Ugo Foscolo and English Culture 9781906540609, 9781351193832

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PARMEGIANI

The ‘Epistolario’ is a space in which Foscolo engages with literary, philosophical, and moral questions, and a place where he exercises an often private form of literary criticism. These are letters which ultimately produce one of the most complete yet most composite self-portraits in the history of modern Italian autobiography. In the first comprehensive and historicized reading of Foscolo’s correspondence, Sandra Parmegiani reveals the rich and complex relations between the Italian writer and the literature, philosophy, and culture of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England.

italian perspectives publishes books and collections of essays on any aspect and period of Italian literature, language, history, culture, politics, art, and media, as well as studies which take an interdisciplinary approach and are methodologically innovative. At a time of growing academic interest, the series aims to bring together different scholarly perspectives on Italy and its culture.

Ugo Foscolo and English Culture

The history of the literary relations between Italy and England has its most celebrated modern representative in Ugo Foscolo (1778–1827). Foscolo’s translation of Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy is often regarded as the benchmark of his English experience, but there is more — around and beyond his relationship with Sterne — that can be uncovered. With over 3,000 letters spanning three decades, Foscolo’s correspondence represents a unique perspective from which to monitor his literary, philosophical, and political views.

Italian Perspectives 20

Ugo Foscolo and English Culture

Sandra Parmegiani is Assistant Professor of European Studies at the University of Guelph.

Sandra Parmegiani

cover illustration: Chiswick, where Foscolo lived during the last months of his life and where he was buried; drawn by W. Havell and engraved by George Cooke, 1834. With thanks to Carolyn Hammond and the Local Studies Department of Hounslow Library, London.

Parmegiani-9781906540609-cover-11mm.indd 1

Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge

28/3/11 07:45:39

Ugo Foscolo and English Culture

lEgEnda legenda , founded in 1995 by the European Humanities Research Centre of the University of Oxford, is now a joint imprint of the Modern Humanities Research association and Routledge. Titles range from medieval texts to contemporary cinema and form a widely comparative view of the modern humanities, including works on arabic, Catalan, English, French, german, greek, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Yiddish literature. an Editorial Board of distinguished academic specialists works in collaboration with leading scholarly bodies such as the Society for French Studies and the British Comparative literature association.

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ITalIan PERSPECTIvES Editorial Committee Professor Zygmunt Baran´ski, University of Cambridge Professor anna laura lepschy, University College london In the light of growing academic interest in Italy and the reorganization of many university courses in Italian along interdisciplinary lines, this book series, founded now continuing under the legenda imprint, aims to bring together different scholarly perspectives on Italy and its culture. Italian Perspectives publishes books and collections of essays on any period of Italian literature, language, history, culture, politics, art, and media, as well as studies which take an interdisciplinary approach and are methodologically innovative. appearing in this series 1. The Letters of Giacomo Leopardi 1817-1837, ed. by Prue Shaw 2. Nelle Carceri di G. B. Piranesi, by Silvia Gavuzzo-Stewart 3. Speculative Identities: Contemporary Italian Women’s Narrative, by Rita Wilson 4. Elio Vittorini: The Writer and the Written, by Guido Bonsaver 5. Origin and Identity: Essays on Svevo and Trieste, by Elizabeth Schächter 6. Italo Calvino and the Landscape of Childhood, by Claudia Nocentini 7. Playing with Gender: The Comedies of Goldoni, by Maggie Günsberg 8. Comedy and Culture: Cecco Angiolieri’s Poetry and Late Medieval Society, by Fabian Alfie 9. Fragments of Impegno, by Jennifer Burns 10. Contesting the Monument: The Anti-Illusionist Italian Historical Novel, by Ruth Glynn 11. Camorristi, Politicians and Businessmen, by Felia Allum 12. Speaking Out and Silencing, ed. by Anna Cento Bull and Adalgisa Giorgio 13. From Florence to the Heavenly City: The Poetry of Citizenship in Dante, by Claire E. Honess 14. Orality and Literacy in Modern Italian Culture, ed. by Michael Caesar and Marina Spunta 15. Pastoral Drama in Early Modern Italy: The Making of a New Genre, by Lisa Sampson 16. Sweet Thunder: Music and Libretti in 1960s Italy, by Vivienne Suvini-Hand 17. Il teatro di Eduardo De Filippo, by Donatella Fischer 18. Imagining Terrorism: The Rhetoric and Representation of Political Violence in Italy 1969–2009, ed. by Pierpaolo Antonello and Alan O’Leary 19. Boccaccio and the Book: Production and Reading in Italy 1340-1520, by Rhiannon Daniels 20. Ugo Foscolo and English Culture, by Sandra Parmegiani

Managing Editor Dr Graham Nelson, 41 Wellington Square, Oxford ox1 2jf, UK www.legenda.mhra.org.uk

Ugo Foscolo and English Culture ❖ Sandra Parmegiani

Italian Perspectives 20 Modern Humanities Research association and Routledge 2011

First published 2011 Published by the Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

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Contents ❖

Author’s Note Brief Chronology of the Life of Ugo Foscolo Introduction Sterne’s Presence (and Absence) in the Epistolario 1.1. The Polyphonic Nature of Foscolo’s Letters 1.2. A Sentimental Journey and Foscolo’s Epistolary Narrative 1.3. Asserting Didimo’s Voice 1.4. Political Flux and the Quixotic Self 1.5. The English Exile: A Paradigmatic Shift 2 Foscolo, Reader of Locke 3 Foscolo and Hume 4 ‘Et penitus fato divisos orbe Britannos’: British Culture in the Epistolario Conclusions Bibliography Index 1

ix x 1 7 7 14 27 36 43 61 85 103 137 139 145

to russ and francesca

AUTHOR’S NOTE v

The abbreviation EN is used throughout the text to refer to the Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Ugo Foscolo (Florence: Le Monnier, 1933–1986), a 22-volume set which, although incomplete, remains the best edition of Foscolo’s works. I am grateful for this opportunity to thank the people who played a role in the making of this book: Giuliana Sanguinetti Katz for the many hours spent debating this project; Anna Laura Lepschy and Zygmunt Baran´ski, editors of Italian Perspectives, for their unfaltering support of this work; Giulio Lepschy for some of the finest hours spent remembering ‘poor Foscolo’ around Chiswick; Peter Loptson for generously offering his expertise and his time to discuss the philosophical aspects of the book; Sarah Rolfe for her translation of Foscolo’s letters into English; John Walsh for his translations from Latin; Graham Nelson for his guidance and patience; Amanda Wrigley for her careful reading of the manuscript and her most valuable suggestions; and Carolyn Hammond and James Marshall from the Chiswick Library Local Collection for their kindness and superb efficiency. A final thanks to my family: to my parents, whose encouragement and love have been a constant source of strength, and to my husband Russ, without whom this book — and so much else — would not exist. s.p., December 2010

Brief Chronology of the Life of Ugo Foscolo v

1778 1793

Born on Zante, an Ionian island under Venetian rule. Joins his family in Venice, where his mother had moved to after the death of her husband. 1793–97 Studies at the San Cipriano School in Murano and at the ‘public schools’ under the ex-Jesuits. Frequents the Venetian salons of Giustina Renier Michiel and Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi (with whom has a liaison). Meets Ippolito Pindemonte and Aurelio de’ Giorgi Bertòla. 1796 Attends Melchiorre Cesarotti’s classes at the University of Padua. Writes the Piano di Studi. 1797 His first tragedy, Tieste, is performed in Venice, at the Sant’Angelo theatre. After the Treaty of Campoformio, leaves Venice and moves to Milan. Meets Giuseppe Parini and Vincenzo Monti and writes for the Monitore Italiano. 1798 Moves to Bologna and writes for several periodicals. Begins the publication of the novel Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis with the publisher Marsigli. 1799 Joins the National Guard as lieutenant of general Tripoult. Interrupts the publication of the novel. Marsigli asks Angelo Sassoli to finish it and publishes it under the title Vera storia di due amanti infelici ossia ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis. 1801 Returns to Milan. 1802–03 Publication of the Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis, the Orazione a Bonaparte pel congresso di Lione, the Poesie di Ugo Foscolo, and the Chioma di Berenice. Liaison with Antonietta Fagnani Arese. 1804–06 Joins the Italian Division of Napoleon’s army for the cross-Channel invasion of England. Spends time in Valenciennes, Lille, Calais and Boulogne-surMer. Liaison with Fanny Hamilton, with whom he fathers a daughter, Floriana. Translates Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. Meets Alessandro Manzoni in Paris. Returns to Milan. 1807 Publication of Dei Sepolcri. Liaison with Marzia Martinengo Cesaresco. 1808–09 Appointed to chair of Italian and Latin eloquence at the University of Pavia. Delivers the inaugural lecture Dell’origine e dell’ufficio della letteratura. The chair is revoked and returns to Milan. 1810–11 Publication of the ‘Ragguaglio d’un’adunanza dell’Accademia de’ Pitago­ rici’. His second tragedy, Ajace, is performed at La Scala in Milan and is shortly afterwards censored because of its anti-French allusions. End of his friend­ship with Vincenzo Monti.

Brief Chronology

xi

1812–13 Leaves Milan and moves to Florence. Frequents the salon of the Countess of Albany. Meets Quirina Mocenni Magiotti. Publication of the Viaggio Sentimentale together with the Notizia intorno a Didimo Chierico. Composes fragments of Le Grazie. Returns to Milan. Ricciarda, his third tragedy, is performed in Bologna. 1814 Joins the army as deputy chief of staff until the Austrian invasion of Lombardy. 1815–16 Voluntary exile in Switzerland. Publication of Didimi clerici prophetae minimi Hypercalypseos liber singularis and of a new edition of the Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis. Moves to England. 1817 Publication of the Ultime Lettere di Jacopo Ortis together with a few chapters of the Viaggio sentimentale. Works at the Lettere scritte dall’Inghilterra and Le Grazie. 1818–27 Collaborations with the Edinburgh Review, European Review, London Magazine, Quarterly Review, and other British periodicals. 1818 Publication of the Essay on the Present Literature of Italy, included in John Cam Hobhouse’s Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold. 1819 Publication of Narrative and Romantic Poems of the Italians. 1823 Delivers fourteen public lessons on Italian literature in London. Publication of Essays on Petrarch. 1825 Publication of the Discorso sul testo della Divina Commedia. 1826 Publication of the History of the Democratic Constitution of Venice. 1827 Dies in Turnham Green and is buried in Chiswick.

Introduction v

In 1813 Ugo Foscolo’s Viaggio sentimentale di Yorick lungo la Francia e l’Italia was published in Florence by the Molini press.1 This was the third Italian translation of Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy in eleven years; Foscolo’s work is preceded by the Venetian edition printed by Zatta in 1792 and the Milanese edition published by De Stefanis in 1812.2 In a survey of the eighteenthand early nineteenth-century Italian ‘anglomania’, marked by a significant increase of interest in British authors, Foscolo’s translation represents a landmark both in terms of philological exactitude and linguistic and cultural sensitivity. Evidence of this lies in the fact that Foscolo’s translation has passed the test of time, remaining almost unscathed by two centuries of close critical scrutiny. Foscolo is one of the Italian intellectuals who was most receptive to and engaged with English literature and culture at the turn of the century and during the following three decades. To date, the studies that have investigated this relation focus primarily on his translation of Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey, while not much work has been done towards an exploration of the comprehensive inf luence of English culture on Foscolo’s aesthetic, literary, and philosophical views. Ugo Foscolo was born in 1778 on the island of Zante, a Ionian Venetian dominion, to Andrea Fosco and Diamantina Spatis. After his father’s death he moved to Venice, where his mother had already re-located part of the family, and there the fifteenyear-old Foscolo starts his literary, intellectual, and sentimental education. Among his teachers at the San Cipriano school in Murano is Angelo Dalmistro, an expert in and translator of English literature. The young Ugo frequents the Venetian salon of Giustina Renier Michiel and that of the cultured and fashionable Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi, with whom he has a brief but passionate love affair and who will remain a faithful friend for the rest of his life. The Venetian Republic in which Foscolo is now coming of age is particularly receptive towards European culture and its fairly permeable customs allow the entry of a considerable number of foreign books. The Venetian publishing industry is — until the fall of the Republic — the most vibrant and productive in the Italian peninsula, with a sizeable number of translations of European authors. At the University of Padova Foscolo attends some of the lectures by Melchiorre Cesarotti, the renowned translator of Ossian into Italian. His literary taste is now rapidly developing, inf luenced by a voracious and international literary appetite, as attested by the 1796 ‘Piano di studi’, a veritable literary programme in which he lists his past and future readings, his already planned works, and those he wishes to embark on.3 His first tragedy, Tieste, is performed in Venice in 1797 and marks his first great success. The same year Napoleon’s troops enter Italy and Foscolo, like many Italians, welcomes them. His ode to Bonaparte

