Planiscig, Leo

Date born: 1887

Place Born: Gorz (now Gorizia, Italy)

Date died: 1952

Place died: Florence, Italy

Historian of Italian Renaissance sculpture. Planiscig studied art history in Vienna with Max Dvorak (q.v.) and Julius von Schlosser (q.v.). After receiving his degree in 1912, Planiscig became the artistic advisor to Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria-Este. Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in 1914, and Planiscig was ordered to move the Este collection to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. He became the Director of sculpture and decorative arts in 1933. Planiscig survived a bombing raid on his house, but suffered mental problems afterward. In 1938, he moved to Florence to pursue private research, where he wrote monographs on Italian sculptors and published books about 15^th century Italian Renaissance bronze sculptures. LMW

Home Country: Austria

Sources: The Dictionary of Art; Wendland, Ulrike. Biographisches Handbuch deutschsprachiger Kunsthistoriker im Exil: Leben und Werk der unter dem Nationalsozialismus verfolgten und vertriebenen Wissenschaftler. Munich: Saur, 1999, vol. 2, pp.521-525.

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