Classicist art historian. Benndorf studied under the archaeologist/philologist Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker (1784-1868), the pottery scholar Otto Jahn and the classicist Friedrich Ritschl (1806-1876) at Bonn. He wrote his habilitationschrift in 1868 under Friedrich Wieseler (1811-1892) in Göttingen. During a brief position teaching at Schulpforte, Germany, his pupils included the young Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900).