2

Introduction

liberatore attests his enthusiasm and reveals how he nurtures the aspiration of the future establishment, on account of the Italian Kingdom under French rule, of an independent Italian republic. Moreover, in Venice Napoleon seemed inclined to establish a free republic and in May 1797 the city is organized into a municipality with democratic rule. When, five months later, the Treaty of Campoformio reveals that Napoleon had in fact already handed Venice over to the Austrians, Foscolo’s disillusionment is great. Nonetheless, he takes up Napoleon’s offer to those involved in the Venetian democratic municipality to become full citizens of the Cisalpine Republic and moves to Milan. There he meets the prominent men of letters of the time, among them Giuseppe Parini and Vincenzo Monti, and contributes to the Monitore Italiano, which is shortly afterwards suppressed by Napoleon’s censorship. He then moves to Bologna and writes for several periodicals. It is here that in 1798– 99 Foscolo starts the process of publishing Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis), an epistolary novel in which he merges the story of an unhappy love, imbued of pre-Romantic sentimentalism (not dissimilar to Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther), with that of a disillusioned Italian patriot prostrate with grief for the loss of his homeland. Military duty calls him, and Foscolo interrupts the publication and enrols in the National Guard; but the publisher Marsigli wants to capitalize on the book, and has it finished by Angelo Sassoli and printed with the title Vera storia di due amanti infelici ossia ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis.4 The first autographical edition of the novel appears only three years later in Milan and over the next year Foscolo publishes almost all the corpus of his poems.5 Ortis proves to be a great success and brings fame to his author in Italy and abroad. The years 1804–06 see him again enrolled in the Italian Division of Napoleon’s army for the cross-Channel invasion of England. He resides mostly in Valenciennes and Boulogne-sur-Mer. In France he meets a young English woman, Fanny Hamilton, with whom he fathers a daughter, Floriana. He has no relationship with Floriana until the 1820s, during his English exile. The French military sojourn is marked by his first translation into Italian of sections of Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. After his return to Milan, Foscolo works at the poem ‘Dei Sepolcri’ which he publishes in Brescia in 1807; the meditation on tombs and on the power of memory over the destructive force of time remains, to this day, one of Foscolo’s poetical masterpieces. In 1808–09 he takes up the chair of Italian and Latin eloquence in Pavia, where he delivers the inaugural lecture ‘Dell’origine e dell’ufficio della letteratura’ (‘On the Origin and Duty of Literature’). He gives six more lectures before the chair is revoked and then returns to Milan. Literature is for him inextricably connected with individual and collective participation — directly or tangentially — in the national cause, and in defence of this principle he fights several literary battles. At the same time, in Milan he ends his friendship with Vincenzo Monti and publishes the polemical ‘Ragguaglio d’un’adunanza dell’Accademia de’ Pitagorici’ (‘Details about a Meeting of the Pythagoreans’ Aca­ demy’). His second tragedy, Ajace, is performed at La Scala in Milan, but is not well received, owing to some alleged anti-Napoleonic insinuations. In 1812 Foscolo moves to Tuscany, and in Florence is a regular guest of the Countess of Albany’s salon. The Tuscan sojourn represents a moment of great

Introduction

3

creati­v ity far from Milanese literary quarrels. He meets Quirina Mocenni Magiotti, with whom has an intense love affair, and who will remain his most faithful friend well into his English exile. In Pisa, he publishes the Viaggio sentimentale together with the Notizia intorno a Didimo Chierico, his most prolific literary alter ego. In Tuscany he works on this third tragedy, Ricciarda, and on some fragments of Le Grazie. After the battle of Lipsia, Foscolo returns to Milan and joins the army as deputy chief of staff until the Austrian invasion of Lombardy. The Austrian government offers him the position of editor on a new literary journal, Biblioteca Italiana. Foscolo at first accepts, but on 30 March 1815, the day before taking the oath of loyalty to the new government, he leaves Italy in an act of self-imposed exile and takes refuge in Switzerland. He is first in Zurich and then in Hottingen. From Switzerland he lashes out at his political and literary enemies with the publication of the satire Didimi clerici prophetae minimi Hypercalypseos liber singularis. He also publishes another edition of the Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis with the false publication details of London, 1814. In September 1816 Foscolo leaves Switzerland and boards a ship that will take him to England where he spends the last eleven years of his life without ever returning to Italy. Foscolo’s English period is marked at first by a triumphal reception as the author of Ortis and as an internationally renowned writer and patriot. He starts the ‘Lettere scritte dall’Inghilterra’, an unpublished work in which he compares England and Italy on the basis of his first ‘unspoiled’ impressions. Another edition of the Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis, published in London by John Murray in 1817, also includes a few chapters of the Viaggio sentimentale. In his early English years Foscolo has access to the library of Holland House and is in close relations with — among others — William Stuart Rose, Roger Wilbraham, and John Cam Hobhouse. He begins a series of collaborations with The Edinburgh Review, The European Review, The London Magazine, The New Monthly Magazine, Quarterly Review, and Westminister Review. These, however, soon bear the mark of tiresome tasks to be completed mostly in far from perfect French and with the help of English translators. In 1818 John Cam Hobhouse includes Foscolo’s Essay on the Present Literature of Italy in his Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold. The text causes a strong reaction on the part of the Italian Romantics who consider themselves underrated and insulted by Foscolo’s opinion of the classical-romantic controversy as an ‘idle enquiry’. In England he devotes himself almost exclusively to a wide range of literary criticism. His main contribution remains a series of essays on Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. Financial difficulties emerge quite early on in Foscolo’s English life. In 1823, following the advice of Lord and Lady Dacre, he reluctantly delivers fourteen public lessons of Italian literature in London. Unable to administer his finances properly and at the same time forced to work for the periodical press in order to ensure a steady income, Foscolo’s last English years are marked by a progressive inability to exert full control over his life. Hounded by creditors and in poor health, he dies in Turnham Green on 10 September 1827. In 1871, soon after the unification of Italy, his body is moved to the church of Santa Croce in Florence. In 1910 Eugenio Donadoni published a seminal study which was regularly reprinted up to the 1960s and which still constitutes one of the few comprehensive

4

Introduction

overviews of the relationship between Foscolo and European culture.6 In 1978, on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Foscolo’s birth, Mario Puppo considered the European cultural aspects of the young Foscolo’s education during his Venetian years, and in 1978 Giuseppe Nicoletti published an annotated catalogue and a critical study of the books owned by Foscolo prior to his voluntary exile in 1815 which shows the writer’s extensive interest in the literature, history, and philosophy of England.7 Nicoletti’s work represents also a most valuable integration of the ‘Piano di studi’ outlined by the eighteen-year-old Foscolo in a letter to a friend, which lists, by topic, the founding works of his literary, historical, and philosophical education. Yet to this day there has not been a systematic study of Foscolo’s ties with English culture as a whole. This book originates from these considerations and from the belief that Foscolo’s personal association with English culture of the late Augustan period and the early Romantic movement ought to be further explored. Comprising more than three thousand letters spanning over three decades, Foscolo’s private correspondence is an extremely valuable source of evidence for monitoring his literary, philosophical, and political views; the Epistolario is also a place where he experiments with literary themes and ambiences and where he exercises an often private form of literary criticism. Foscolo’s letters ultimately produce one of the most complete yet most complex self-portraits in the history of Italy’s modern autobiographical writing. Another reason for the choice of the Epistolario as the primary focus of this study is the fact that Foscolo’s correspondence has not yet been examined in its entirety; all the previous analyses considered either specific periods of Foscolo’s life or particular epistolary exchanges between Foscolo and one (or more) of his correspondents. The 1980s saw the publications of anthologies of Foscolo’s correspondence with Antonietta Fagnani Arese and with Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi, and, ten years later, in her remarkably rich and thorough work La prosa epistolare del Foscolo, Paola Ambrosino analyzed several aspects of Foscolo’s autobiography through his letters.8 Unfortunately this work takes into account only eight years of Foscolo’s life and approaches the letters by subject, thus precluding a diachronic study of Foscolo’s ideas in the areas of literature, philosophy, and politics. The Epistolario is also the only one of Foscolo’s works which, almost two hundred years after the writer’s death, has not yet been fully published. An abridged edition in three volumes was issued in 1850 by Le Monnier, and only in 1949 was the complete edition of Foscolo’s letters first put into print.9 The tenth volume of Foscolo’s Epistolario (which includes the letters of the last three years of his life in England) is still in progress and will appear as the twenty-third volume of the Edizione Nazionale of Foscolo’s collected works. The slow progress on the Epistolario is due to its size (since with its ten volumes it constitutes half of Foscolo’s complete published works) and the difficult task of reconstructing the relationships with his many correspondents, especially during the last beleaguered years of his English exile. The present study therefore represents the first analysis of the relationship between Foscolo and English culture through a reading of all the available published letters, from Foscolo’s Venetian years to 1824, three years before his death.

Introduction

5

Chapter 1 examines the inf luence of Sterne’s prose on Foscolo’s private corresp­ ondence, with particular attention devoted to the translation of A Sentimental Journey; the Epistolario provides evidence for the planning stages of this work during the years 1805–07 and 1812–13. The method and style of this translation have already been addressed in a number of critical analyses, often complete with multiple references to Foscolo’s letters. In 1920 Giovanni Rabizzani looked into the Italian reception of Sterne’s sentimental humour in his book Sterne in Italia: riflessi nostrani dell’umorismo sentimentale, which devotes a chapter to the relationship between Foscolo and Sterne. Pino Fasano’s Stratigrafie foscoliane (1974) locates the ‘narrative stratifications’ of Sterne’s inf luence on Foscolo’s prose, while Claudio Varese’s book Foscolo: sternismo, tempo e persona (1982) remains the most exhaustive examination of the various stages and dynamics of the Foscolo-Sterne dialogue surrounding the translation of A Sentimental Journey. More recently, Olivia Santo­ vetti’s analysis of Sterne’s reception in Italy contextualizes Foscolo’s work within a comprehensive outline of the translation of Sterne into Italian in Venice and Milan during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.10 While the present study does look at how Foscolo’s private correspondence uncovers the stages and modalities of his translation, at the same time it examines the less explored aspects of Foscolo’s epistolary prose in its private dialogue with the father of sentimental humour. It also provides evidence for the central role played by Sterne’s humour in Foscolo’s self-representation, determines the different stages of such inf luence on Foscolo’s literary work, traces the role and the progression of Yorick’s impact on the creation of Didimo’s literary mask, and suggests a possible new chronology in the elaboration of this markedly autobiographical character. These observations lead to an analysis of Foscolo’s three main literary doubles, each one of great artistic and psychological consequence: Jacopo Ortis, Yorick/Didimo Chierico, and Don Quixote. The Epistolario highlights the interactions with their creator, shows their specific functions and limited interchangeability (as claimed by some critics), and illustrates their evolution during Foscolo’s English exile. Chapter 2 considers the correlations between Foscolo’s epistemological views and the philosophy of Locke and Hume. It demonstrates the central inf luence of English empiricism on Foscolo’s theory of knowledge, and on his ethical, aesthetic, and political principles. The analysis of Foscolo’s letters also illustrates how Locke’s philosophy confirmed Foscolo in his anti-metaphysical thinking and supported his strong opposition to German idealism. This chapter also reveals the degree to which the writer’s philosophical beliefs were consistent with Hume’s theory of passions and demonstrates the strong connection between Hume’s analysis of pyrrhonism (or radical scepticism) and Foscolo’s position on this central philosophical issue. Chapter 3 focuses on Foscolo’s views of English writers. It attests Foscolo’s extensive knowledge of eighteenth-century didactic poetry, his fondness for satirical and sentimental writers, his often ambiguous view of Shakespeare, his mixed admiration for Pope, and his in-depth reading of Johnson. Significant attention is paid to Foscolo’s analysis of contemporary English writers, to his negative response towards historical novels and much of contemporary Romanticism, and to his sympathetic insight into Byron as man and artist.

6

Introduction

A diachronic reading of the Epistolario contextualizes Foscolo’s relation with English literature in its entirety, and demonstrates how Sterne’s prose constitutes only one — albeit undoubtedly the most significant — of the British cultural reference points with which, from his youth, he engaged in a dialogical exchange. The publication of the last volume of Foscolo’s letters may shed new light on, or call into question, some of the hypotheses outlined in this book. Whichever is the case, it will be a welcome challenge. Notes to the Introduction 1. Foscolo, Viaggio sentimentale (this volume was printed in Pisa by Firmin Didot on behalf of the Florentine publisher Molini Landi and company); also in EN, V, pp. 37–236. 2. Sterne, A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. 1792: Sterne, Viaggio sentimentale del Sig. Sterne sotto il nome di Yorick. 1812: Sterne, Viaggio sentimentale fatto in Francia da Lorenzo Stern. 3. Published in EN, VI, pp. 1–9. 4. Foscolo, Vera storia. 5. Foscolo, Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis. 6. All references to Donadoni’s book are to the 3rd edition of 1964: see Donadoni, Ugo Foscolo pensatore, critico, poeta. 7. Puppo, ‘Il primo Foscolo e la cultura europea’; Nicoletti, La biblioteca fiorentina. 8. Foscolo, Lacrime d’amore: lettere a Antonietta Fagnani Arese, ed. by Giovanni Pacchiano (1981); Chiades, Addio bello e sublime ingegno, addio: Ugo Foscolo e Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi (1987); Ambrosino, La prosa epistolare del Foscolo (1989). 9. Foscolo, Opere edite e postume (1850); volumes 6–8 of this nine-volume work include a selection of Foscolo’s Epistolario. His complete works are now printed in the Edizione nazionale delle opere di Ugo Foscolo, of which the Epistolario occupies volumes 14–22. 10. Santovetti, ‘The Sentimental, the “Inconclusive”, the Digressive: Sterne in Italy’. See also Santovetti, ‘The Adventurous Journey of Lorenzo Sterne in Italy’.

