RANKE, LEOPOLD von. – Historian, born in Wiehe (Thuringia) on 21 Dec. 1785, from a family of Protestant pastors, died in Berlin on 23 May 1886.
At the age of eighteen he entered the University of Leipzig, showing an interest in questions of biblical hermeneutics and especially in philology. After graduating in 1817, in 1818 he became a high-school teacher in Frankfurt an der Oder. In 1824 he published the first part of *Gesch. der romanischen und germanischen Völker von 1494 bis 1535*, which arose from his reading of 16th-century Italian historians and earned him the chair of history at the University of Berlin in 1825. Continuing his archival research, he was the first to recognize the importance of the reports of Venetian ambassadors for the history of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Between 1827 and 1831, while in Vienna, Venice, Florence, and Rome, he amassed a vast body of material from which he drew his researches on the history of Europe during the age of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Returning to Germany, he directed and largely compiled the *Historisch-politische Zeitschrift* (1832–36). Having abandoned active politics, he devoted himself to writing his major works. Appointed Prussian historiographer in 1841, in 1858 he founded the Historical Commission at the Academy of Sciences in Munich, which published, among other things, the Acts of the Imperial Diet. In 1867 he began the publication of his complete works, though he continued to produce original works; after retiring from his chair, he undertook a *Universal History* (1879), of which six volumes appeared up to 1885, remaining unfinished at his death.
Ranke is one of the significant figures of the generation of historians of the first half of the 19th century. His ideal was a striving for objectivity that translated into an account of how things actually happened (*wie es eigentlich gewesen*). Hence his firm insistence on archival research for the history of modern Europe and his consequent devaluation of narrative sources, based on the conviction that a reconstruction of facts could achieve objectivity and transcend any controversial stance. Yet he did not clearly perceive the danger of reducing history to a conflict of prominent figures or of explaining the entire course of an era solely through its political history—that is, through the activities of chanceries.
Ranke preferred narration to discussion; for him, the work also posed a stylistic problem. From his youth, as a Romantic, he recognized in human events the imprint and revelation of God. However, in his treatment of religious movements and theological controversies, his old Protestant viewpoint is evident. From the Catholic side, he was opposed by I. Döllinger, J. Janssen, and L. V. PASTORE.
Among his most important works are: *Die römischen Päpste, ihre Kirche und ihr Staat im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert* (1834–36, 3 vols.; placed on the Index on 16 Sept. 1841); *Deutsche Gesch. im Zeitalter der Reformation* (1839–43, 5 vols.); *Französische Gesch. vornehmlich im 16. und 17. Jahrh.* (1852–56, 4 vols.); *Englische Gesch. vornehmlich im 17. Jahrh.* (1859–68, 7 vols.); *Neun Bücher preussischer Gesch.* (1847–48, 8 vols.); *Weltgesch.* begun in 1879 and carried forward to the death of Otto I; vols. VIII–IX, up to 1853, were published posthumously together with the celebrated lectures *Über die Epochen der neueren Gesch.* delivered in 1854 at Berchtesgaden in the presence of Maximilian II of Bavaria.