Paul Oskar Kristeller (May 22, 1905 in Berlin – June 7, 1999 in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, United States) was an important scholar of Renaissance humanism. He was awarded the Haskins Medal in 1992. He was last active as Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University in

, where he mentored both Irving Louis Horowitz and

A. James Gregor Anthony James Gregor (April 2, 1929 – August 30, 2019) was a political scientist, eugenicist and professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, well known for his research on fascism, Marxism, and national security. ...

. During his university years he studied with

Werner Jaeger Werner Wilhelm Jaeger (30 July 1888 – 19 October 1961) was a German-American classicist. Life Werner Wilhelm Jaeger was born in Lobberich, Rhenish Prussia in the German Empire. He attended school in Lobberich and at the Gymnasium Thomaeum in ...

, Heinrich Rickert, Richard Kroner,

Karl Hampe Karl Ludwig Hampe (3 February 1869 – 14 February 1936) was a German historian of the Middle Ages, particularly the history of the Holy Roman Empire in the High Middle Ages. Hampe was born in Bremen and graduated from Berlin in 1893. Following ...

Friedrich Baethgen Friedrich Jürgen Baethgen (30 July 1890 – 18 June 1972) was a German historian born in Greifswald. He specialized in medieval studies and in history of the papacy. He studied history at the Universities of Berlin and Heidelberg, earning his ...

Eduard Norden Eduard Norden (21 September 1868 – 13 July 1941) was a German classical philologist and historian of religion. When Norden received an honorary doctorate from Harvard, James Bryant Conant referred to him as "the most famous Latinist in the worl ...

, and Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff. He also attended lectures by noted philosophers such as Ernst Cassirer, Edmund Husserl, and Karl Jaspers. In 1928, he earned his doctorate from the University of Heidelberg under Ernst Hoffmann with a dissertation on Plotinus. He did postdoctoral work at the universities of Berlin and Freiburg. At Freiburg, Kristeller studied under the philosopher

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...

from 1931 to 1933.R. Popkin, ''The History of Scepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle'' rev. ed. (Oxford UP, 2003), p. viii. The Nazi victory in 1933 forced Kristeller to move to Italy. At his arrival, Giovanni Gentile secured for him a position as lecturer in German at the

Scuola Normale Superiore The Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa (commonly known in Italy as "la Normale") is a public university in Pisa and Florence, Tuscany, Italy, currently attended by about 600 undergraduate and postgraduate (PhD) students. It was founded in 1810 wi ...

in Pisa. It was at the Scuola Normale that Kristeller completed his first great works in the Renaissance: the ''Supplementum Ficinianum'' (1937) and ''The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino'' (1943). In 1939, he fled Italy, due to the enactment of Mussolini's August 1938 racial laws, to live in the USA. Thanks to the help of Yale University historian Roland Bainton, he sailed from Genoa in February 1939 and by March was teaching a graduate seminar at Yale on Plotinus. However Kristeller taught for only a short time at Yale University until moving to Columbia University, where he taught until his retirement in 1973, as Frederick J. E. Woodbridge Professor of Philosophy. He continued to be an active researcher after he retired. Paul Kristeller received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 1957, the Serena Medal of the British Academy in 1958, the Premio Internazionale Galileo Galilei in 1968, the Commendatore nell'Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana in 1971, and a MacArthur Fellowship in 1984. He was three times (1954-55, 1961-62, 1968-69) a member at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1955, to the Medieval Academy of America in 1959, and to the American Philosophical Society in 1974. The emphasis of Kristeller's research was on the

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

of Renaissance humanism. He is the author of important studies on

Marsilio Ficino Marsilio Ficino (; Latin name: ; 19 October 1433 – 1 October 1499) was an Italian scholar and Catholic priest who was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance. He was an astrologer, a reviver of ...

, Pietro Pomponazzi and Giambattista Vico. An especially important achievement is his ''Iter Italicum'' (the title recalls ''Iter Alemannicum'' and other works of

Martin Gerbert Martin Gerbert (11 August 1720 – 3 May 1793), was a German theologian, historian and writer on music, belonged to the noble family of Gerbert von Hornau, and was born at Horb am Neckar, Württemberg, on 12 (or 11 or 13) August 1720. Life He w ...

), a large work describing numerous uncatalogued manuscripts. After decades of neglect, Kristeller's lengthy, erudite essay of the early 1950s, " The Modern System of the Arts", in ''Journal of the History of Ideas'', proved to be an influential, much reprinted classic reading in Philosophy of Art. Kristeller was the chief inspirer of the

Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum Founded in 1945, with its first volume published in 1960, the ''Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum'' is a scholarly journal documenting the work of international scholars interested in classical tradition during the Middle Ages and Renaissa ...

, the ongoing project that aims to chart the fortune of all extant classical works through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, serving as Founder and Editor-in-Chief for the first two volumes and Associate Editor for the next five volumes.

Works

*''Der Begriff der Seele in der Ethik des Plotin''. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1929. *''The Renaissance Philosophy of Man''. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1950. *"The Modern System of the Arts", in ''Journal of the History of Ideas'', 12, 1951, p. 496-527 and 13, 17-46 ; repr. 1965 and 1980 ; new. ed. 1990. *''The Classics and Renaissance Thought''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955. *''Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters'', vol. I-IV, Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1956–1996. *''Iter Italicum. A Finding List of Uncatalogued or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and Other Libraries'', 7 vol., London: The Warburg Institute, 1963–1997. *''Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance''. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964. *''Die Philosophie des Marsilio Ficino''. Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1972. *''Humanismus und Renaissance''. 2 vol., Munich: Fink, 1974–1976 *''Renaissance Thought and Its Sources''. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979 *''Die Ideen als Gedanken der menschlichen und göttlichen Vernunft''. Heidelberg: Winter, 1989.

References

External links

Finding aid to Paul Oskar Kristeller papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kristeller, Paul Oskar 1905 births 1999 deaths German historians of philosophy German emigrants to the United States Heidelberg University alumni Columbia University faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Yale University faculty Members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres MacArthur Fellows Historians of the Renaissance Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America Writers from Berlin Giambattista Vico scholars Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy

Works

Further reading

References

External links