Walter William Horn | |
|---|---|
 Horn's certificate of naturalization, bearing his picture. | |
| Born | Walther Wilhelm Adolf Horn 18 January 1908 |
| Died | 26 December 1995(1995-12-26) (aged 87) |
| Occupation(s) | Art historian,medievalist |
Walter William Horn (18 January 1908 – 26 December 1995) was a German-Americanmedievalist scholar noted for his work on thetimbervernaculararchitecture of the Middle Ages.
Horn was born inGermany, but fledNazism and spent most of hisacademic career at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, where he became the university system's firstart historian and co-founded the History of Art department. Anaturalized citizen of theUnited States, Horn served in theU.S. Army duringWorld War II and then in thespecial intelligence unit that tracked downart works plundered by the Nazis. His most celebrated exploit was the recovery of thecrown jewels of theHoly Roman Empire, also known asCharlemagne'sImperial Regalia.[1] As a scholar, Horn is most noted for his work on the medievalarchitectural drawing known as thePlan of Saint Gall.
Additions: for recovery ofImperial Regalia, seeSidney Kirkpatrick, Hitler’s Holy Relics, Simon and Schuster, 2010. Horn was present as a guest of Austria at the reopening of the rooms dedicated to the Reglia at the Hofburg Museum in 1987.
Horn was born in the town ofWaldangelloch in ruralBaden as Walther Wilhelm Adolf Horn. His mother was Matilde Peters; she married Karl Horn, aLutheran minister. Walterattended aGymnasium in nearbyHeidelberg and went on to studyart history at theUniversity of Heidelberg and theUniversity of Berlin. He earned hisdoctorate in 1934 at theUniversity of Hamburg, studying underErwin Panofsky. Hisdissertation,Die Fassade von Saint-Gilles, on thefaçade ofSaint-Gilles, Gard, was published in 1937.
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Horn fled Germany in opposition to the Nazi regime. He continued his studies from 1934 to 1937 as a research associate at the German Institute for the History of Art inFlorence, Italy. In 1938, Horn moved to theUnited States and began his long association with the University of California, Berkeley, as alecturer. A year later, he was given a permanent position as the first art historian in the University of California system.[2] During this time, he married Ann Binkley Rand.
Horn became anaturalized citizen in 1943, dropping the forename Adolf because of its associations with the war.[3] That same year, he volunteered formilitary duty in theU.S. Army. By 1945, he was alieutenant in theThird Army under GeneralGeorge S. Patton. Horn's skills as a native speaker ofGerman were put to use ininterrogatingprisoners of war. After the war, he continued as a special investigator in theMonuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program, using his expertise as an art historian to track downart that had been stolen or concealed by the Nazis. Horn served until 1946, attaining the rank ofcaptain.
In 1945, Horn succeeded in recovering theImperial Regalia ofCharlemagne, thecrown,sceptre, andjewels of theHoly Roman Empire. These had been kept hidden by Germans who hoped to return to power even after their defeat by theAllies.[4] The incident has been elaborated, sometimes with inaccuracies, by writers who take particular interest in theHoly Lance, the spear supposed to have pierced the side ofJesus duringhis crucifixion. This artifact is sometimes called the Spear of Destiny and identified with theVienna Lance, one of the components of the regalia. Horn appears in narratives about the lance's retrieval from the possession ofAdolf Hitler in works by occultists and conspiracy theorists. Usually identified as "Lt. Walter William Horn," he is purported to have retrieved the lance at the behest of Patton on the day of Hitler's death, 30 April 1945.[5][6]
Returning from the war, Horn married Alberta West Parker, aphysician, who became a Clinical Professor of Public Health at UC Berkeley.[7] In 1949, Horn and his family became embroiled in the controversy at his university over aloyalty oath requirement. During the era of theCold War, theRed Scare, andMcCarthyism, theBoard of Regents at the University of California began to require that all university employees sign an oath affirming their loyalty to thestate constitution and denying their membership or belief in organizations advocating the overthrow of theU.S. government. The requirement met with resistance, and in the summer of 1950 thirty-oneprofessors[8] who refused to sign were fired, despite their stature as "internationally distinguished scholars."[9]
Horn's fellowmedievalistErnst Kantorowicz resigned rather than sign the oath, stating his reasons in two letters to theuniversity president that were only published in English decades after the episode. Kantorowicz also presented a letter from Horn, who had signed the oath under protest. In the letter dated 23 August 1950, Horn, then actingchairman of the art department, pointed to his former military service and to his voluntaryreactivation that same month as areservist in theArmed Services.
Being thus confronted a second time with a disruption of my academic career, and feeling unable to expose my wife and my son to the consequences of being denied continuance of my civilian occupation upon return from military duty, it is with profound regret that I find myself compelled to yield to the pressure which the Regents saw fit to exercise in order to extort from me a declaration concerning my political beliefs. I am enclosing the requested statement, signed. I should like to make known that, in doing so, I am acting against the better precepts of myconscience and for no other reason than that of protecting my family against the contingencies of economic distress. ... It was in avoidance of pressures of this type that I left Germany in 1938 and came to this country. And it was in the desire of contributing to the eradication of such methods that I volunteered during the last war to take up arms against the country of my birth. I am expecting my recall to active dutyin the present conflict with the bitter feeling that, this time, I shall be fighting abroad for the defense and propagation ofFreedoms which I have been denied in my professional life at home.
