Hans Semper: Visionär der Kunstgeschichte im 19. Jahrhundert : Ein Beitrag zur wissenschaftlichen Entwicklung einer jungen Disziplin an der Universität Innsbruck

Abstract

Hans Semper was born in 1845 to well known architect Gottfried Semper, who is most famous for creating the „Semperoper“ in Dresden. This study gives insight into his academic and personal biography. Semper was called to the University of Innsbruck as a private lecturer in 1876 to establish the recently founded discipline of art history. While teaching and researching until his retirement from professorship in 1916, Semper, as the first tenured professor, created an institute that could easily stand up to comparison with the larger universities of Vienna, Munich or Berlin. For this, he used state of the art teaching materials, such as photographies, diapositives, printed works and an extensive academic library, all of which later became the foundation of the „Sempersammlung“.