim Winckel­mann (1717–1768) as the founder of clas­sical archaeo­logy and modern art history.

As part of this project, the Census data­base was supple­mented with approx. 9,500 Winckel­mann cita­tions and approx. 5,000 further entries for other Post­clas­sical Works from the 17th and 18th centuries.

The ancient monu­ments treated in Winckelmann’s publi­ca­tions, letters and in his hand­written estate were presented in their current archaeo­lo­gical evalua­tion and — if they could be iden­ti­fied — illus­trated. Further­more, the ancient monu­ments appeared in the mirror of the picto­rial and textual sources of the anti­qua­rian lite­ra­ture of the 17th and 18th centu­ries, e.g. nume­rous engra­vings, which form the scien­tific-histo­rical back­ground of Winckelmann’s studies.

Since 1988, the Winckel­mann Society has been devoted to the goal of a complete edition of Winckelmann’s writings and intellec­tual legacy. Initi­ally it was supported by the Volks­wagen Foun­da­tion in coope­ra­tion with the Freie Univer­sität in Berlin, then it was funded by the State of Sachsen-Anhalt. The project was trans­ferred to the Academy of Sciences and Lite­ra­ture in Mainz in 1996. The data­base was inspired by rese­arch carried out for this edition. It began in 1995 and was funded by the Deut­sche Forschungs­ge­mein­schaft. Peter Bett­hausen, Thomas Fröh­lich, Volker Heenes, Eva Hofstetter, Brigitte Kuhn and Sascha Kansteiner contri­buted to the rese­arch for the data­base, as well as data entry.

Contact:

Winckel­mann-Gesell­schaft e.V.
mit Winckel­mann-Museum
Winckel­mannstr. 36–38
D‑39576 Stendal
Tel.: 03931 / 21 52 26
Fax: 03931 / 21 52 27
info [at] winckel­mann-gesell­schaft [dot] com