Erwin Panofsky - Manuscript of Panofsky's Habilitationsschrift

Manuscript of Panofsky's Habilitationsschrift

In August 2012, the original manuscript of Panofsky's Habilitationsschrift of 1920, which is entitled "Die Gestaltungsprinzipien Michelangelos, besonders in ihrem Verhältnis zu denen Raffaels", was found in an old Nazi safe in Munich's Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte. It had long been assumed that this manuscript went lost in 1943/44 in Hamburg, as this important study was never published and the art historian's widow was unable to locate it in Hamburg. It seems as if art historian Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich, who had studied under Panofsky, was in the possession of this manuscript from 1946 to 1970.