Heinrich Leo (17 March 1799 – 24 April 1878) was a Prussian historian born in Rudolstadt, his father being chaplain to the garrison there. His family was not of Italian origin, as he himself was inclined to believe on the strength of family tradition, but established in Lower Saxony as early as the 10th century. The taste for historical study was early instilled into him by the eminent philologist Karl Wilhelm Göttling (1793 - 1869), who in 1816 became a master at the Rudolstadt gymnasium. From 1816 to 1819 Leo studied at the universities of Breslau, Jena and Göttingen, devoting himself to history, philology and theology. At this time the universities were still agitated by the Liberal and patriotic aspirations aroused by the War of Liberation; at Breslau Leo fell under the influence of Jahn, and joined the political gymnastic association (Turnverein); at Jena he attached himself to the radical wing of the students association, the so-called Black Band, under the leadership of Karl Follen. The murder of August von Kotzebue by Karl Sand, however, shocked him out of his revolutionary views, and from this time he tended, under the influence of the writings of Hamann and Herder, more and more in the direction of conservatism and romanticism. He ended, in a mood almost of pessimism, by attaching himself to the extreme right wing of the forces of reaction. So early as April 1819, at Göttingen, he had fallen under the influence of Karl Ludwig von Haller's Handbuch der allgemeinen Staatenkunde (1808), a textbook of the counter-revolution. On 11 May 1820 he took his doctor's degree; in the same year he qualified as Privatdozent at the University of Erlangen. For this latter purpose he had chosen as his thesis the constitution of the free Lombard Cities in the Middle Ages, the province in which he was destined to do most for the scientific study of history. His interest in it was greatly stimulated by a journey to Italy in 1823; In 1824 he returned to the subject, and, as the result, published in five volumes a history of the Italian states (1829-1832). Meanwhile, he had been established (1822-1827) as Dozent in Berlin, where he came in contact with leaders of German thought and was somewhat spoiled by the attentions of society. Here, too, it was that Hegel's philosophy of history made a deep impression upon him. It was at Halle,