Leven, dood en werken van Johann Joachim Winckelmann

Johann Joachim Winckelmann was bom on December 9th, 1717, in Stendal, a village not far from Berlin. Being a son of an indigent cobbler, he worked with ardent zeal and much ambi¬ tion his way up until he became one of the most famous classical scholars of the eighteenth century. Nowadays, he is known with three titles of honour: father of the archaeology, father of the history of art and initiator of the neoclassicism. After a colourful life with many successes and disappointments the story goes that he died a violent death in Triest, on June 8th, 1768. The circumstances of this tragedy and the motive of the murderer have been remained so obscure that there is a reasonable doubt that it was Winckelmann himself who was stabbed down on that occasion.