Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) arrived in Italy in 1755 and stayed there until his death in 1768. The monument to him was erected in the Cattedrale di San Giusto in Trieste. Pictured in this steel engraving, it was made by Antonio Bosa (1780-1845) and remains Bosa’s most important work.
Thorvaldsen’s book collection contained both Winckelmann’s Gedanken über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerei und Bildhauerkunst, published in 1755, and Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums, 1764. After studying Greek, Latin and theology at the universities of Halle and Jena, Winckelmann settled in Rome. He made profound studies especially of Roman copies of ancient Greek sculptures. And Winckelmann’s rediscovery of ancient art was an essential precondition for the growth of the branch of art we know as neo-classicism, of which Thorvaldsen was an important representative.