Chapter 1

v

Sterne’s Presence (and Absence) in the Epistolario 1.1. The Polyphonic Nature of Foscolo’s Letters It is a well established fact that Sterne’s prose and its Didimean offspring play a primary role in Foscolo’s narrative and poetic creations, with a tendency — as Mario Fubini indicates — to incorporate and offset ‘i vari e opposti motivi del suo sentire’ [various and opposed reasons behind his feelings].1 With the ‘Notizia intorno a Didimo Chierico’ that Foscolo places at the end of Didimo’s translation of Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, printed in Pisa in 1813, the image of a literary double deeply related to the Sternean model acquires its definitive shape and form. The choice of a clerical robe that evokes the beloved Irish parson is, however, only the first of a series of literary connections to Sterne’s Yorick. To Didimo, Foscolo ascribes personal traits and philosophical positions that both ref lect his own self and outline a set of practical and ideological aspirations: Didimo embodies another ‘possible’ Foscolo, who is appeased and resigned to the inevitable imperfection of his own existence and of the world. His originality of thought and manners sets him apart from the rest of humankind; at the same time, Didimo’s moral paradoxes reveal his reverence towards any manifestation of human vulnerability and a fierce condemnation of all forms of hypocrisy and deceit.2 Didimo Chierico is also the fictional author of Foscolo’s Hypercalypseos, a satirical work written in Latin and published in Zurich in two editions in 1815 and 1816, and several vestiges of this literary double can be found in his private correspondence.3 Since Rabizzani’s seminal work on the reception of Sterne in Italy, all studies of Foscolo’s Didimean prose have drawn attention to the Sterne-Yorick and FoscoloDidimo analogies. A brief outline of Foscolo’s acquaintance with Sterne’s novels, sermons, and letters therefore constitutes a necessary premise to an inquiry into this extraordinarily productive literary friendship. Foscolo started working on a translation of A Sentimental Journey in 1805 while stationed in France with the Napoleonic army. There he walks — albeit for a short while — in the footsteps of Sterne and of his character Yorick: thus the literary suggestions of an already beloved author are complemented by the intimate experience of re-tracing, after forty years, Sterne’s idiosyncratic journey. The outcome of this ‘archeological pilgrimage’ is the first translation of the novel. At the same time, while in France, Foscolo is under the vivid inf luence of literary impressions and evocations: he

8

Sterne’s Presence (and Absence)

mingles in British circles and is involved in a romantic relationship with a British girl, Sophia Hamilton. She will give birth to Foscolo’s daughter Floriana, whom he will come to know only at the time of his exile in England. In 1812–13 Foscolo resumes Sterne’s translation and thoroughly re-works it. It is a long, laborious task, and at times a burden and a servitude from which he longs to free himself. In September 1812 he writes from Florence to Cornelia Martinetti: ‘Torno allo Sterne e sai tu ch’ei mi fa spesso arrabbiare; [...] e la traduzione non è ella forse una servitù da scolare?’ [I return to Sterne and you know that he often angers me. And is not translation perhaps a scholarly servitude?].4 A few months later in a letter to Silvio Pellico, he writes: ‘Yorick è ito a farsi stampare a Pisa e mi sono tolta dinanzi quella seccaggine: non tradurrò più; Dio guardi me e te e gli amici nostri da tutte le servitù’ [Yorick went to have himself printed in Pisa and this nuisance has been taken from me. I will not translate anymore. May God guard me and you and our friends from all servitude].5 This can be regarded, however, as a momentary impatience. After rescinding the contract with the editor Piatti and securing the publication of the book with Giuseppe Molini in 1813, Foscolo is delighted with the outcome of his work and is by no means ready to set it aside once and for all. The translation of A Sentimental Journey remains in fact an open project for the rest of his life, and he keeps revising the translation well after 1813, as the changes to the four chapters of the Viaggio sentimentale, reprinted as an appendix to the London edition of the Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis, attest.6 The presence of Sternean elements in Foscolo’s narrative works and in the Epistolario is, however, not confined to the years that immediately precede and follow the translation of Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey. Besides, this novel is not the only source of the manifold inf luence exerted on Foscolo by the Irish-born English writer. The Epistolario and the Sesto Tomo dell’Io7 attest to the fact that Foscolo was, indeed, also acquainted with The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, a novel that from the 1760s brought its author an exceptionally widespread European literary fame.8 Olivia Santovetti points out that Foscolo’s Sesto Tomo dell’Io was ‘a fragmented autobiographical novel that revealed something of the English model even in the title (‘sixth tome’, because the first five were still in the mind of the author)’.9 It is not always clear in which edition or when Foscolo read Sterne’s works, but they were quite available — mostly in French translation — on the Venetian market in the second half of the eighteenth century: in 1788 Nouveau Voyage de Sterne en France: suivi de l’Histoire de Le Fever, which included portions of books VII and IX of Tristram Shandy, was published in Venice by Antonio Curti, and a year earlier Formaleoni brought out a new edition of the Voyage sentimental translated in 1770 by Joseph Pierre Frénais.10 Foscolo’s first translation from Sterne is the story of Maria, which appears in Tristram Shandy in 1767 and is resumed a year later in A Sentimental Journey.11 It is possible that the translation of this episode was based on the edition of A Sentimental Journey printed in Paris for Ant. Aug. Renouard (1802), which in the appendix reprinted Maria’s episode from Tristram Shandy, and on which Foscolo based his 1812–13 translation, but there is no evidence to support such a conjecture.12 In book IX, chapter XXIV of Tristram Shandy Maria is depicted as an unfortunate young

Sterne’s Presence (and Absence)

9

woman in the grips of folly after being abandoned by her lover. She spends her days on a beach outside Moulines and plays a melancholy song to the Virgin Mary on her f lute. Shandy meets her and the two barely exchange a few words: gazes and music form the dialogue of this brief sentimental episode. In A Sentimental Journey, Yorick, who remembers Shandy’s tale of poor Maria, goes in search of the girl. He knocks at the door of her house and speaks with her mother, who tells him of the death of her husband who was heartbroken by his daughter’s breakdown, and then he meets Maria along the road to Moulines. She is sitting down with a small dog in her lap. It has replaced the goat that, comments Sterne, ‘had been as faithless as her lover’.13 Maria replies submissively to Yorick’s questions, remembers with pathetic accents the brief encounter, a year earlier, with Mr Shandy, and then tells Yorick of her latest misfortunes: a trip to Rome and her return on foot to her house in France, under mysterious circumstances and shrouded in a daze of madness. Moments of sharp responsiveness alternate with intervals of absent despair that confine her to thoughts of loss and death. Yorick sheds with her tears of compassion and the episode provides Sterne with the opportunity to contemplate the philosophical and moral consequences of a sentimental heart. The two walk together toward Moulines, where they part and Yorick says his final goodbye to the unhappy maiden. In the eighteenth century the story of Maria gained immediate popularity and, as Melvyn New observes, ‘was the single subject of Sterne’s fiction most often illustrated by artists in the next century’.14 It is therefore not surprising that Foscolo was attracted by this quintessentially sentimental tale, which is the source for the ‘Frammento della storia di Lauretta’ incorporated in Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis.15 While, in the first two editions of the novel (1798 and 1802), the source of the ‘Frammento’ was not acknowledged, it is implicitly declared in the 1817 edition: In un libretto inglese ho trovato un racconto di sciagura; e mi pareva a ogni frase di leggere le disgrazie della povera Lauretta. — Il Sole illumina da per tutto ed ogni anno i medesimi guai su la terra! — Or io per non parere di scioperare mi sono provato di scrivere i casi di Lauretta, traducendo per l’appunto quella parte del libro inglese, e togliendovi, mutando, aggiungendo assai poco di mio, avrei raccontato il vero, mentre forse il mio testo è romanzo. [...] Inoltre in cambio di narrare di Lauretta, ho parlato di me.16 [In a small English book, I found a tale of misfortune; and it seemed that with each sentence I read the mishaps of poor Lauretta. — The Sun shines everywhere and every year upon the same misfortunes on earth! — Now, so [that is does] not to seem [as though I were] idle, I have tried to write Lauretta’s ups and downs, translating precisely that part of the English book, and were I to take from it, or alter it by adding very little of my own, I would have narrated real life, whereas my text is perhaps a novel [...] Furthermore, instead of telling about Lauretta I spoke of myself.]

In January 1805 Foscolo announced to Mme Bagien his transliteration of the story of Maria: ‘J’ai relu la mort de Lefèvre [sic], et j’ai transcrit le chapitre de la pauvre Marie’ [I reread the death of Lefèvre [sic], and I transcribed the chapter of poor Mary],17 and in August the translation is complete:

10

Sterne’s Presence (and Absence) nella prima mia lettera vi dissi come ho speso il mio tempo nella sacra solitudine di Calais; onde non ho potuto tradurre la Storia della poor Maria. I frammenti contenuti nel Viaggio sentimentale sono tutti a quest’ora italiani, e quando li avrò intelligibilmente trascritti ve li manderò.18 [in my first letter I told you how I spent my time in the sacred solitude of Calais, hence I could not translate the Story of poor Maria. The fragments contained in the Sentimental Journey are all in Italian at this point, and when I have transcribed them intelligibly, I will send them to you.]

Foscolo’s fondness for sentimental narrative is confirmed by his mention of the story of Le Fever, another of Sterne’s most celebrated and anthologized pieces. It is narrated in book VI of Tristram Shandy (chapters VI-XIII) and relates the last days of Lieutenant Le Fever’s life.19 Fatally wounded, he is lovingly assisted by Tobias Shandy, who also takes care of Le Fever’s son, a young lad destined to become Tristram’s tutor. Undoubtedly, Tristram Shandy’s inf luence is not as easily discernible as that exerted on Foscolo by A Sentimental Journey, but it is nonetheless a seminal work in Foscolo’s sentimental education. As to Foscolo’s knowledge of Sterne’s sermons and letters, their primary sources are indicated in the notes to Viaggio sentimentale, where he often quotes from them. Rabizzani demonstrates how Foscolo largely appropriated the critical apparatus for his translation from the 1801 French translation of Sterne’s novel by Crassous,20 but Barbarisi, on the other hand, subsequently argues that Foscolo’s notes were ground-breaking with respect to the creation of his Didimean literary double.21 In his bibliographical study La biblioteca fiorentina del Foscolo, Nicoletti indicates that among Foscolo’s books, which are now in the collection of the Marucelliana Library in Florence, there is a copy of the Lettres de Sterne à ses amis (La Haye, 1789),22 which does not correspond to the edition mentioned by Crassous in his commentary to the Voyage sentimental; Nicoletti suggests that Foscolo used this edition to double-check Crassous’s translations of Sterne’s letters.23 While the most researched aspect of the Foscolo-Sterne connection is still Foscolo’s translation of A Sentimental Journey, the critical analysis of Sterne’s inf luence on Foscolo’s private correspondence is a fairly recent subject of inquiry which deserves further exploration.24 The first section of the present study looks at this specific aspect of Foscolo’s prose through an examination of the rich web of Sternean inf luences, borrowings, and stimuli in Foscolo’s letters. Since the boundary between private and public writing in Foscolo’s output is particularly blurred, a study of the circumstances and forms in which he articulates his private dialogue with one of his beloved literary models reveals the degree to which Sterne’s prose acts as an undisclosed experimental ground for Foscolo’s narrative moods and themes. It is, in fact, not uncommon in the Epistolario to come across stylistic and thematic ‘grafts’ that reveal Foscolo’s engagement with Sterne’s literary world, and it should be noted that the apparently casual manner in which the Italian writer imitates and re-uses his models is rooted only partially in eighteenthcentury practices. It rather speaks of an unconditional faith in the originality of his creative voice, which is a principle that informs Foscolo’s fictional work (of which the Ortis/Werther analogies constitute probably the most overt and famous

Sterne’s Presence (and Absence)

11

example),25 his private correspondence, and his philosophical syncretism. While the Epistolario illustrates the appropriation — on Foscolo’s part — of a sentimental world in which his private yet fictionalized persona often occupies centre stage, it also permits an investigation of the aesthetic principles that guide the antimetaphysical and anti-Aristotelian Foscolo. Such principles are instrumental to his continuous renegotiation of the concept of imitation, which to him often represents a threat to artistic expression, hence the need to define it theoretically and to exorcize it in artistic practice. But there is more. Sterne’s lesson exerts on Foscolo a moral and civilizing inf luence because, as Claudio Varese observes, his narrative ‘allontana la violenza, l’esclusione rapida, la negazione senza ritorni, l’angustia delle condanne’ [banishes violence, swift elimination, negation without recurrence, [and] the distress of condemnation] and instead ‘ritaglia lo spazio dell’indulgenza e della comprensione, [...] smussa la durezza implacabile dell’univoco’ [carves out a space of leniency and understanding, [...] blunting the implacable harshness of the univocal].26 In Foscolo’s correspondence, more than elsewhere, it is possible to trace this propensity to forgiveness and conciliation, first and foremost towards himself and, consequently, towards the world. The Epistolario records Foscolo’s life since the years marked by the disillusionment of Campo Formio and the tempestuous affair with Antonietta Fagnani Arese. Going through his letters, the reader can witness Foscolo fine-tuning his political and aesthetic opinions and observe his continuous re-appraisal of the principles that regulate the tangled web of human relations. What the reader will not find is any refutation of his principles or radical changes of his philosophical, aesthetic, or political views. Foscolo’s correspondence shows a slow and unremitting process of refinement, an unyielding concentration on his own thoughts and emotions and a progressively resolute focus on the task of writing. The letters are ultimately marked by a process of gradual, resigned, and yet beneficial disillusionment with his own ideals. It is within this context that Foscolo’s adoption of Sterne’s thematic and stylistic traits must be evaluated; it would otherwise be too easily reduced to a quite meaningless exercise in literary emulation. The Epistolario, with its fundamental Sternean component, constitutes a life-long narrative instrumental to the creation and refinement of Foscolo’s literary works, but it is also a self-sufficient entity, governed by an autonomous logic in which openings and retrenchments, interruptions and new beginnings, and dissimulations and confessions are geared towards what Varese defines as a relentless ‘acquisto di umanità’ [acquisition of humanity].27 While addressing these aspects of Foscolo’s letter-writing, two guidelines proved to be extremely useful. The first is a suggestion by Mario Fubini who, in his analysis of the Notizia intorno a Didimo Chierico, observes how Per compiere la storia, o meglio la cronaca della composizione della Notizia, che qui si tenta di tracciare, si dovrebbero riportare, coi frammenti sparsi di abbozzi anteriori alla redazione definitiva, i molti passi delle lettere e di altre opere in prosa e in versi, in cui è la materia, il giro della frase, qualche voce caratteristica di questa prosa didimea.28 [To draw the history, or better the chronicle of the composition of the Notizia, that we are trying to trace here, one should reproduce, together with scattered

12

Sterne’s Presence (and Absence) fragments of earlier drafts of the definitive composition, the many passages of the letters and of other works in prose and in verse, where the subject, turns of phrase, and a few characteristic voices of this Didimean prose are to be found.]