Kantorowicz noted that Horn's letter "illustrates the grave conflict of conscience and savageeconomic coercion to which, after fifteen months of pressure and struggle, he had finally to yield."[10]
Horn's early position as research associate in Florence gave him firsthand knowledge of the city'smedieval church architecture and produced two important studies,Das Florentiner Baptisterium (1938), an analysis of the fabric and ornamentation of theFlorence Baptistry that established new criteria for its dating, andRomanesque Churches in Florence: A Study of TheirChronology and Stylistic Development (1943), which included an examination of themasonry construction ofSan Miniato al Monte. Throughout his career, he continued to explore the conceptual connections betweenclassical and northern architecture.[4] His specialty wasthree-aisled timber structures in medieval churches,market halls andmanor halls. He was known for arriving at a precise dating of medieval buildings through studyingtheir technologies and observing the physical evidence, drawing on scientific disciplines; he dated timber structures with reference toradiocarbon analysis anddendrochronological tables.[11]
In 1958, Horn published what is considered his most important article,[12] "On the Origins of the Medieval Bay System" in theJournal of theSociety of Architectural Historians. He argued thatbay-dividedmedieval churches derived fromGermanic timber buildings and represented a continuous tradition ofvernacular architecture intransalpine Europe. Horn was the first to assemble the known timber examples, which dated from as early as 1200 BC and extended into the medieval period. Because traces of early wooden structures were often scanty or oblique, Horn used scientific methods to uncover their architectural principles, and demonstrated that these were developed and applied to stonecathedrals in the Romanesque andGothic periods.[13]
The 1958 article was significant also in that it marked Horn's first collaboration withErnest Born, theSan Franciscan architect anddraftsman with whom he was to author a series of books and articles over the next twenty years. Their first book wasThe Barns of theAbbey of Beaulieu at ItsGranges ofGreat Coxwell and Beaulieu St. Leonard (1965), a study of the only twoCisterciantithe barns, dating from the 13th century, that survive in England.[4] But their major project was the three-volume workThe Plan of St. Gall: A Study of the Architecture and Economy of, and Life in a ParadigmaticCarolingian Monastery, which has been called "one of the greatestmonographs on medieval architecture that has ever appeared."[14]
Theplan of Saint Gall had engaged Horn's imagination and curiosity since he was introduced to it by his mentorErwin Panofsky.[15] In 1957, Horn had participated in an internationalcongress on the plan, and his interest in its guest and service buildings led to his survey of medieval structures in France and England. In 1965, Horn and Born contributed to the creation of ascale model of the 40 buildings rendered on the plan. The model was displayed at the international exhibitKarl der Grosse held atAachen. Their two decades of collaboration culminated in a work of 1,056 pages with an estimated 1,200 illustrations.[citation needed]
The Plan of St. Gall was praised by French historianEmmanuel LeRoy Ladurie for its "prodigious scholarship," and for its wide-ranging elucidation ofCarolingian daily life.[16] The first volume offers a reconstruction of the church and the living quarters for acommunity of monks numbering about a hundred. The second volume covered the guest and service buildings and thehorticultural spaces for growing vegetables, medicinal herbs, and fruit and nut trees. The third volume contains supplemental material such as Horn's 88-page catalogue of the plan's explanatorytituli, or captions, andCharles W. Jones' English translation of theConsuetudines Corbienses byAdalhard of theabbey of Corbie.[17] Through meticulous reimagining of the activities that the architecture was meant to facilitate, Horn presents a rich picture of Carolingian life and thought.[citation needed]
The most controversial aspect of the work was Horn's major thesis: that the plan was a copy of a lostmaster plan dating to 816 or 817 that would have been part of documents pertaining to the official monastic reform movement underLouis the Pious at Aachen. The dominant strand of criticism to the contrary holds that the plan was intended to represent an ideal and was never meant to be carried out at a particular site. Horn's last article on the plan, "The Medieval Monastery as a Setting for the Production of Manuscripts,"[18] was a response to this criticism.[14]
The Plan of St. Gall earned twelve major awards for its scholarship,bookmaking, andtypography, including a prize from France'sAcadémie d'architecture and a 1982 medal from theAmerican Institute of Architects.[19]
In 1974, Horn retired toemeritus status after 36 years at the University of California. His last publication,The ForgottenHermitage ofSkellig Michael (1990), co-authored with Jenny White Marshall and Grellan D. Rourke, resulted fromfieldwork begun in 1978 onIreland's Atlantic offshore islands. His interest in the Celticroundhouse had been indicated earlier in "On the Origins of the MedievalCloister" (1973).
Horn worked withclassical archaeologistDarrell A. Amyx to establish History of Art as a separate department at the University of California in 1971. He was afellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences (elected 1970) and of theMedieval Academy of America (1980). Horn was an active supporter of arts institutions outside academia, serving astrustee of theFine Arts Museums of San Francisco and chairman of the museum's acquisitions committee.[20] He was on the board of theCollege Art Association 1950–54 and 1964–68 and on the board of theSociety of Architectural Historians 1964–68.
Horn died at home ofpneumonia on Tuesday, 26 December 1995, atPoint Richmond, California. He was 87. He was survived by his wife, Alberta; his son, Michael; two daughters, Rebecca and Robin; and grandchildren, Matthew and Dulce. Hisobituary in theNew York Times labeled him "historian of medievalcloisters andbarns."[16] Horn was remembered by colleagues as one of the university's "best-loved and most influential teachers and ... most effective leaders."[21] He was eulogized for "his oratorical skills and uncanny ability to bring the medieval building or pile ofruins vividly to life. His eloquence and grace matched his endless curiosity about prehistoric and medieval buildings in northern Europe and how people utilized them."[22]
Standard biographical and publishing data on Horn not otherwise cited comes from two or more of the following sources.
