Justus von Liebig
Later life

In 1852, after asking Hermann Kopp to take over management of the Annalen der Chemie, Liebig accepted an appointment from King Maximilian II of Bavaria to the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He also became the Royal scientific advisor to King Maxilimian II, who hoped to transform the University of Munich into a center for scientific research and development. In part, Liebig accepted the post because, at age 50, he was finding supervision of large numbers of laboratory students increasingly difficult. His new accommodations in Munich reflected this shift in focus. They included a comfortable house suitable for extensive entertaining, a small laboratory, and a newly built lecture theatre capable of holding 300 people with a demonstration laboratory at the front. There, he gave lectures to the university and fortnightly to the public. In his position as a promoter of science, Liebig was appointed president of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, becoming perpetual president of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences in 1858.

In the 1850s, Liebig moved next door to the noted classics scholar and philologist Friederich Thiersch in the city of Munich. Liebig had previously scorned philologists like Thiersch in articles. (Liebig promoted science over supposedly impractical fields like the classics.) But Liebig's most beloved daughter, Johanna, fell in love with Thiersch's second son, Karl, who had studied medicine in several cities, including Berlin and Vienna. Johanna and Karl reportedly had a happy marriage, producing six children: four daughters and two sons. It was fairly common for the sons and daughters of academics to marry in Germany then.

Liebig enjoyed a personal friendship with Maximilian II, who died on 10 March 1864. After Maximilian's death, Liebig and other liberal Protestant scientists in Bavaria were increasingly opposed by ultramontane Catholics.

Liebig died in Munich in 1873, and is buried in the Alter Südfriedhof in Munich.
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