The 1813 version of the Notizia and its 1816 revision present Didimo as a fully developed character in what is the final stage of a long process of elaboration and refinement of the most famous of Foscolo’s literary doubles. This process takes place mainly in the Epistolario, which represents the arena wherein his literary world undergoes a process of maturation and transformation, and where Foscolo puts to the test his literary persona. The identification and analysis of this ‘Didimean and Sternean matter’ not only helps to chronicle the various stages in which the Notizia takes shape, as Fubini anticipates, but it also outlines the development of Foscolo’s life-long relationship with Sterne’s sentimental world. The second guideline comes from Varese who, looking beyond the FoscoloDidimo relation, notes how Sterne’s prose, doveva restare un lievito e uno stimolo, una continua apertura psicologica, non concludersi mai in un’opera vasta e perfetta che continuasse la traduzione del Viaggio sentimentale e accompagnare il Foscolo alla soglia della morte col vagheggiamento di una prosa che rispecchiasse e analizzasse l’uomo non solo nella sua individualità ma anche nei rapporti, nell’uso e nel logorío della vita civile.29 [had to remain a ferment and a spur, a continual psychological opening that never concludes in a vast and perfect work that would have continued the translation of the Sentimental Journey, it had to accompany Foscolo to the threshold of death together with the longing for a prose that would ref lect and analyze man not only in his individuality, but also in his relations, in the custom and in the stress and strain of his civil life.]

The vast and unfinished work informed by Sterne’s ethical and epistemological world-view is, first and foremost, Foscolo’s Epistolario; it is here that this unique relationship materializes, wonderfully summed up once again by Varese: ‘l’efficacia della lettura e della traduzione dello Sterne, non può essere valutata come inf luenza o come fonte, ma come una amicizia geniale, come una forma di collaborazione spirituale’ [the consequence of reading and translating Sterne can not be valued as merely an inf luence or a source, but rather as a genial friendship, as a form of spiritual collaboration].30 The first section of this study on Foscolo and English culture follows chronologically the vestiges of Sterne’s narrative in Foscolo’s letters. It charts the moments in which such traces emerge and records their periodic resurfacing and their concentration at specific junctures in Foscolo’s life. This approach differs from previous analyses and bears potentially significant consequences. If the Epistolario is not only ‘pre-testuale e post-testuale rispetto all’opera, ma è il segno dell’esperienza della persona rispetto al fare poesia e dell’esperienza personale della poesia e della letteratura’ [pre-textual and post-textual with respect to the literary work, but it is a token of the individual’s experience with regard to the making of poetry and of the personal experience of poetry and literature],31 a thorough examination of

Sterne’s Presence (and Absence)

13

Foscolo’s letters reveals a number of formal and linguistic links to Sterne that signal much deeper affinities and existential tensions. It is then possible to extend to the Epistolario Francesca Testa’s observation that the ‘duttile intonazione sterniana che si piega ai registri più diversi’ [malleable Sternean tone that bends to the most diverse registers] can be considered a sort of ‘controcanto agli slanci ortisiani’ [countermelody to Ortis’s impulses].32 In this Sternean/Didimean ‘countermelody’ Jacopo Ortis’s bleak outlook on life is resolved into the acceptance — sometimes sharply polemical, but more often benignly resigned — of humankind’s precarious existence, of his unfortunate destiny as a ‘social animal’, and of the necessity and yet vanity of religious and moral systems whose function is to control and contain humankind’s nihilistic tendencies.33 Sterne’s ethical and epistemological lesson, together with Foscolo’s own philosophical empiricism and a political pragmatism rooted in the Italian Renaissance tradition, help him fine-tune his thoughts in this direction. Sterne’s lesson also plays a major role in another aspect of Foscolo’s private writing: the evolution of his self-representation. A study of the Epistolario reveals, in fact, how Foscolo provides, over the years, a three-fold portrayal of his own self that finds embodiment in three specific literary figures: Ortis, Didimo/Yorick, and Don Quixote. These are the three characters with whom, at different times, the writer exchanges fictional roles and upon whose behaviour he feigns to model his own. A diachronic analysis of Foscolo’s self-representation shows how it is at first Sterne’s inf luence that provides the writer with the literary means to overcome Ortis’s ‘death-call’ and to set aside a character who had exhausted his ethical and aesthetic function. In the private world of the Epistolario, Didimo’s voice emerges quite early. It is imbued with sentimental accents and melancholic pre-romantic heroism, and only later on develops into Didimo Chierico’s fully formed literary mask. During Foscolo’s Swiss and British exile, the letters unveil how the Didimean alter ego is progressively paired with and ultimately replaced by the image of Don Quixote with whom Foscolo identifies more and more in the last years of his life. This triad of alter egos mirrors Foscolo’s psychological and artistic trajectory. Sterne is the agent of mediation and provides the moral balance between Foscolo’s two main utopian views with, on the one hand, the radical and uncompromising ethic of Ortis’s martyrdom and, on the other, the quixotic escape in unattainable political and literary ideals that life unfailingly belies. In this uneven trajectory, characterized by steady progressions and abrupt swerves, Sterne’s moral compass brings Foscolo time and again to reckon with life and to reconcile (with or without solution) his own contradictions and those of his fellow human beings. This is the main lesson that Foscolo derives from Sterne’s narrative and it is for this reason that the Didimo/Yorick alter ego remains Foscolo’s most authentic self-representation, willing to confront kairos, his own time and the time of history.

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1.2. A Sentimental Journey and Foscolo’s Epistolary Narrative The first stylistic and thematic traces of Sterne’s prose in the Epistolario can be located well before the 1805–07 translation of A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, at the time marked by his work on the revised version of Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis, published in October 1802 and by his stormy relationship with Antonietta Fagnani Arese. The character of Didimo Chierico is not yet outlined, but his voice surfaces in the private world of Foscolo’s letters. If Didimo develops in what Mario Fubini defines as ‘l’anti-Ortis, o per meglio dire l’Ortis sopravvissuto’ [the anti-Ortis, or better said, Ortis outlived], he can do so by incorporating, from his very inception, Sterne’s irony and a more detached view of life’s passions and ideals.34 Foscolo’s display of such a self-ironic and unemotional pose early on in his letters is quite telling and shows that Didimo is Ortis’s brother long before acquiring an autonomous fictional voice complementary to that of the doomed hero. The first letter in typical Sternean style appears in the summer of 1801, written from Milan and addressed to an unidentified woman. Plinio Carli, the editor of the first volume of the Epistolario, observes in this text a ‘umorismo fra amaro e sorridente’ [humour half bitter and half amiable]: Io voglio scommettere cento contr’uno che voi vi siete dimenticata della magra e malinconica persona del povero Foscolo; e che saran almen venti giorni che non vi è venuto su que’ be’ labbruzzi il mio nome. Dite davvero: voi non sapete se io sia vivo o morto: eppure quel che non ha potuto farmi un anno addietro la fame di Genova, me lo ha quasi fatto questo paese di letame dove o conviene morire o al più vegetare. Insomma sono stato malato, e malato gravemente; e non credo di essere guarito se non per bevere ancora più amaramente nel calice della vita, di cui veramente sono stanco; — ma da parte la malinconia: che fate voi?35 [I want to bet a hundred to one that you forgot the meagre and melancholic person of poor Foscolo, and that it has probably been at least twenty days since my name has reached your handsome little lips. Speak truthfully: you do not know if I am alive or dead. Yet that which a year ago the famine of Genoa failed to make of me, I have almost been made by this country of manure where it is best to die or at the most to vegetate. In sum, I have been ill, and gravely ill, and I believe that I was cured in order to drink even more bitterly from the cup of life, of which I am really tired — but melancholy aside, what are you up to?]

Foscolo talks also about nurturing his ‘care illusioni’ [dear illusions] and of his habit of ‘non obbedire che al cuore’ [obeying nothing but his heart], and he sends the recipient a goodnight kiss purely imagined but still not very chaste. The letter is crafted with a fine balance between disillusionment and farce, brooding thoughts and ironic self-complacency. The ‘magra e malinconica persona del povero Foscolo’ [meagre and melancholic person of poor Foscolo] who greets the reader is a quixotic reminder and a Sternean turn of phrase that reoccurs quite frequently in the Epistolario. The letter is also characteristic of the way in which Foscolo approaches humour: whereas bitter irony — often in the form of self-irony — is quite congenial to the Italian writer as a mode of conveying his intellectual and

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15

sentimental views, direct and overt humour is rarely present in Foscolo’s letters. He loves humour and those writers who can express it in a wide range of shades and forms: the ‘Piano di Studi’ records in fact the names of Cervantes, Rabelais, Swift, Pope, and Parini (although Sterne and Montaigne, the two main sources of inspiration for Foscolo’s ironic and satirical vein, are here not listed), but he never considers himself one of them.36 Foscolo first experiments with humour in La Chioma di Berenice,37 but only rarely can his laughter sustain the balance of irony and tragedy. From his youth, Foscolo’s irony is infused with a tragic streak and manifests itself in ill-conceived sarcasm; his laughter is thus often fierce and filled with anger, and the lightness of a detached and magnanimous gaze is quickly contaminated, dissolving into resentment and bitterness.38 Humour is only a mask that conceals an illusory harmony, and in the end discloses hidden, unhealed wounds. In a letter to Ippolito Pindemonte, written on 9 February 1804, Foscolo ref lects on the nature of his humour in La Chioma di Berenice, where his laughter, aimed at scholars and pedants, did not achieve what he had intended. He observes: ‘Per la compiacenza di tenere lo staffile del ridicolo, ho staffilato forse me stesso’ [by kindly holding the whip of the ridiculous, I almost f logged myself ].39 Laughter must arise spontaneously and be a lens through which the world can be observed, otherwise it alters and distorts that world without interpreting it and in this there can be no gratification. Foscolo learns from Sterne’s narrative — among other things — this dimension of humour. Once Foscolo is able to acquire a beneficial detachment from the feelings of disdain, anger, or melancholy that so often provide him with the stimulus for artistic creation, he finds in irony a spiritual and literary mode of action. It is, however, a peculiar type of irony — ‘candidamente ed affettuosamente storica’ [candid and affectionately historical],40 as he defines it in the Notizia intorno a Didimo Chierico — of which the letter sent to Paolo Giovio in early December 1808 is a good example. After his move to Pavia, he tells his friend how he has regained ‘l’ilarità dell’ingegno: anzi un certo languore che gli amanti chiamano sentimentale e che dovrebbe essere chiamato meditativo dagl’ingegni letterati: e giova assai allo studio, tanto più che si mangia meno, e si dorme poco’ [his mind’s cheerfulness: or better still a certain languor that lovers call sentimental and that should be called meditative by cultured minds. And it is greatly beneficial to studying, more so because one eats less and sleeps little].41 In the first decade of the 1800s, Foscolo often quotes Sterne’s expression that ‘il riso e il sorriso aggiungono qualche cosa alla brevità di questa vita mortale’ (‘every time a man smiles, but much so when he laughs, he adds something to this fragment of life’), and the catchphrase acknowledges his indebtedness to the Irishborn English writer for a view of the world that represents a long-lasting, albeit difficult, aspiration.42 In a letter to ‘la saggia Isabella’ [wise Isabella], written on 24 November 1806, he fully reveals the nature of this conf lict: parmi d’avere osservato che i muscoli del mio volto si movono difficilmente al riso; pure il riso e il sorriso aggiungono qualche cosa alla brevità di questa vita mortale — ma s’io non rido è più colpa della natura che mia, onde ho cantati i sepolcri.43

16

Sterne’s Presence (and Absence) [I believe I have observed that the muscles of my face move with difficulty toward laughter; yet laughter and smiling add something to the brevity of this mortal life — but if I do not laugh it is more nature’s fault than my own, hence I wrote poetry on tombs.]

