As a gymnasium student in his hometown of Düsseldorf, he was encouraged by Karl Wilhelm Kortüm and
Friedrich Kohlrausch to study history and philology. He studied at the
University of Heidelberg as a pupil of
Friedrich Creuzer, and in 1818 transferred to the newly-founded
University of Bonn. Subsequently, he became a disciple of philologist
Karl Friedrich Heinrich at Bonn, where in 1821 he received the first doctorate awarded by the faculty of philosophy. After graduation, he worked as a gymnasium teacher in Bonn, and in the meantime, pursued philological and historical research. He worked closely with Bonn professor
Barthold Georg Niebuhr, and focused his attention on
Byzantine studies, publishing critical editions on the writings of
John Kantakouzenos (3 volumes, 1828–32) and
Nicephorus Gregoras (2 volumes, 1829–30) as a result. With support from
Friedrich Ritschl, he was named an associate professor at the university in 1840, attaining a full professorship of philology in 1844. In 1847 he was appointed director of the Bonn gymnasium. == Selected works ==