The collection of antiquities of the Counts of Manderscheid-Blankenheim

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Michael Heinzelmann; Professor Dr. Jürgen Kunow
• Subject Area: Classical, Roman, Christian and Islamic Archaeology ; Ancient History ; Early Modern History
• Term: from 2015 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 283366663

Since the 16th century the collection of antiquities was considered in Central Europe as an expression of identity, virtus and sapientia of the aristocracy and the bourgeois elites particularly in the communities of northern Italy and in the free imperial cities; the antiquitates were understood as symbols of secular power and as an expression of knowledge about the past of the city or region of their owners. Finally, the antiquities served as proof of the high age reaching back into the Roman imperial period both of the respective noble families as well as of the cities. The collection of antiquities of the Counts of Manderscheid-Blankenheim in the castles of Blankenheim and Jünkerath was at the end of the 16th, in the 17th and 18th centuries the largest collection of Roman antiquities in today's Rhineland. The collection - compiled by the humanist Count Hermann von Manderscheid (1548-1604), which consisted of both Cologne and Bonn archaeological findings as well as antiquities of the Jülich region and the Eifel - was abandoned after the flight of the last lady of the castle Augusta Leopoldine, Countess of Manderscheid-Blankenheim (1744-1811) and her husband, the Bohemian Count Philipp Christian von Sternberg (1732-1811) to Prague and with the letter of their son Franz Josef Sternberg-Manderscheid who ceded the antiquities to Franz Ferdinand Wallraf in 1803. The proposed project has the objective to create an almost complete edition of the still preserved antiquities in museums of the Rhineland but also of the lost items of this outstanding collection, which can be reconstructed with the help of manuscripts and publications. It is important to identify the concept of the collection and of the presentation within the context of other collections of antiquities.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigators: Professor Dr. Manfred Groten; Professor Dr. Peter Noelke