Just over a year later, he is affected by a deep melancholia and writes to his friend Ferdinando Arrivabene that his condition is so severe that when people meet him, they immediately enquire about his health ‘ed io rido; ma il mio ridere non passa nel cuore’ [and I laugh, but my laughter does not reach my heart].44 And again, in the abovementioned letter to Paolo Giovio, Foscolo observes: E davvero ch’io nelle lunghe giornate di solitudine, di meditazione, e di malinconia ho conosciuto, che se un riso e un sorriso aggiungono alcun che alla brevità di questa vita mortale, ad ogni modo le sole lagrime insegnano la verità; insegnano a pentirsi de’ propri falli e a compatire gli altri, e a versar quel po’ d’olio e di mèle, che si ha nel cuore, sulle piaghe dell’umanità.45 [And indeed, during the long days of solitude, meditation and melancholy I came to know that even if laughter and a smile add something to the brevity of this mortal life, only tears teach the truth. They teach a man to repent for his errors, to sympathize with others, and to pour that bit of oil and honey that he has in his heart on the wounds of humanity.]

This is not so much a correction of Sterne’s thought, but rather a meaningful addition that allows one to locate and to define more accurately Foscolo’s sentimental inclination. His laughter stems from melancholy and life’s aff lictions and it reveals the struggle against shattered hopes and time’s unredeemable dimension. It is a laughter that does not warm the heart, but rather discloses life’s void and represents therefore also a pressing appeal to the comfort of illusions. Alcini well interpreted this particular aspect of Foscolo’s irony when she writes of the ‘incapacità tutta romantica di Foscolo di sentire a pieno la leggerezza dell’ironia sterniana e ciò che ad essa conseguiva’ [Foscolo’s Romantic inability to share fully the lightness of Sternean irony and what ensued] and points to a ‘scissione tra l’aspirazione a sorridere e l’incapacità di farlo’ [split between the aspiration to smile and the inability to do it].46 In the Epistolario, Foscolo measures his prose against Sterne’s lashing yet subtle and humane irony and, although he never quite articulates it either in his letters or in his creative work, he fully interprets and renders it in his translation of A Sentimental Journey. Whereas in Sterne’s narrative it is impossible to separate the humorous from the sentimental, since the two constantly converge, mix, and illuminate each other, this distinction is not only allowed but necessary in Foscolo’s works, where in fact one register excludes the other. He is naturally inclined towards the sentimental, and, more specifically, its pathetic manifestations, while the humorous remains always awkward and somehow foreign to him.47 In a letter written in the early 1800s to Antonietta Fagnani Arese — whose mother, according to a fortunate coincidence, had been Sterne’s mistress in Italy — Foscolo portrays himself on a trip to Bergamo: ‘La mia vita è un continuo romanzo’ [my life is a continuous novel], he says in the opening lines, as a reply to Antonietta’s famous epithet of ‘romanzetto ambulante’ [an itinerant romance].48

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Foscolo, however, immediately specifies what kind of novel he has in mind: ‘Ho fatto appena trenta miglia, e... ho veduto cose da piangere come un fanciullo’ [I travelled just thirty miles, and... I saw things to make a man cry like a child].49 What follows closely resembles the narrative mood and style of Sterne’s journey. The image of his beloved Antonietta fades away, becoming a mere pretext for the introduction of a sentimental scene, in which Foscolo — as a contemporary Yorick — retells the adventure of his soul: Da un libraio ho veduto un vecchio venerabile di ottanta anni, e più... Egli è Greco del paese di mia Madre. Visse gran tempo viaggiando, si stancò del mondo, e si fece monaco a Vallombrosa in Toscana. Studiò cinquant’anni il greco e l’ebreo... Egli è dottissimo: sa tutte le lingue moderne; ed è autore di un libro ch’io da gran tempo conosceva: affaticò trent’anni per compirlo... Ma questo libro fu appunto la sua rovina. Aveva in una annotazione lodato il Sinodo di Pistoia e le riforme di Leopoldo. Al tempo de’ Tedeschi e degli insorgenti in Toscana fu per queste poche righe imprigionato. Così vecchio fu strascinato in abito monacale di prigione in prigione per tutta Toscana e Lombardia. Dopo la battaglia di Marengo si trovò nelle carceri di Bergamo. Uscì nudo, infermo, affamato. Da qualche tempo egli è qui, vivendo... sa il Cielo! a spese dell’aria, e agonizzando in una lunga morte. Conosco il nome della sua famiglia, e molto più il merito del suo libro. Nelle sue sventure l’ho trovato fermo ed intrepido... Studiate, — mi disse, — io ho sofferto assai sventure e terribili passioni nella vita, e non ho a lodarmi né del Cielo né degli uomini. Ma pure talvolta vorrei rinascere per poter studiare... E lo studio solo mi consola in questo stato... Egli tacque per non dovere arrossire della sua indigenza. Eterno Iddio!...50 [At a bookseller I saw a venerable old man of eighty years, and more... He is Greek, from my Mother’s birth place. He spent a long time travelling, grew weary of the world and became a monk at Vallombrosa in Tuscany. He studied Greek and Hebrew for fifty years... He is very learned: knows all modern languages, and is the author of a book that I have known for a long time. He laboured thirty years to complete it... But this book was also his downfall. In an annotation he had praised the Synode of Pistoia and Leopold’s reforms. He was imprisoned for these few lines during the time of the German occupation and of the insurgents in Tuscany. This old man, he was dragged from prison to prison throughout Tuscany and Lombardy in his monk’s attire. After the battle of Marengo, he found himself in the Bergamo jail. He got out naked, weak, and famished. For some time he has been here, living on what... Heaven knows! with close to nothing and agonizing in a lengthy death. I know the name of his family, and the merit of his book even more. I found him resolute and brave in his misfortunes... Study, — he told me, — I suffered many misfortunes and terrible passions in life, and I can praise neither Heaven nor men. And yet sometimes I wish I could live again in order to study... And study alone consoles me in this state... He was silent so as not to blush from his indigence. God Eternal!...]

The old scholar’s dignified and composed attitude in the face of adversity brings to mind the episode of the Patisser in A Sentimental Journey. Sterne’s character is an officer of the French army who received the cross of St Louis for military service but is now destitute and compelled by poverty to sell his pâtés outside the royal palace. This circumstance puzzles Yorick, who inquires about the Chevalier de St

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Louis’s story. The reader is informed that, after his regiment was reformed and he lost this source of income, he had no other means of subsistence and was now ‘in a wide world without friends, without a livre — and indeed, said he, without any thing but this — (pointing, as he said it, to his croix)’. At this point Yorick observes: ‘The poor chevalier won my pity, and he finish’d the scene, with winning my esteem too’.51 Sterne is always able to close his sentimental episodes with a positive resolution that ‘legitimates’ his humour and pervades it with an ineffable levity. In fact, Sterne informs the reader that nine months after their encounter, the patisser received from the king a pension, which marked the end of his indigence. Foscolo, conversely, ends his tale on a sorrowful and unresolved note. The identity of the ‘venerabile studioso’ [venerable scholar] has been the object of repeated speculations that have not led to a definite answer. Biographical details aside, the most relevant element is that Foscolo brings this alleged personal experience within the realm of sentimental narrative. It is a meaningful literary process that reveals both Foscolo’s attention to the profound impact exerted by political events on individual lives (always a prominent theme: it is a main concern at the time of the Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis’s composition and publication) and his interest in those intimate aspects that transcend incidental circumstances and history’s inescapable wounds. This brief tale is an indication of how Foscolo begins to internalize Sterne’s lesson quite early on, close to the time he wrote his early novel. Didimo’s view of the world is born out of this progressive detachment from reality’s overwhelming impact on the individual, which led Jacopo Ortis to his inevitable and untimely death. Yet, rather than being an interpreter of Sterne’s sentimental narrative, Foscolo appears — at least in these early stages — as a character from that world. The episode of the old scholar establishes an analogy between Foscolo and Yorick who, during his travels, comes across unforeseen adventures in which the spiritual dimension overtakes the account of factual events. However, in Foscolo the sentimental traveller’s sensitivity, which is a close companion of melancholy, borders — at times — on the pathological. As he writes to Mme Amélie Bagien from Boulogne-sur-Mer on 25 October 1805, in a letter in which he announces the completion of the Viaggio sentimentale, ‘c’est une maladie que de m’attacher à celui que je recontre sur mon chemin, qui passe, et qui me quitte pour toujours’ [it is an illness, this attaching myself to those I encounter on my path, who pass by, and who leave me forever]. Furthermore, he adds, this time with confident and playful irony: ‘O vieillesse! je n’espère ma guérison que de ta main, si toutefois tu ne me fermera la porte au nez’ [O old age! I do not hope for healing except by your hand, but only if you do not shut the door in my face].52 When in January 1805 Foscolo writes to Amélie Bagien that he re-read the story of Le Fever and finished the translation of the story of Maria, he is under the inf luence of the vivid impressions exerted on him by Sterne’s prose, and it is therefore not surprising that a sentimental mood pervades this letter, with remarks on how she will soon forget him, on his solitary life, and on the bitter-sweet taste of memory.53 His French sojourn is, as we have seen, instrumental to the intentionally ambi­ valent threefold process of translation of, identification with, and emulation of the

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author of A Sentimental Journey and his main character. Foscolo’s famous words, with which he communicates his draft of the notes to the Viaggio sentimentale, attest such ambivalence: J’ai achevé Sterne; maintenant j’y fais des notes: j’ecris les folies, les espérances, les opinions, les erreurs, les souvenirs, les remarques de M.r Foscolo en France: ma plume babouille sans attendre les conseils du peu de bon-sens qui me reste; mon humour dicte, et l’art se tait.54 [I have finished Sterne. I am presently writing the notes about it. I write the follies, hopes, opinions, errors, memories, and remarks of Mr Foscolo in France. My pen writes drivel without waiting for the advice of the small bit of good sense that is left to me. My mood dictates, and art is silent.]

It is not clear how many of the notes to the translation Foscolo wrote in France and how many were added at the time of the 1813 edition of the Viaggio sentimentale.55 What is certain is that the reference to his pen being governed by a will independent from his own volition echoes Sterne’s words: ‘Ask my pen, — it governs me, — I govern not it’.56 The emergence of the fictional character of Nathaniel Cookman, who can be considered Didimo Chierico’s very first literary ancestor, is another relevant connection to the notes to the Viaggio sentimentale. After his military service in France, Foscolo is back in Italy as a captain of the Italian contingent of the Napoleonic army and in May 1806 he explains to Nicolò Bettoni how he plans to justify the existence of those ‘opinioni, errori, ricordi, osservazioni del Signor Foscolo in Francia’ [opinions, errors, memories, observations of Mr. Foscolo in France].57 He will imagine being given A Sentimental Journey by a certain Nathaniel Cookman, together with the pages that contain Cookman’s observations jotted down in pre-revolutionary France and some notes on post-revolutionary French customs. In the 1813 edition of the Viaggio sentimentale there is, however, no more trace of Cookman. Fubini observes how he represents Foscolo’s intention ‘di frapporre tra sé e il lettore una figura che fosse l’interprete dei suoi pensieri e dei suoi sentimenti’ [to place between himself and the reader a figure that might serve as the interpreter of his thoughts and of his feelings],58 while Paolo Rambelli defines him as ‘un diaframma tra la propria figura reale e quella (melo)drammatizzata’ [a screen between his real person and his (melo)dramatized self ].59 But who was Nathaniel Cookman? This literary double is modelled on an Irish officer who had been a war prisoner in Valenciennes before his successful escape. It was, of course, not a random choice. This intermediary between Foscolo and Sterne’s text fulfils two essential requirements: Cookman allows Foscolo to gravitate towards the British linguistic and cultural milieu, to deal with one of its most celebrated texts, and, at the same time, to remain at the margins of that world. An Irish prisoner was then a perfect medium and one can only speculate that Cookman handed Foscolo his copy of A Sentimental Journey, written by an Irish-born writer, out of a sentiment of national pride for which the Italian captain would have a deep appreciation. It is quite tempting also to read Foscolo’s love relationship with the young English woman Sophia Hamilton, mother of his daughter Floriana, within the broad context of Sternean inf luences.60 Foscolo met the young Sophia (Fanny) in France when he found himself living among the English people who formed the

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community of political interns at Valenciennes,61 and while this is — and ought to remain — a mere hypothesis, it is Foscolo himself who, in a letter written on 1 May 1809 to Giambattista Giovio, suggests a faint divide, in his life and his work, between inspiration and emulation: Bisogna pure che nelle lettere, e nella vita io abbia esempi da imitare e da fuggire; e ch’io sia fortemente compreso dal senso e dalle ragioni eccitatemi dagli esempi; e che finalmente e scrivendo e parlando io dica deliberatamente ciò ch’io penso, e mostrimi tal quale io mi sono perch’altri elegga di seguirmi o fuggirmi; e così vorrei che ogni uomo facesse nel mondo.62 [I really need, in art and in life, examples to imitate and to shun, and [I need] to be deeply affected by the feelings and the reasons that such examples awake in me. Finally, in writing and speaking, I [must] deliberately say what I think, and reveal myself as I am so that others may elect to follow or to f lee me. And this is how I would like each man to behave in this world].

