Alexander von Warsberg

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Alexander Freiherr von Warsberg (born March 30, 1836 in Saarburg , † May 28, 1889 in Venice ) was an Austrian government official and travel writer.

Life

Coat of arms of the noble family "von Warsberg" from the epitaph in the parish church of St. Ulrich in Deidesheim

origin

The Barons von Warsberg are an old Luxembourg knight family, which is mentioned in documents as early as the 14th century. In 1357 they received the Electorate of Wincheringen as a fief, which remained in the family's possession until the 18th century. Large estates accumulated over the centuries through marriages. In 1483 the Barons von Warsberg already belonged to the Luxembourg knighthood. In 1834 Joseph Alexander von Warsberg shared their property with his two sisters and moved to Austria.

biography

Alexander was the eldest son of the Prussian chamberlain Baron Joseph Alexander von Warsberg (* 1807) and his wife Elisabeth Freiin von Wyttenbach. Soon after the birth of the son, the father sold the old family properties in Lorraine and moved the family to Graz . Here Alexander attended high school and university . He later studied in Munich . Then he entered the Imperial and Royal civil service at the Lieutenancy in Graz . In 1858 he was transferred to the Lieutenancy in Venice, where he remained until the governor Cajetan von Bissingen-Nippenburg was recalled ; In 1859 he was transferred back to Graz. In 1863 Warsberg was transferred to the Ministry of Commerce. In Graz he met Anton Prokesch von Osten , who became ambassador to Istanbul in 1867 . With this he toured Italy, Switzerland and France. In 1868, 1869 and 1871 he visited Egypt. In 1870 he spent several months in Corfu . In the first half of the 1880s he toured Greece, Attica , Thessaly , Epirus , the Peloponnese , the Greek islands and Libya.

Memorial plaque on the house in Zinzendorfgasse in Graz, where Alexander Warsberg lived

At the beginning of the 1880s, Empress Elisabeth began to occupy herself more with Greece. By reading Warsberg's “Odyssey Landscapes” (Second Book, Chapter 1), Empress Elisabeth was probably encouraged to have the Achilleion built on Corfu . The Empress contacted Alexander von Warsberg, who was related to her, and appointed him her “travel marshal”. In 1885 she was accompanied by Warsberg, who was then the Austrian consul in Greece, on her trip to Greece. In November 1887 she commissioned Warsberg to look for a suitable plot of land for a villa on Corfu. In 1888, Warsberg, who had meanwhile been seriously ill, managed to acquire Villa Braila for the Empress and to buy additional land on Corfu for the construction of the villa. It was Warsberg who created the “spiritual concept” for the Achilleion. He did not live to see the completion of the Achilleion, built in Pompeian style, in 1891, as he had died earlier.

In the autumn of 1887 Warsberg was appointed consul general in Venice, but died in the spring of 1889 of a long-term lung disease. He was buried in the St. Leonhard cemetery in Graz.

Fonts

  • A summer in the Orient . Vienna 1869 ( digitized version )
  • Odyssey landscapes . 3 volumes, Vienna 1878 ( digitized version )
  • Homeric landscapes . Vienna 1884
  • The works of art of Athens . Vienna 1892
  • A pilgrimage to Dodona . Graz 1893

literature

personal data
SURNAME Warsberg, Alexander von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Warsberg, Alexander Freiherr von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian government official and travel writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 30, 1836
PLACE OF BIRTH Saarburg
DATE OF DEATH May 28, 1889
Place of death Venice