18th century Swiss architect and engineer
Karl Jakob Weber
(12 August 1712 ? 1764) was a Swiss architect and engineer who worked under the orders of the Spanish military engineer
Roque de Alcubierre
in the excavations of Herculaneum
Herculaneum
,
Pompeii
and
Stabiae
, under the patronage of
Charles VII of Naples
. At first a soldier and military engineer, he joined the excavations in 1749. His detailed drawings provided some of the basis for the luxurious royal folios of
Le Antichita di Ercolano esposte
, by means of which the European intelligentsia became aware of the details of what was being recovered.
Firma del ingeniero militar Karl Jakob Weber cuando servia a las Ordenes de Carlos VII de Napoles (Carlos III de Espana). Et texto reza: D(on) Carlos Weber
Weber's unwilling collaborator was
Roque de Alcubierre
, previously in charge of the excavations, whose treasure-hunting technique provided the fine bronzes and other works of art that kept royal patronage stimulated. Alcubierre was jealous of Weber, whose system of excavating whole rooms with a concern for context makes him a heroic forerunner of today's architectural profession, and attempted to sabotage Weber's work. On Weber's death, the architect Francisco La Vega was put in charge of excavations.
Weber's plan of the still-buried
Villa of the Papyri
at Herculaneum, which was being explored room by room by smashing openings through frescoed walls, is still the basis of our understanding of its layout, which was echoed in the construction of the
J. Paul Getty Museum
,
Malibu, California
.
Weber was born at
Arth
in the
Schwyz
canton of Switzerland, to a family of the Catholic nobility. He was trained at the gymnasium of
Lucerne
, then travelled to
Pavia
, Lombardy, pursuing a higher degree in mathematics at the Collegio Ghislieri. Not having a private income in spite of his noble background, he enlisted in a regiment of Swiss mercenaries stationed in the
Kingdom of Naples
. The remainder of his career was passed in Italy. After a few years, he took examinations for admission to the corps of military engineers, and was accepted in the Royal Guard as engineer in 1743, where he joined the forces excavating Herculaneum in late 1749, initially at the request of Alcubierre, the Spanish military engineer who directed the royal excavations. In addition to the Villa dei Papiri he recovered much of the Theatre at Herculaneum, the Praedia of Julia Felix on the Via dell'Abbondanza at Pompeii, for which he drew up an
axonometric
plan, and several villas at Stabiae, bringing the first professionalism to the Royal digs.
References
[
edit
]
- Christopher Charles Parslow, 1995.
Rediscovering Antiquity: Karl Weber and the Excavation of Herculaneum, Pompeii and Stabiae
(Cambridge University Press).
Bryn Mawr Classical Review 96.12.10
External links
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