Church History between Laboratory and Stage: The Museum of Christian Art and Archaeology of the Friedrich-Wilhelms University Berlin, 1850-1935

The Museum of Christian Art and Archaeology, founded by Ferdinand Piper in the mid-nineteenth century, was the University of Berlin's first academic museum set up to serve research and didactic purposes. At the same time, it was the first museum of Christian archaeology ever established. This museum no longer exists. At its first stage, the present research project seeks to reconstruct not only the inventory of this museum, but also the intentions of the curators Ferdinand Piper (1811-1889), Nikolaus Müller (1857-1912), and Georg Stuhlfauth (1870-1942). A second phase of research will consider the museum's wider context in the history of academic life, theology, and general intellectual culture, seeking to understand how state, monarchy,
church, and society shaped the institution and its eventual demise. Subjects such as the presentation of history with the help of media, didactic aims and techniques as well as the dissemination of knowledge in the field of art will also be studied.