Christoph L. Frommel (1933–2026)
On 11 February 2026 Christoph Luitpold Frommel died at the age of ninety-two. From 1980 until 2001 he served as the Director of the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max-Planck-Institute for Art History and dedicated himself throughout his life to the study of Italian Renaissance architecture.
Born in 1933 in Heidelberg, Frommel studied art history under Hans Seldmayr in Munich und undertook research at the Hertziana as a fellow and assistant. His PhD thesis, submitted in 1959 and published in 1961, reconstructed how Baldassare Peruzzi had designed and built the Villa Farnesina as a residence for Agostino Chigi on the banks of the Tiber. Within the framework of this research Frommel developed a method for reconstructing architectural history that drew upon archival records of the building and planning process and that in this manner complemented the formal analysis of the built structure. Frommel took full advantage of the potential insights that this method yielded in his expansive inquiry into the palazzi of the High Renaissance in Rome. The habilitation thesis, published in 1973, set a new benchmark in architectural history. With impressive precision and devotion to detail, Frommel defined the genre of the palazzo by foregrounding the process of negotiation between patron and the architect-artist.
After years as a university professor in Bonn (1968–1980), with a brief interruption for a lectureship at the University of California, Berkeley (1972) and a visiting professorship at Princeton (1978), he was appointed director of the Hertziana in 1980, succeeding Wolfgang Lotz and assuming the position alongside Matthias Winner. From this post, he influenced generations of researchers, acquainting them with Italian architectural history and the scholarly rigor that characterized his approach. As director, he sought dialogue with Roman and international institutions and, shortly after beginning his tenure as director, organized the spectacular eight-day academic conference “Raphael in Rome” (1983) with Matthias Winner and in collaboration with the Vatican Museums. During the conference, the Vatican Museums closed the Sistine Chapel to visitors, thus allowing the space to become a venue for scholarly debate. The results were published in 1986 and remain a standard work in Raphael studies.
Throughout his long career, Frommel published numerous articles and books on Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael, Antonio da Sangallo il Giovane, as well as Caravaggio, Bernini, and many others. He co-curated exhibitions and was also instrumental in the excavations in the courtyard of the Palazzo della Cancelleria, which unearthed the foundations of one of Rome’s most important early Christian basilicas from the 4th/5th century – San Lorenzo in Damaso. The results of the excavations were published in two capacious volumes in 2009: L’antica basilica di San Lorenzo in Damaso: indagini archeologiche nel Palazzo della Cancelleria (1988–1993). To mark the 400th anniversary of Francesco Borromini’s birth, Frommel organized the International Borromini Congress (13–15 January 2000) shortly before his retirement. At this congress, international experts re-evaluated Borromini’s work, highlighting the architectural audacity and geometric complexity of his designs.
After he had become professor emeritus in 2001, Frommel held an honorary professorship at La Sapienza University (2002–2005), was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Naples II, was appointed Grand Officer of the Italian Republic, received various awards, and was a member of numerous academies (Accademia di San Luca, Accademia dei Lincei). In 2019, he was made an honorary citizen of Rome. He will be laid to rest in the Cimitero Acattolico – the non-Catholic cemetery at the Pyramid of Cestius.
Christoph L. Frommel’s analytical spirit lives on in his countless writings; we will remember him as a passionately engaged and consistently brilliant researcher.