Roberto Weiss in Rome with his sister Roberto Weiss was born 21 January 1906 in Milan and died 9 August 1969 in Reading. An Italian, he was Professor of Italian Studies for 30 years at UCL in London, specialising in the Renaissance period and Renaissance humanism. Before becoming a professor, and as a poor young man determined to stay in England because he disliked the fascist regime of Mussolini in his own country, he received help and support to pursue his studies from the writer John Buchan. He settled in Henley-on-Thames. He was conscripted into the British army during the second world war. He left a large collection of Roman and Greek coins and medals to a museum called the Fitzwilliam museum on his untimely death from a heart attack in the same year that he published his best book, The Renaissance discovery of classical antiquity in which he stated that he could have turned each of the last ten chapters into it's own book. He was known for the conciseness of his writing, while his wife Eve, an English teacher, ensured the correctness of his English grammar and flow.
His only son is Alex Weiss.
Published works
- Humanism in England during the Fifteenth Century
- The Renaissance discovery of classical antiquity
External links
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