Gregorovius, Ferdinand

GREGOROVIUS, FERDINAND. - German historian, b. 19 Jan. 1821 at Neidenburg (East Prussia), d. at Munich on 1 May 1891. Of a family of Polish origin (Grzegorzewski) in which the career of Protestant pastor was traditional, he was sent to study at the gymnasium of Gumbinnen and then, for theology, at Königsberg.

While still very young he was stirred by the idea of the Polish revolution: for that matter he was and always felt himself a Prussian patriot. In 1845 he published a novel; in 1851 an essay on the emperor Hadrian. In 1852, having come to Rome, he began his library and archival studies for the History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages, which he began to write three years later and finished in 1871. In 1889 he published a History of Athens in the Middle Ages, very different, as a work of science and as a work of art, from that of Rome. Among his poetic works mention should be made of the Wanderjahre in Italien, prose that may be called lyrical and, among the minor ones, a translation of the Sicilian Anacreontic poet Giovanni Meli. The last work of G. was an attempt at a synthesis on The Great Monarchies, which appeared in the Nuova antologia a few days before his death, in which he tends to present Prussia as the heir of the tradition of universal empire that begins with Egyptian and Assyrian civilization and defines the true Germanic idea as "that of constituting the empire of moral liberty, of truth, of duty and of work under the most human form."

G. sincerely loved Italy and above all Rome, of which he was an honorary citizen. His name remains linked to the history of the City which he carried from the conquest of Alaric (410) down to the Sack (1527), and which was placed on the Index in 1874 for its anti-Catholic tendentiousness. The archaeological and documentary discoveries and the new studies that have followed one another have made this work antiquated in many points, where often the poet takes the upper hand over the critic: in the interpretation of certain events, moreover, a wholly personal vision is to be noted.

G. saw in the so-called Lutheran Reformation "the greatest national work of the German people" (Wanderjahre, VI, p. 128), "the rebirth of Christianity, the new formation of the world of culture through German national vitality, the liberation of the human intellect, of knowledge and of the right of personality, of science and of the State from the constraints of a supernatural authority." Therefore the Protestant education and the German patriotism, which undeniably emerge, despite the effort to remain impartial, together with his rationalism give the History a tendentiousness that diminishes its scientific serenity.

Notwithstanding this, G.'s work remains still a great attempt at synthesis, which cannot be ignored by anyone who wishes to know the history of medieval Rome. Nothing, however, prevents it from being considered also as an epic poem in prose: one is authorized to do so by the author himself, who in his Diary often speaks of it as a work of art more than of science, narrating the romantic moment of inspiration on the Ponte dei Quattro Capi, the enthusiasm, the travail of creation. His History of Rome was a brilliant offspring of the romantic love that G. nourished for the old city, almost crystallized in its monumental stratification, which he still had occasion to admire before 1870.

Principal works: Geschichte des römischen Kaisers Hadrian (Königsberg 1851); Euphorion, eine Dichtung aus Pompei (Leipzig 1858); Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter, vom V. bis zum XVI. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart 1859-1872 [on the Index, 5 Feb. 1854], many subsequent editions; among the many Italian translations the best, with copious bibliographical additions and with the results of the latest studies, is that edited by L. Trompeo, in 16 vols., Città di Castello 1938-44); Die Insel Capri (Leipzig 1868); Corsica (Stuttgart 1869, Italian trans. Rome 1912); Lucrezia Borgia (Stuttgart 1875, Italian trans. Milan 1932); Alcuni cenni storici sulla cittadinanza romana (Rome 1877); Wanderjahre in Italien (Leipzig 1880-83 [vol. V on the Index, 15 Dec. 1882], Italian trans. Rome 1906-1909); Die Grabdenkmäler der Päpste (Leipzig 1881 [on the Index, 27 June 1881], Italian trans. Rome 1931); Athenäis, Geschichte einer byzantinischen Kaiserin (Leipzig 1882 [on the Index, 10 July 1882], Italian trans. Turin 1882); Der Kaiser Hadrian, Gemälde der römisch-hellenischen Welt zu seiner Zeit (Stuttgart 1884, Italian trans. Rome 1910); Kleine Schriften (Leipzig 1887-92); Geschichte der Stadt Athen im Mittelalter (Stuttgart 1889); Le grandi monarchie ossia gl'imperi universali nella storia, in Nuova antologia, 115-20 (1891); Gedichte (Leipzig 1892); Römische Tagebücher (Stuttgart 1892, Italian trans. Milan 1895).

Carmelo Trasselli