Background
Christoph Frommel was born on September 25, 1933 Heidelberg, Germany. He is the son of Gerhard Frommel, a German composer, and Gertrud (Neuhaus) Frommel, a homemaker.
Christoph Frommel was born on September 25, 1933 Heidelberg, Germany. He is the son of Gerhard Frommel, a German composer, and Gertrud (Neuhaus) Frommel, a homemaker.
Christoph Luitpold Frommel attained Doctor of Philosophy degree, graduating from University of Munich in 1959. Nine years later, in 1968, he got his Doctor of Philosophy degree at University of Bonn.
Frommel was made an Honorary Doctor of Philosophy by University of Naples in 1997.
Christoph Frommel started his career as a fellow and teaching assistant in 1959 at Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome, Italy and held this post till 1967. One year later, in 1968, Frommel was appointed a professor at University of Bonn in Germany, a post he held till 1980, when he became a director of Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History.
Frommel has been working as a professor at Sapienza University of Rome since 2003.
Quotations: "As an art historian I write about monuments, artists, periods and places. One part of writing history is detailed reconstruction of the past, another is understanding and interpretation. Italian, and particularly Roman, art of the Renaissance and Baroque periods comprises many of the major monuments of all time. After having lived for decades here and having studied all available sources and having looked again and again, my heroes are becoming more and more lively. The single events and figures are becoming a sort of coherent texture. I feel, increasingly, the need to "concretize" these experiences and insights, to make them available to others, to help a larger audience understand and enjoy, and to stimulate research and interpretation of a period which will always remain one of the cultural roots of mankind. However, these same icons, are recently becoming less attractive for many of the younger generation."
Christoph married Haverknor van Rijsewijk on April 4, 1964. The couple divorced in December, 1991. The following year, on April 22, Frommel married Haak Sabine.
Christoph has three children from the first marriage: Helena, Julia and Adrian.