The need to be ‘compreso dal senso e dalle ragioni eccitate dagli esempi’ [affected by the feelings and the reasons stimulated by these examples] goes beyond the literary inf luence exerted by his literary models and there seems to be at work a complex and fully acknowledged mechanism of identification from which he can derive a more authentic and free expression of his own individuality. From a letter to Ippolito Pindemonte written on 26 July 1806, we learn that Foscolo is currently reading Edward Gibbon and, while debating the subject of the Giunte veronesi al Vocabolario della Crusca a few days later, he quotes to Pindemonte a passage from Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey: In honest truth, and upon a more candid revision of the matter, trovo bello, e buono, ed utilissimo questo Vocabolario veronese; e ne ringrazio l’Autore ad onta che’ei m’abbia strapazzato senza ch’io abbia mai avuto né intenzione pure di offenderlo, sì come né mi toccano le sue ingiurie, né intendo di vendicarmi.63 [In honest truth, and upon a more candid revision of the matter, I find the Veronese dictionary beautiful, and good, and most useful. And I thank its Author, despite the fact that he scolded me even though I never intended to offend him, since his insults do not touch me, and I do not intend to take my revenge upon him.]

The sentence in italics is a direct borrowing from A Sentimental Journey’s chapter ‘The Wig. Paris’. Foscolo ventures again on this stylistic interplay in a letter to Giustina Renier Michiel written from Brescia in the summer of 1807: Le donnicciuole del vicinato mi adorano come un eremita; e la gente di garbo fugge il taciturno pitagoreo. Ma io serbo the sportability of chit-chat per isfoggiarla tutta con voi.64 [The charming women in the neighbourhood worship me as if I were a hermit, and good mannered people shun the taciturn Pythagorean. But I reserve the sportability of chit-chat in order to f launt it all with you.]

This time the English expression is taken from the chapter ‘The Passport. Ver­ sailles’. In 1808 Foscolo writes to Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi another ‘sentimental’ letter in which his memories are triggered instead by a verse of Thomas Gray’s

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‘Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard.’ Foscolo asks Isabella to intercede with the Prefect Serbelloni on behalf of a man by the name of Scarsellini. He is a family man ‘non senza studio ed ingegno’ [not without study and talent],65 who hopes to obtain a vice-prefecture. Foscolo first met him in Venice, together with Isabella. [...] e mi ricordo che passeggiando con la mia Isabella lo incontrammo nella contrada de’ corazzieri. Tu allora ti lagnavi del suo poco spirito; ed io risposi quel verso di Gray = Tarpò al bell’estro povertà le piume = vidi allora un raggio di pietà difondersi [sic] su tutta la tua fisionomia, ed io t’amai — t’amai assai più. Ricordati dunque, mia dolcissima amica, e di que’ passeggi, e di quel verso, e di quel sentimento di compassione che ti fece più bella.66 [[...] and I remember that strolling with my Isabella we met him in the district of the cuirassiers. At the time you complained about his lack of spirits, and I replied with a verse from Gary = Chill Penury repress’d their noble rage = I then saw a gleam of pity spread over your countenance, and I loved you — I loved you much more. Remember therefore, my sweetest friend, those strolls, and that verse, and that feeling of compassion that enhanced your beauty.]

Compassion is the highest virtue, says Ortis in his letter from Ventimiglia, after a disconsolate ref lection on the fate of people and nations, all equally subject to history’s unpredictable fortunes and to men’s everlasting desire to dominate over other men. This private compassion, which seems to survive only in life’s crevices, but forever marks — as an underground river — the inner landscape of people’s lives, is fully Sternean. In the same year, 1808, Foscolo writes about the ‘celeste virtù della compassione, unica virtù disinteressata ne’ petti mortali’ [heavenly virtue of compassion, the only impartial virtue in mortal breasts]67 in a letter to Vincenzo Monti, where he indicates his intention to write a novel for which he had the idea many years earlier — in 1795, during a trip from Venice to Padova along the river Brenta. It should have been a sentimental novel based on the study of passions and it would display the erudition of Barthélemy’s Viaggio d’Anacarsi, Ortis’ morality, and the fervor of the ‘antica Eloisa’ [ancient Heloise].68 The main character was to be Olimpia Morata, a young woman from Ferrara who was ‘bella, dottissima ed infelice [...] che amava un giovane protestante col quale visse raminga e morì sciagurata ed ebbe tomba straniera’ [beautiful, extremely learned, and unfortunate [...] who loved a young Protestant man with whom she spent a wandering life and died a wretch, buried in a foreign land].69 Foscolo states that the political and religious opinions ‘saranno discusse e applicate alle passioni’ [will be discussed and applied to passions]70 and while this aspect of the novel seems to echo Ortis’s narrative strategy, Olimpia is closely related to Sterne’s Maria and her Italian counterpart Lauretta. She is the victim of an unhappy love for which she sacrifices her life and as a young woman is destined to wander without ever regaining control of her own existence. Fubini considers this novel (in absentia) a work that portrays the struggle between Catholics and Protestants and locates it within Foscolo’s fascination with religious subjects.71 It is undoubtedly so, but there is more. Foscolo explains to Monti that the novel was born out of his need to scrutinize passions, of which religious and philosophical ideas are two of the main defining elements; still,

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they are instrumental to the ‘moral in action’ that Foscolo wants to portray. The old Pyrronist, a fatherly figure and a friend of the young Protestant, seems to be the embodiment of the writer himself, under the guise of a more mature, disillusioned, and compassionate Jacopo Ortis. Although barely outlined, this character is deeply entwined with Didimo and owes a great deal to Sterne’s Yorick. Varese detects in him also some elements of the character of Diogene from the Sesto Tomo dell’Io, the brief, incomplete, and loosely autobiographical narrative that Foscolo writes between 1799 and 1801.72 Foscolo describes the old pyrronist as pieno di compassione per gli errori e le sventure dell’uomo, pieno di dubbi su le sentenze de’ sapienti e de’ teologi, pieno di rassegnazione su la necessaria malvagità degli uomini, e su la perpetua e irredimibile schiavitù delle nazioni. Ed egli co’ suoi consigli, e co’ suoi beneficj verserà tutto l’olio e tutto il méle che la pietà e l’amicizia può dare alla gioventù e all’infortunio.73 [full of compassion for the errors and the misfortunes of men, full of doubts about the maxims of wise men and theologians, full of resignation about the necessary evil of men, and the perpetual and irredeemable slavery of nations. And he, with his advice, and with his favours, will pour all the oil and all the honey that compassion and friendship can bestow upon youth and mischance.]

Foscolo, though, is neither Didimo nor Yorick; compassion and understanding are in him constant aspirations, always imperilled by the violent impact of passions. He needs those sentiments first and foremost to come to terms with himself and to craft his own inner image.74 Sterne, who is more solidly anchored to these emotions and their manifestations, in his prose is able to address any moral concern — which is always already resolved before being articulated on the page — with a lightness and irony unmatched by Foscolo. As Fasano observes, addressing the relation between the two writers: ‘Sterne descrive un personaggio che suscita compassione, Foscolo canta la propria compassione’ [Sterne describes a character that illicits compassion, Foscolo celebrates his own compassion].75 An extremely meaningful phase of Sterne’s inf luence on Foscolo’s epistolary prose is manifest in the years 1812–13, immediately before, during, and after the resumed translation of A Sentimental Journey.76 The earliest references to this work are found in a letter written to Cornelia Martinetti on 19–20 August 1812 and in an undated letter addressed to Count Petrettin (a correspondent yet to be fully identified), whose style suggests the new involvement with Sterne’s text. The letter to Petrettin was probably written in the spring of 1812 when Foscolo, who was ‘malato, dissanguato da tre salassi e intisichito dai bagni dalla dieta e dal letto’ [sick, bled white by three bloodlettings and consumptive from the baths, his diet, and his confinement to bed], went in search of a hat to bestow as a present to Petrettin’s wife.77 The prose is blithe and amiable, and the tone displays an affable mockery that takes on a compassionate humour. His reckless and misleading imagination, sternean and quixotic at the same time, creates a beautiful picture of a woman, but he cannot retain it for long and after coddling her for a while he lets her go, fully aware that he is past his prime and that his claims over her are, to say the least, unreasonable. The dream is shattered, but without any hint of despair: it fades away together with its intimate and resigned prose. Thanks to Sterne’s lesson, Foscolo is

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able to maintain a tone of tender and affable self-pity, and to contain the tragic note that his pen so often struggles to release: Or io prego tutti i Genii della moda dell’eleganza e del capriccio perché quel cappellino piaccia alla Contessa ed a voi quant’è piaciuto alle mie amiche ed a me. Ed io l’ho guardato e riguardato; e senz’avvedermene la mia fantasia, che è la più scapestrata e ingannevole maga ch’io m’abbia mai conosciuto, ha messo sotto quel cappellino e que’ fiori una bellissima immagine; e l’ho vestita a mio modo, e l’ho animata, e le ho parlato, e quasi mi rispondeva. Ma io che da molto tempo in qua cominciai a temere della fantasia e della realtà, ho chiusi gli occhi; ho pensato all’età che m’abbandonò; ed ho lasciato frattanto che l’immagine bella si dileguasse. Poc’anzi, prima d’andare a letto, mi sono guardato allo specchio per compassionare il mio magro e malinconico volto così malconcio dalla febbre; e ho dato ragione alle belle se corrono ove trovano più lume di bellezza e di gioventù. E spesso nel toccarmi il cuore sento che ha battuto ormai troppo; e mi domanda riposo.78 [Now I beseech all the Spirits of elegant and capricious fashion that this little hat may please the Countess and yourselves as much as it pleased me and my female friends. And I looked at it over and over; and, without realizing it, my imagination, which is the most reckless and misleading enchantress that I have ever known, placed a most beautiful image under this little hat and those f lowers. I dressed her as I wished, gave her life, and spoke to her, and she almost replied to me. But I, who had long since begun to fear fantasy and reality, closed my eyes, thought about my youth that abandoned me, and in the meantime let the beautiful vision fade away. A little while earlier, before going to bed, I looked in the mirror to sympathize with my meagre and melancholic face [that was] in a sorry state from the fever, and admitted that the beautiful women are right to run where they find more light of beauty and youth. And often in touching my heart I feel that it has beat too much, and asks me for rest.]

A careful reading of the Epistolario reveals that quite often Foscolo’s stylistic changes herald his entry into the sphere of inf luence of one of his literary alter egos. In the case of Sterne, this is a reccurring phenomenon that allows Foscolo to become the fictional object of his own epistolary writing and to rehearse the narrative traits and the stylistic devices later associated with Didimo Chierico. From the letter to Cornelia Martinetti it seems that Foscolo started working on the translation of A Sentimental Journey in August 1812, but one ought to be wary of the writer’s own declarations that too often are intended to mislead the reader rather than to provide him with accurate information. The letter to Petrettin, mentioned above, which seems to predate that written to Cornelia Martinetti, suggests that Foscolo might have resumed Sterne’s translation four months earlier, in the spring of 1812. While the relevance of the letter to Cornelia for the chronology of the Viaggio sentimentale has been widely acknowledged, it is also an essential document for an understanding of the circumstances that allegedly bring Foscolo to this literary project. The long letter is an almost uninterrupted meditation on the nature of his love and passions, in which Foscolo confesses that Cornelia is a dangerous woman who is able to excite in him a passion similar to the powerful and devastating love that he experienced for Maddalena Bignami. Against this backdrop, he examines

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the course of his life and those forces that determine and rule his actions: nature — he claims — destined him to live and to die alone, and what at first might seem a sentimental quip is actually the result of a rigorous analysis of those principles that preside over his emotional life. Foscolo clearly identifies his need to foster an unrelenting nostalgia for good things he has never had; hence his longing for love, kindness, and grace, and his need to to shun it all ‘continuando pur sempre a volgere gli occhi e il desiderio verso di loro’ [continuing nonetheless to direct his eyes and his desire towards them].79 The reason for this resides in the nature of his love, whose roots are essentially tragic. Comparing it to a baleful god, he describes it as a love ‘fierissimo, onnipotente, ed assoluto, e pertinace’ [most fierce, omnipotent, absolute, and tenacious], which will offer to the woman who submits to it only ‘affannosa e terribile servitù’ [laborious and terrible servitude].80 Cornelia’s subtle mind saw through it and knows this uncomfortable truth. Fully aware of the destructive power of his love, Foscolo takes comfort in the thought that she will one day forget him and find fulfillment in a more gratifying passion that will shine ‘d’un tal lume che riscaldi e non arda’ [with a light that warms but does not burn].81 This imaginary circumstance brings to his mind some English verses that he purportedly quotes by heart and then translates for Cornelia: There constant love with equal ardor glows Nor languid ebbs, nor yet tumultuous f lows; With faith unalter’d, resolutely just, No sport of passion, and no slave of lust; Such is the state the blest enjoy above, The purest reason, join’d to purest love.82

Foscolo does not translate the penultimate line, and adds ‘fraternamente’ [affectionately] to the last verse: ‘un amore purissimo insomma, alleato fraternamente a una ragione purissima’ [pure love, in other words, affectionately allied to a very pure reason].83 The exclusion of any reference to the afterworld reveals his resistance towards the metaphysical dimension, especially in the realm of passion and emotion. Foscolo jibes at the author of those heroic couplets who — he observes — probably never loved very intensely and thus only experienced the happiness brought about by a milder passion. He does not consider such love to be human and deems it ‘sì tranquillo che non posso sperarlo per me’ [so peaceful that I cannot hope it for myself ],84 but quite surprisingly he asserts that a second reading of those lines the next day prompted him to publish his translation of A Sentimental Journey. He would like to dedicate it to Cornelia and therefore asks her to let him know quite frankly her view about it. It is impossible to verify the truth of this account and it is also, in the end, quite irrelevant. The point is that Foscolo provides this version of events in a letter that he considers extremely confidential and is tempted to destroy, very likely because of its revealing admissions on the nature and manifestations of his love. Yet, this poetry, so radically in contrast with Foscolo’s view on love, brings him back to Sterne and to a text whose ironic aim is the very harmonization of passions. It is Foscolo’s Didimean disposition to perceive ‘non so qual dissonanza nell’armonia delle cose del mondo’ [an unnameable dissonance in the harmony of the things of the world] that prompts the analogy with Sterne, and it does not

