ABSTRACT
Reports of Leopold von Ranke’s private life depend mainly on the accounts of his sons Friduhelm von Ranke and Otto von Ranke. Friduhelm’s account said that the children were overjoyed when they caught Ranke. The Ranke children’s perception of their father, which was doubtless influenced by Clarissa, was of a great man who was an example to them of knowledge, spirit and diligence, inaccessible, infallible and monumental in everything. In 1852 the whole Ranke family planned to travel to England, but due to her spinal disease, Clarissa was unable to move. From 1860 onwards Clarissa used a wheelchair. One important way in which she dealt with her disease was through her poetry and her circle of friends, better known as ‘Salon Ranke.’ Until 1833 the best-known salon had been that of Rahel Varnhagen, which Ranke had visited several times during his early period in Berlin.
