Corpus Winckelmann
The corpus of ancient monuments known to Johann Joachim Winckelmann and his time is a database of the Winckelmann Society, Stendal, which documents the knowledge of ancient art in the 17th and 18th centuries through images and texts. It is especially focused on the work of Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768), the founder of classical archaeology and modern art history.
The ancient monuments mentioned in Winckelmann’s publications, letters and notes have been assessed in the context of current archaeological research and, if they can be identified, have been catalogued. One can search for example for quotations that relate to particular antique monuments. Monuments appearing in visual and textual antiquarian sources of the 17th and 18th centuries, such as in the engravings that formed the backdrop to Winckelmann’s studies, are also present in the database.
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.
The database uses the same data model as the Census, although its chronological range postdates that of the Census. In addition to circa 9,500 quotations from Winckelmann, the database contains around 5,000 other documents from the 17th and 18th centuries, which relate to a total of around 2,700 monuments.
Bartolomeo Follin, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, 1766, after a drawing by Giovanni Battistta Casanova
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