Michael Huber (writer)

He continued to translate German works into French, but was also interested in art history and had a collection of copper engravings that he used for teaching.

Besides the Encyclopédie's editor Denis Diderot, Huber knew the philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Baron d'Holbach.

[16][17] Huber published further translations of Gessner's works: in 1762 the Idylles et poëmes champêtres and in 1764 Daphnis et le premier navigateur.

[20] Huber gave a novel separation of German literary history into four distinct eras:[7] the earliest began with the bards mentioned in the Germania, an ethnographic book by the Roman historian Tacitus.

He was awarded the right to be called "professor" and received a salary of 300 Reichsthaler from the private funds of the Elector, the underage Frederick Augustus I of Saxony.

[29] To be able to afford the rent of 225 Reichsthaler for a sizeable apartment in Haugk's house [de] in Petersstrasse in central Leipzig, Huber's wife had to offer catering to students for money.

[2] From 1775, Huber lived in the Leipzig house that the Elector used as residence while visiting the city, and his wife was promised a future pension.

[31] He translated Johann Joachim Winckelmann's 1764 History of Art in Antiquity from German into French, expanded the work and included a biography of the author.

[31][34] Huber edited several catalogues of engravings and wrote a related nine-volume work that was translated from his French manuscript and published from 1796 to 1804.

[d][2][35] A general theory of art was included in the work, in which Huber extended some of Winckelmann's terminology and reflected on the principles for the collection of engravings.

[36] After her death, he decided to visit his son Ludwig Ferdinand, who lived in Stuttgart with his own wife, Therese Huber, and his children and step-children.

[2] Goethe mentioned him in his autobiography, stating "Huber, a print collector, and a well-experienced connoisseur, had furthermore the gratefully acknowledged merit of having determined to make the worth of German literature known to the French.