On 18 July 1897, the historian and politician Alfred Ritter von Arneth died in Vienna.
After studying law, Arneth began a classical civil service career. Under his leadership (vice-director in 1860, director in 1868), he gradually opened up the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv to historical research. Arneth published extensive scholarly source and edition works such as biographies on Graf Guido Starhemberg, Prinz Eugen and Maria Theresia, in which his loyalty to the imperial house is clearly evident. The historian of German liberal sentiment was also very active politically, for example as a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly in 1848/49 and in the Herrenhaus.
From 1869 to 1879 Arneth was vice president, and then president of the Imperial Academy of Sciences until his death. At the University of Vienna, he was made an honorary member of the philosophical doctoral college in the university's jubilee year of 1865.