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matter that the means to achieve this harmonization of passions are in the Irish parson quite distant from the idyllic picture painted in the lines for Cornelia.85 The goal is, ultimately, that mysterious refinement of the individual’s sensitivity that Sterne pursues in his journey through moments of distilled sentimentalism marked both by irony and utopia, and yet which are disarmingly authentic. Foscolo knows only too well that in A Sentimental Journey such harmony materializes in momentary f lashes and, while in the lines to Cornelia it appears consistent but cold, he rediscovers it in Sterne in its most humane and authentic form, as time and again it is erratically lost and reclaimed. Around the same time, another powerful image recurs in the Epistolario, in which Foscolo repeatedly mentions how he recently fell in love with Canova’s Venus, which the Countess of Albany bought in order to place it as a worthy companion next to Alfieri’s portrait. Foscolo claims that if he had to choose between the algid perfection of the Medicean Venus and Canova’s quintessentially human sculpture, he would have no hesitation: [...] vi dirò solamente che la Venere greca era bellissima dea, e questa nuova è bellissima donna; e ch’io avrei adorata quella, ed avrei pianto per questa — ch[e] la Venere greca mi faceva sperare il Paradiso in un altro mondo; e questa ch’io vidi, e guardai ieri, ier l’altro, e prima di ier l’altro, mi lusinga che si può trovare il paradiso anche in questa valle di lagrime.86 [[...] I will tell you only that the Greek Venus was a beautiful goddess, and this new one is a beautiful woman, and that I would have worshiped the former, and cried for the latter — that the Greek Venus made me hope for Paradise in another world, and [with] this one that I saw, and looked at yesterday, the day before, and two days ago, I gave myself false hope that a man can find paradise even in this valley of tears.]

Once again, as in the instance of the translation of the English lines for Cornelia, Foscolo moves from the sphere of the ideal to that of the real, from the image of a beauty and harmony of unattainable perfection, to the sensual imperfection of this world. Those observations too fall within the sphere of inf luence of Sterne’s sentimental prose, and it is quite revealing that in another letter to Cornelia Martinetti at the beginning of September 1812, after describing again Canova’s Venus, he adds: Intanto io mi dimenticava dell’unica cosa che mi premeva di dirvi: Collini è venuto stamattina a colazione con Ugoni, con Nicolini e con me; e fino che si apparecchiasse, ho letto un capitolo di Sterne ch’io aveva appunto finito di ricopiare; e non è de’ più affettuosi: e mentr’io leggeva, gli occhi del Frate godente e ridente Collini si gonfiavano di lagrime, e pianse.87 [In the meantime, I was forgetting the one thing that I wanted to tell you. Collini this morning had breakfast with Ugoni, Nicolini and me, and while the table was being set, I read a chapter of Sterne that I had just finished copying. It is not one of the most tender ones, and while I was reading, the eyes of the hedonist and good-humoured Brother Collini filled with tears and he cried.]

He would like Cornelia to shed some tears as well, to atone for the irritating academic praise that she recently bestowed upon him. Rabizzani notices the

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inf luence of Sterne’s prose on moods and descriptions in the Epistolario close to the translation of A Sentimental Journey,88 and Varese highlights how both the letters to Cornelia Martinetti and Sigismondo Trechi ‘fanno parte dello sternismo di questo periodo’ [belong to the Sternism of this period].89 The 1812–13 Florentine sojourn marks a significant moment in the long history of Sterne’s translation with which, through rewritings, additions, and corrections, Foscolo is engaged from the eve of the nineteenth century to the early 1820s. In June 1813 the translation is in print in Pisa and in his letters he often dwells upon the nature of his epistolary writing. Within Foscolo’s substantial body of correspondence, such considerations are limited to these few letters which acquire therefore a specific relevance in relation to Sterne’s Journey and its sentimental prose which he has now completely re-translated with respect to the first version of 1805–07 that was written in a ‘gergo anglo-tosco’ [Anglo-Tuscan slang] that did not satisfy him anymore.90 On 8 June he apologizes to Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi for his silence after her father’s death months earlier: ‘lo scrivere per me è uno sfogo che m’acqueta e mi consola: ma come mai poteva ora io consolarmi e consolarvi parlandovi della perdita vostra? Non so consolare, mia cara amica; non so consolare; e temo anzi di esacerbare la piaga’ [for me, writing it is an outlet that calms and consoles me. But how could I now console myself and console you talking to you about your loss? I do not know how to console, my dear friend. I do not know how to console, and on the contrary I am afraid of aggravating the wound].91 Two days later he writes from Bellosguardo to his friend Sigismondo Trechi and again justifies his epistolary silence invoking his need of ‘libertà di mente e d’animo’ [freedom of mind and heart]: ‘Tu riderai: ma io non posso scrivere a chi amo se non sono certo che non avrò altri pensieri che per quella sola persona; lettere brevi non so scrivere se non se per affari, o per diplomazia, il che m’occorre di rado’ [You will laugh, but I cannot write to someone I love if I am not sure that my thoughts will be directed solely to that person. I do not know how to write short letters unless it is for business, or for diplomacy, which happens rarely].92 On 15 June he then writes to Leopoldo Cicognara: la madre natura ha decretato per me ch’io non possa avere il cuore, lo spirito, e il corpo divisi in più luoghi, nè a più persone o faccende ad un tempo. È vero che lo scrivere una lettera è cosa da poco; ma se in que’ minuti che mi bisognano a scriverla io non sono pieno e caldo della persona che dovrà riceverla, commetterei un tradimento che il mio stile svelerebbe sul fatto.93 [mother nature decreed that I could not have my heart, my spirit, and my body split among many places, people or events at the same time. It is true that writing a letter is a small thing, but if in those minutes that I need to write it, I am not full of and affectionate towards the person who should receive it, I would commit a betrayal that my style would reveal at once.]

The act of writing the mere trif le of a letter entails a complex operation. It requires devoted attention to the subject, a warm and sympathetic heart, and a concurrence of feelings and style. It is not difficult to detect in such statements a reference to Sterne’s consolatory lesson that Foscolo — both out of his own predisposition and

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his sentimental ‘education’ — has fully internalized. However, while Sterne’s prose — filled with hope in its enquiry into the inmost recesses of the heart and exact in detecting its contradictions and inadequacies — lifts the reader to a state of light exhilaration even in sorrow, Foscolo is fully aware that this is not the case with his own prose (literary and epistolary alike). 1.3. Asserting Didimo’s Voice After the Viaggio sentimentale’s completion, the Epistolario shows how Foscolo still indulges for a while in a personal interplay of references, suggestions, and exchanges with Sterne’s text. In July 1813 he sends the newly printed translation to Isabella Bartolomei Concioni expressing his gratitude for the bottles of wine that he recently received, which ‘hanno rallegrata davvero la mia magra e malinconica persona’ [really cheered up my meagre and melancholic person].94 He sends in turn ‘alcune ricette di un parroco inglese e di un Chierico italiano, ch’io feci navigare da Londra in Firenze, ricette che giovano a rallegrare lo spirito’ [a few recipes of an English parson and an Italian clergyman, that I had sail from London to Florence, and that help lift one’s spirits].95 Shortly after, Foscolo sends to the Countess of Albany ‘tre copie dello Sterne e di Didimo Chierico’ [three copies of Sterne and of Didimo Chierico]96 with another statement of co-authorship in which Didimo acquires an autonomous role and equal status with Sterne, and that ultimately validates the Viaggio sentimentale as far more than a mere ‘mechanical’ translation. Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi receives as well ‘tre copie di Yorick e di Didimo Chierico’ [three copies of Yorick and of Didimo Chierico],97 and so does Giuseppe Grassi, to whom Foscolo sends — he says — a small book ‘mezzo mio mezzo del parroco Sterne’ [half mine and half parson Sterne’s].98 Didimo emerges now in the Epistolario not only as an independent character, but acquires the specific features of a private double in which are ref lected a shandean attitude, a disillusioned, nostalgic, and quixotic outlook on the world and the spiritual heritage of the by now outdated Jacopo Ortis.99 The shaping of Foscolo’s Didimean voice in the Epistolario is a lengthy process, in which Sterne’s prose plays a pivotal role. In September 1813, three months after the publication of the Viaggio, Foscolo-Didimo thanks Giuseppe Grassi for the most welcome gift of tobacco: Carissimo — Poche ore innanzi ch’io uscissi di Milano, madama Gieglier mi mandò la tabacchiera per Didimo; e Didimo saggiò del vostro tabacco e ricordandosi del suo Frate, ne pigliò una presa, calcandosi l’indice e il pollice socchiusi sotto le narici, e allentandoli adagio adagio, e spalancando gli occhi, gridò: Squisito! si mise in seno la tabacchiera, non senza qualche lagrima all’ombra del maresciallo di Turenna; e nel partirsi m’impose di rendervi poche ma cordialissime grazie con queste parole: ‘S’io mi divezzerò dal tabacco, porterò pur meco sempre la scattola’.100 [Dearest [Giuseppe] — A few hours before I left Milan, madam Gieglier sent me the snuff box for Didimo, and Didimo tasted your tobacco and remembering his Monk, he took a pinch. Squeezing his index finger and thumb halfway closed beneath his nostrils, and loosening them very slowly, and opening his eyes wide, he shouted: Exquisite! He put the snuff box in his bosom, not without a

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Sterne’s Presence (and Absence) few tears in the shade of the marshal of Turenna. And in leaving, he ordered me to give you his small but very cordial thanks with these words: ‘If I break the habit of tobacco, I will always carry the box with me’.]

The episode openly conjures up the chapter of the Viaggio sentimentale titled ‘La Tabacchiera’ [The Snuff Box]: Saggerete un po’ del mio, dissi a lui; e mi trassi di tasca e gli porsi una scatoletta di tartaruga — Squisito! Disse il frate. — Or fatemi il favore, soggiunsi, di gradire il tabacco e la scatola; [...] e parlando mi offeriva la sua da una mano, e dall’altra accettava la mia — e baciatala con un prof luvio di buon naturale negli occhi, se la ripose nel seno — e s’accomiatò.101 [You shall taste mine, said I, pulling out my box (which was a small tortoise one) and putting it into his hand. — ’Tis most excellent, said the monk. Then do me the favour, I replied, to accept of the box and all [...] In saying this, he presented his to me with one hand, as he took mine from me in the other, and having kissed it, — with a stream of good nature in his eyes, he put it into his bosom, — and took his leave.]

The faintest hint (in this case Grassi’s gift of tabacco) sparks a gravitational shift, in the epistolary prose, towards Sterne’s sentimental style. On the very same day Foscolo writes to the Countess of Albany a letter that, as Varese notes, has ‘qualcosa di sterniano e didimeo’ [something Sternean and Dimidean] in its bitter-sweet closing accent on memory and loss:102 Le notizie ch’ella mi scrive della prima Grazia, potrebbero forse aff liggermi, se mi toccassero dentro al vivo; ma non offenderebbero in nulla la bella persona, liberissima in tutto, perché non mi ha dato né promesso mai nulla. Ebbi tutt’al più un fiorellino colto forse nel suo giardino, e regalatomi dalle mani maestre dell’arpa; me lo infilzai nell’occhiello del mio frack e m’è forse passato per la testa il capriccio di dichiararmi secretamente cavaliere della bella persona fondatrice dell’ordine del Fiorellino: ma il fiorellino frattanto appassiva; m’ingegnai di tenerlo vivo; avrei voluto spruzzarlo di qualche lagrime e rinfrescarlo, ma io lagrime non ne aveva; e le foglie diventarono così aride che il vento di BelloSguardo se le portò via a mezzo luglio. Rimane bensì un po’ di fragranza di quel fioretto sul panno del frack ove fu appeso per qualche giorno; svanirà la fragranza, ma non mai la memoria [...]103 [The news that you write to me of the first Grace could perhaps aff lict me, if it were to touch my heart, but it would in no way offend the honour of the beautiful person [who is] most free in all [she does], because she never gave nor promised me anything. At most, I got from her a f loret that she perhaps plucked from her garden, and she made of it a gift for me with her skilful hands, master of the harp. I ran the f lower through the buttonhole of my tailcoat and the whim crossed my mind to secretly declare myself the knight of this beautiful founder of the order of the Floret, but in the meantime the f loret withered. I did everything possible to keep it alive. I would have sprinkled it with the water of a few tears and revived it, but I did not have any tears. And the leaves became so dry that the wind of Bello-Sguardo carried it away in mid-July. But there remained a little of the f loret’s fragrance on the cloth of the tailcoat where it had hung for a few days. The fragrance will fade, but the memory never will.]

