Jörgen Zoega

Johann Georg Zoega ( born December 20 1755 in Dahler, † February 10, 1809 in Rome) was a Danish antiquarian, archaeologist and Consul General at the Vatican.

Life

Georg Zoega was the son of the preacher Wilhad Christian Zoega (1721-1790) was born. He came from a widely branched pastor's family, whose ancestor had come in 1570 from Verona to Schleswig -Holstein. Over nearly 100 years, his ancestors were preachers in Vilstrup. In the year of his birth, his father took over the neighboring parish of his birth Mögeltondern, where George received private lessons at home. He then attended one year high school in Altona, for three years before he went to study in Göttingen in the spring of 1773. There he came into contact with the Hainbund, but not ratified the convention itself. In the summer of 1776, he undertook a journey which took him through southern Germany, Switzerland and northern Italy to Rome. In the fall he came back and spent the winter in Leipzig, from where he returned to Denmark in the spring of 1777. He remained for some time as a private tutor in the home or with his uncle, the Judicial Council Jürgen Zoëga, and his cousin Georg Nikolaus Nissen, who later became the second husband of Constanze Mozart, in Copenhagen. In Copenhagen, he joined acquaintance with Balthasar Münter and his children Friedrich Münter and Friederike Brun. From 1779 he traveled as a companion of the young nobleman Lord of Heinen for two years by Germany and Italy. In Rome he met on this trip the Orientalists and later General Superintendent of Schleswig Jacob Georg Christian Adler, who taught him various contacts.

Already in 1782 he moved south again, this time in the royal order and financially supported by the Minister Ove Høegh - Guldberg, as it should deepen his knowledge of numismatics, to then assume a position as overseer of the Royal Coin Cabinet. Changing political conditions - Crown Prince Frederick had taken the government to spill Guldberg. His successor, Andreas Peter von Bernstorff had no interest in Zoëgas services - prevented this, however, and as he returned from a research trip to Paris in 1784 returned to Rome. There he had many patrons, including Cardinal Stefano Borgia, who in 1785 gave him a position as an overseer in the Papal Numismatic Collection. He stepped over to the Catholic Church and married Maria Pietruccioli († January 5, 1807 ), the daughter of a Roman painter, with whom he had 11 children, of whom only three survived infancy.

Georg Zoega was a corresponding member of the Society of Belles Lettres in Copenhagen, which secured him additional income besides the papal content. 1787 appeared his work Numi aegyptii imperatorii, cheers antes in Museo Borgiani Vellitis, after which he devoted himself to the study of the obelisk and the bas-reliefs of Rome. 1797 De origine et usu appeared obeliscorum, 1808, the first part of Li bassirelievi antichi di Roma, which was posthumously (1811 ) translated into German. In 1798 he became a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences, in 1808 foreign member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.

1802 appointed him Friedrich Karl von Reventlow, the curator of the Christian -Albrechts- University in Kiel, professor of archeology, and chief librarian. Zoëga accepted the call, although for family reasons not to, but the content released him from his oppressive after the Treaty of Tolentino financial worries. Zoëga mediated for the Copenhagen Numismatic several collections.

He died on 10 February 1809 in Rome. His friend, the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, closed his eyes.

Services

In addition to Johann Joachim Winckelmann Zoëga is one of the founding fathers of classical archeology. Hans B. Jessen characterized him as a typical example of " nordic Sturm und Drang, bold enough to imaging Pre-Romantics ". But Zoëga developed not only continuing Winckelmann idealized Renaissance monuments of ancient art, he also brought under the influence of his teacher, Christian Gottlob Heyne new methods in archeology, which began his last pupil and biographer of Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker and further developed. Because of its potency and the nature of his gloomy Zoëga was also called the " Pythagoras the North".