The correspondence of the couple Theodor and Marie Mommsen covers the period from 1854 to 1902; the 1170 letters provide information on almost half a century of shared lives. Ulrich and Ulrike von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff left approximately 600 letters, ranging from Ulrich's childhood to his school years at the Landesschule Pforta (1862-67) to the time of his travels in Italy and Greece (1872-74), during which he was in close contact with Theodor Mommsen. In 1874, the correspondence breaks off with the death of his mother. These documents are supplemented by a large number of letters to and from relatives and family friends.

The correspondence is an important source for the cultural and mental history of the bourgeoisie and the nobility, for gender history, the history of education, the history of science and universities, the history of antiquity and historical sciences as well as political history.

Both sets of correspondence are part of the cooperation project between the University of Bern, Heidelberg University Library and the German Literature Archive Marbach, funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, "Profession and Family in the Learned Milieu of the Empire. The Mommsen and von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff families" (duration: 2016-2021) under the direction of Prof. Dr. Stefan Rebenich.

The descendants of the Mommsen and the von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff families support the project and have kindly provided transcriptions and other documents.

Heidelberg University Library is responsible for providing the digital edition. The presentation of the digital facsimiles of the letters is done via the Heidelberg digitisation workflow DWORK, the transcription and editing work in TEI-XML format for the digital edition according to the Heidelberg edition infrastructure heiEDITIONS.