Paul Oskar Kristeller

1905 - 1999  (94 years)

• Name	Paul Oskar Kristeller
  Born	22 May 1905	Berlin, Germany
  Gender	Male
  Biography	Paul Oskar Kristeller (May 22, 1905 in Berlin – June 7, 1999 in New York, USA) 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 New York, where he mentored both Irving Louis Horowitz and A. James Gregor. During his university years he studied with Werner Jaeger, Heinrich Rickert, Richard Kroner, Karl Hampe, Freidrich Baethgen, Eduard Norden, and Ulrich von Wilamowitz. 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.[1] He did postdoctoral work at the universities of Berlin and Freiburg.[2] At Freiburg, Kristeller studied under the philosopher Martin Heidegger from 1931 to 1933.[3] 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 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 the Serena Medal of the British Academy in 1958, the Premio Internazionale Galileo Galilei in 1968 and the Commendatore nell'Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana in 1971. The emphasis of Kristeller's research was on the philosophy of Renaissance humanism. He is the author of important studies on Marsilio Ficino, Pietro Pomponazzi and Giambattista Vico. An especially important achievement is his Iter Italicum (the title recalls Iter Alemannicum and other works of Martin Gerbert), 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. [edit] 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. (Web version) • The Classics and Renaissance Thought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955. • 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 • Die Ideen als Gedanken der menschlichen und göttlichen Vernunft. Heidelberg: Winter, 1989. • 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 Inst. 1963-1997. [edit] Further reading • Thomas Gilbhard: Bibliographia Kristelleriana. A Bibliography of the Publications of Paul Oskar Kristeller. Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2006 (Sussidi eruditi 72). • Kristeller, Paul Oskar. "A Life of Learning," Charles Homer Haskins Lecture for 1990. American Council of Learned Societies Occasional Paper No. 12 (date not shown).[1] [edit]  [1]
  Hebrew Birth	17 Iya 5665
  Residence	1905-1933	Berlin, Germany
  Immigration	1933-1939	Italy
  Residence	1933-1939	Pisa, Italy
  Immigration	23 Feb 1939	New York, NY, USA   [2]
  Residence	1939-1999	New York, NY, USA
  Hebrew Death	23 Siv 5759
  Occupation	Professor of Philosophy
  Social Security Number	108-26-8868
  Died	7 Jun 1999	New York, NY, USA
  Person ID	I1682	Blank Family
  Last Modified	6 Dec 2012

  
  

  Father	Oskar Grafenberg,   b. 10 Apr 1872, Adelebsen, Germany ,   d. 21 May 1905, Berlin, Germany  (Age 33 years)
  Mother	Alice Magnus,   b. 5 Oct 1882, Berlin, Germany ,   d. 19 Mar 1943, Theresienstadt CC  (Age 60 years)
  Family ID	F785	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Dr. Edith Lind Lewinnek,   b. 11 Nov 1911, Hamburg, Germany ,   d. 26 Jan 1992, New York, NY, USA  (Age 80 years)
  Married	20 Jun 1940	New York, NY, USA
  Last Modified	6 Dec 2012
  Family ID	F2486	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Event Map		Born - 22 May 1905 - Berlin, Germany Residence - 1905-1933 - Berlin, Germany Immigration - 1933-1939 - Italy Immigration - 23 Feb 1939 - New York, NY, USA Married - 20 Jun 1940 - New York, NY, USA Residence - 1939-1999 - New York, NY, USA Died - 7 Jun 1999 - New York, NY, USA  = Link to Google Earth
  Pin Legend	: Address       : Location       : City/Town       : County/Shire       : State/Province       : Country       : Not Set

  
  

• Photos

  Paul Oskar Grafenberg Kristeller

  
  

  Documents		Paul Oskar Kristeller Naturalization Petition
  		Paul Kristeller Obit New York Times

  
  

  Histories

  Recollections of My Life, Paul Kristeller, www.cjh.org

  
  

• Sources

  [S78] Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia. [S171] New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 , Ancestry, SS Vulcania from Naples.