The Beginnings (1904)

The Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History owes its existence to Henriette Hertz (1846–1913) and has been located in the Palazzo Zuccari on the slopes of the Pincian Hill, just above the Spanish Steps, since its foundation. Together with her friends Ludwig and Frida Mond, Henriette Hertz, a native of Cologne of Jewish descent, rented the Palazzo Zuccari as a second residence in Rome in the late 1880s and purchased it some 20 years later in 1904. The social gatherings she organized in the Palazzo Zuccari reflected her keen interest in music, art and literature, her salon being hailed as "the center of cosmopolitan intellectual life in the Eternal City" by her contemporaries (see Rischbieter 2004).