Early Life
Born in Milan to a family which originated in the Czech Republic, Weiss began his studies in Italy but moved to England as a young man in 1926 on the advice of his father, Eugenio Weiss, in order to continue his education and prepare for a career in the diplomatic service by studying law. He stayed in England, however, due to his dislike for the fascist regime of Mussolini and the "insufferably hot" Italian climate. While at Oxford he won the Charles Oldham prize and became close friends with the elder son of John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, who later acted as his mentor. Roberto was a frequent guest at the Buchan home at Elsfield Manor, where he met T.E. Lawrence and the Mitford family girls. At Oxford he met the novelist Barbara Pym who later used him as the basis for a character called Count Riccardo Bianco in her first novel, Some Tame Gazelle. After gaining an upper second in law he stayed on to study for a D.Phil. He worked for a short time from 1932-1933 in the Department of Western Manuscripts of the Bodleian Library and obtained his D.Phil from Oxford in 1934.
Weiss was naturalised in 1934. In 1936 he married Eve Cecil. They had four children and settled in Henley-on-Thames.
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Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)