Wackernagel, Martin

Date born:1881

Place born:  Basel, Switzerland

Date died: 1962

Place died:  Cottens, Switzerland

Scholar of Renaissance art patronage (largely through letters). Wackernagle hailed from a distinguished family of schoars. His father was the historian Rudolf Wackernagel, his uncle the Germanisten (German philologist) Wilhelm Wackernagel (1806-1869), and cousin the Sanskrit philologist Jacob Wackernagel (1853–1938). He wrote his dissertation in 1905 at the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin. That year he began as a research assistant to Arthur Haseloff on his trips to South Italy, photographing medieval art objects on glass plate, amassing nearly. 3200 examples. In 1909 he completed his habilitation, becoming a Privatdozent at the university at Halle. He married the poet Ilse von Stach in 1911. Wackernagel concluded his travels with Haselhof in 1915, appointed außerordentlicher (associate) Professor in 1917 at the university in Leipzig.. He was called to the university in Münster (Westfalen) as ordentlicher (full) professor in 1920. He was conferred emeritus status in 1948.

Home Country:  Switzerland

Sources: KRG, 1888 mentioned; KMP, 83;  Metzler Kunsthistoriker Lexikon: zweihundert Porträts deutschsprachiger Autoren aus vier Jahrhunderten. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1999, pp. 441-3.

Bibliography: Der Lebensraum des Künstlers in der Florentinischen Renaissance. Leipzig: E. A. Seeman, 1938; English trans., The World of the Florentine Renaissance Artists: Projects and Patrons, Workshop and Art Market. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.