Great art critic, born at Stendal, in Prussian Saxony, of poor parents; was a student from his boyhood, and early devoted especially to archaeology and the study of the antique; became a Roman Catholic on the promise of an appointment in Rome, where he would have full scope to indulge his predilections, and became librarian to Cardinal Albani there; his great work was "Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums" (the "History of Ancient Art"), in particular that of Greece, which proved epoch-making, and the beginning of a new era in the study of art in general; he was assassinated in a hotel at Trieste on his way to Vienna by a fellow-traveller to whom he had shown some of his valuables, and the German world was shocked (1717-1768).