Acknowledgements

Abstract

In 1858, the Italian Ermete Pierotti, a former Captain in the Corps of Royal Piedmontese Army Engineers, was appointed architect and engineer of Jerusalem by the Ottoman governor. This gave him the opportunity to explore various places in the city, including the Haram al-Sharif (Temple Mount), something which hardly any non-Muslims had done at the time. In 1864, Pierotti published in London a book entitled Jerusalem Explored. His theories, admittedly not presented in a scholarly way, differed widely from those of eminent representatives of the current Victorian establishment, who launched a violent attack against him, first for an alleged breach of copyright, and then by making public a document revealing some embarrassing aspects of his years in the Piedmontese army. Pierotti was thereby compromised and lost all credibility in the eyes of the British public. Morally broken and nearly destitute, Pierotti never recovered from this blow. The article attempts to identify some of the motivations that guided Pierotti through his adventurous life.