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In his letters Foscolo moves with great ease between the roles of translator and creator of charming sentimental scenes, in which he reworks his own experiences in the, by now, well-tested Sternean literary mould. Once the Viaggio sentimentale is finally out in print, he dwells at length on the literary merit of his endeavour, because with the translation of A Sentimental Journey into Italian he wanted to prove the versatility of the Italian language, and its expressive potential and malleability in conveying the subtlest shades of emotions. Foscolo states that this process requires a profound empathy that harmonizes the translator’s and the writer’s perception of the world. This harmonization is tested over and over again in the Epistolario, which acquires therefore also the function of a workshop where Foscolo elaborates on and fine-tunes Sterne’s prose in a personal and authentic new form. At a linguistic level, however, there is at work in the Viaggio sentimentale an unstable syncretism between a modern and revitalized Italian language and a profound love and admiration for the iconic texts of the Italian Quattrocento. Olivia Santovetti rightly points out how Foscolo’s language in his translation is greatly inspired and at the same time compromised by such veneration: This is magnificently illustrated in the manuscript of the second version of Viaggio sentimentale (written in 1812 and preserved at the Marucelliana Library in Florence, Italy). Here every translated page is annotated with words or expressions taken from Cavalcanti, Petrarch, Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, and other poets, as if Foscolo, before adopting a word, needed to confirm the sound, the use and meaning from the pages of his beloved authors. The same linguistic concern is expressed in ‘Expressions of Language’ (‘Modi di lingua’), a long list of words and phrases from the pages of literary texts with some dialect examples, which appears at the end of the manuscript.104

Foscolo is fully aware of this ‘linguistic assimilation’ and forcefully defends it in a letter to Camillo Ugoni who, in his evaluation of the writer’s marble bust, recently completed by Mydler, had scorned the ‘pedantesca pazienza dell’imitatore de’ ricci, il quale però presume di essere artefice, e non è che meschino meccanico’ [the pedantic patience of the imitator of locks, who presumes to be a craftsman, but is nothing more than a wretched mechanic].105 Ugoni’s words are like salt rubbed on an open wound because his sarcasm focuses on the fine dialectical balance between creation and imitation which was the main challenge of Foscolo’s recent translation. His frustration for what he calls the ‘servitù da scolare’ [scholarly servitude],106 which characterizes the translator’s task, has already been pointed out; he perceives it as a limit to creativity and a sterile discipline that enmeshes the imagination. Foscolo therefore compares Ugoni’s disparaged artist to himself: E meccanico — afferma — sono stato io pure (né traducendo si può far altro) in quella versione di Yorick, dove, per l’obbligo di provvedere di frasi e d’idiotismi gentili il mio gracile testo temo di essere incorso nell’affettazione cruschevole.107 [and mechanic — he affirms — was I as well (nor in translating can it be otherwise) in that version of Yorick where, because of the need to provide my weak text with curteous sentences and idioms, I fear I fell into the pretentious ostentation of purty of language.]

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This admission is followed by a remarkable insight into how that dialectic process takes shape and operates in his ‘whimsical brain’ and in his prose: Ora io ho il cervello ghiribizzoso, — e vorrebbe pur abbellire ogni verso che mi cada in prosa o in rima de’ modi (vaghissimi in vero, ma vecchiuzzi o stranetti) di Guido Cavalcanti, e di Messer Cino, e d’altri a loro anteriori, che lessi a questi giorni attentissimo, e postillai. Ma io voglio che queste reminiscenze di frasi si digeriscano nella mia testa, e svapori l’affettazione e la novità troppa, e il succo loro s’incorpori colla mia naturale maniera di sentire e di concepire; e quando scrivendo non mi parranno modi un po’ strani, allora li lascerò correre, e senza pensarvi su, perch’io non saprò né dove né quando io li abbia accattati, e mi parranno tutti miei proprii e nativi.108 [I have a whimsical brain — which would like to embellish each verse that I encounter in prose or rhyme with the styles (very graceful ones, in truth, but antiquated and foreign) of Guido Cavalcanti, of Master Cino, and of others before them, whom I very attentively read and annotated these days. But I want these recollections of sentences to be assimilated in my head, and for the affectation and over-newness to vanish, and for their essence to be incorporated into my natural feelings and expressions. And when in my writing they will not appear a little foreign, then I will let them run, and without thinking about it, because I will know neither from where nor when I took them, and they will all appear to be mine and native.]

While engaging in literary interplay with Sterne’s prose is — after all — most agreeable and invigorating to the mind, Foscolo’s preoccupation with Italy’s political future is the other great concurrent theme in the Epistolario at the end of 1813, and it will soon dominate his private correspondence. In a letter to Count Giovio sent on 19 October 1813, Foscolo expresses his dismay at the imminent end of his dreams for Italy’s independence and the simultaneous faltering of his inner strength, that constituted a ‘gioia secreta la quale — ed è unico compenso alla mia naturale malinconia — m’insuperbiva contro le minacce della fortuna, e del mondo’ [secret joy that — and it is the only counterbalance to my natural melancholy — made me proud toward the threats of fortune and the world].109 The glorified ideal of a homeland that he nurtured since his militancy in the Cisalpine Republic risks being obliterated once and for all and he cannot counterweigh it with a cosmopolitan ideal for which he feels no inclination: Aristippo diceva: nessuna terra m’è patria; Socrate meglio: ogni terra m’è patria; ma il meglio sta nelle nude parole. Per me mi credo creato abitatore d’un solo spazio di terra, e concittadino d’un numero determinato d’altri mortali; e s’io non ho patria, l’anima mia cade avvilita.110 [Aristippus used to say: no land is my country; Socrates said it better: every land is my country; but the best lies in the naked words. As for me, I believe that I was created an inhabitant of only one place on earth, and a fellow-citizen of a fixed number of other mortals, and if I have no country, my soul falls down disheartened.]

The foreshadowing of his uncertain role in the future Italian political scene emerges now together with the perplexity on how to position his own literary self: ‘non sono più omai nè Ugo, nè Ortis, nè Didimo chierico: la parte spirituale di queste tre

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buone persone è svaporata, ed è solamente rimasto il caput mortuum (come dicono gli alchimisti) che ora costituisce il mio indifferentissimo Io’ [by now I am no longer Ugo, nor Ortis, nor Didimo Chierico: the spiritual part of these three good people has vanished, and all that remains is the caput mortuum (as the alchemists say), which now constitutes my most indifferent I].111 His admittedly illusory, quixotic patriotism makes him resume his military service as soon as he is back in Milan, as he writes to Count Giovio in December 1813: ‘l’Italia e l’onore m’hanno Don-Chisciottescamente fatto accettare il servizio militare offertomi il dì stesso ch’io tornai di Toscana’ [Italy and honour have made me accept, in a Quixotic manner, the military service offered to me the very same day that I returned from Tuscany];112 at the same time, the return to Milan heralds the beginning of a tumultuous and politically challenging period, and in the two following years the Epistolario offers only occasional and minor clues of any overt interplay with his literary alter egos. These are the years marked by the downfall of all his political hopes, by the choice of exile, and the peripatetic sojourns in Zurich, Baden, and Hottingen, when a rapid succession of events after the dramatic departure from Italy do not provide Foscolo with the constancy of life and the tranquility of mind necessary to a prolonged self-examination. Things start to change only at the end of 1815. From late October Foscolo lives a fairly secluded life in Hottingen, where he works at the Vestigi della storia del sonetto italiano, re-conceives the Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis, starts sending his books to London (‘se mai dovessi andare in quel paese’ [if I ever had to go to there]), and plans a trip to the island of Zante at the end of the winter.113 The Epistolario reveals a new Sternean phase at the beginning of December, with a series of letters to a selected number of addressees among whom Quirina Mocenni Magiotti emerges as a privileged — and at times exclusive — interlocutor. On 6 December Foscolo tells Quirina about his most recent infirmities, consisting of two haemorrhages caused by an application of leeches to the nasal cavities as an attempt to cure an eye illness. He is feeling much better, but can not free his mind of the following sentence from St Paul’s second epistle to Timotheus: ‘Ecco sarò sacrificato, e il giorno della mia peregrinazione sta per finire’ [There you have it! I will be sacrificed, and my time of wandering is about to end].114 He specifies that the tone of these lines, which accompany him during his melancholy musings, is more sorrowful than apocalyptic. To Alfieri’s ‘ furori di Bibbia’ [Biblical frenzies] Foscolo opposes his ‘malinconie di Bibbia’ [Biblical melancholies] because, he adds, if ‘il furore di quel libro divino era poetico per l’Alfieri; per me la malinconia è morale e salutarissima’ [the frenzy of that divine book was poetic for Alfieri. For me, melancholy is moral and most salutary].115 Ortis is by now dissolved into Didimo, and Foscolo expresses here at the same time what Fubini defines as his ‘aspirazione ad una più indulgente e sorridente e pur patetica comprensione delle cose umane’ [aspiration toward a more indulgent, amiable, and yet pathetic understanding of human things].116 As soon as he figuratively crosses the sentimental threshold, his Sternean-Didimean characterization resurfaces in the private correspondence and he signs this letter to Quirina as Didimo and not with the name of Lorenzo Alderani (Ortis’s friend and confidante) which he had used from the beginning of his Swiss exile with the overt intention of soliciting a

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correlation to the political fate of Ortis from a more mature, less emotional, and less destructive perspective.117 A few weeks later he jokingly complains with Quirina about the harsh Hottingen winter and uses Sterne’s much loved biblical expression ‘Dio tempera i venti per l’agnello recentemente tosato’ [God tempers the winds to the shorn lamb] to which he adds: ‘Tosato! e come! e sul vivo! dice il Parroco e il suo chierico Didimo’ [Sheared! And how! And on a raw nerve! said the parson and his clergyman Didimo].118 He also alludes again to his ‘faccia donchisciottesca’ [Quixotic appearance],119 that was recently immortalized by Fabre in what is probably the most famous of Foscolo’s portraits, which he asks the Countess of Albany to care for in Florence ‘come d’una sua creatura’ [as if it were a child of hers].120 The Didimean nature of many of the letters written at this time could be easily explained by the fact that Foscolo had recently published the Hypercalypseos in Zurich (Orell and Füssli, 1815; the false place of publication is given as Pisa), whose fictional author is the ‘profeta minimo’ [minimal prophet] Didimo Chierico. The Epistolario suggests, however, other relevant cues for the Didimean voice of winter 1815. Fubini ref lects upon one of Ortis’s most renowned letters, which is filled with an intense and desperate love for a lost homeland (written by Foscolo during the Swiss exile and included in the Zurich edition of the Ultime Lettere di Jacopo Ortis, dated 17 March); he observes that a careful reading of the Epistolario reveals at this time: il tempo e il luogo e le circostanze in cui il Foscolo attendeva al rifacimento dell’Ortis: il tugurio del buon prete, il grande inverno del Nord, e nella solitudine l’animo ancora in tumulto per le vicende dell’anno trascorso, la fuga dall’Italia e i Cento giorni, il lavoro incompiuto dei Discorsi e le molte letture fatte nel suo vagabondaggio per il paese straniero. Così è nato il nuovo Ortis, con la Notizia bibliografica, che ne è parte integrante, così la lettera del 17 marzo nella quale con maggiore libertà l’autore ha potuto dar voce al suo animo nuovo e ai suoi nuovi pensieri, che si affacciavano nelle varianti alle antiche lettere.121 [the time and place and the circumstances in which Foscolo tended to the remaking of Ortis: the hovel of the good priest, the great winter of the North, and in such solitude his heart still in turmoil because of the past year’s vicissitudes, the f light from Italy and the hundred days, the incomplete work of the Discorsi, and his many readings during his wanderings through a foreign country. And so the new Ortis was born, with the Notizia bibliografica, which is an integral part of it. And so originated the letter of 17 March, in which the author was able to give voice, with greater freedom, to his new heart and to his new thoughts that appeared in the variants to the old letters.]

If the Zurich additions to Ortis point explicitly to Didimo’s presence, with which this ‘Ortis rinnovato scambia per poco la maschera [...] assumendone il carattere e lo stile’ [renewed Ortis shortly exchanges his mask [...] assuming his character and his style],122 in the Epistolario for the years 1815 and 1816 the reader comes also across the two other major literary doubles forged by Foscolo — Yorick and Don Quixote — who had contributed to the creation of the Didimean mask. The Epistolario shows, however, that when Foscolo momentarily resumes his friendship with Sterne, he

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does so now in a new, shandean fashion. In yet another letter to Quirina, written from Hottingen on 20 January 1816, he promises to include in his future letters to her a full account of his life: Della mia odissea ti narrerò ogni cosa per lettere, e mi conoscerai sino nell’utero materno; ma non per filo e per segno; bensì or una parte or un’altra della mia vita; notando esatto l’epoche, ma non seguendole ordinatamente; sì perché scrivo non quando me lo propongo, bensì quando e come posso, e pigliandomi di grazia ciò che la mia memoria mi manda alla penna.123 [I will tell you everything of my odyssey by letter, and you will know me from my mother’s womb. But not in every detail, rather through one part or another of my life, with the exact notation of the time periods, but without following them methodically, because I write not when I resolve to, but when and how I can, and by kindly taking whatever my memory sends to my pen.]

The great contemporary parody of a life story recounted since the moment of conception is The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, where Sterne provides a detailed account of Tristram’s biography ‘ab Ovo’,124 but whereas in the letter to Quirina there is no humour or self-irony, the episode that opens Sterne’s novel is one of the most exhilarating pages of eighteenth-century fiction. The progression of the narrative prefigured by Foscolo suggests, however, a winding shandean pace, characterized by the principle of association of ideas, widely used by Sterne and, at times, by Foscolo himself in his letters. Unfortunately, the story of his life addressed to Quirina never materialized, despite her insistence and Foscolo’s repeated apologies in which he quite expediently compares his present correspondence to the ‘doloroso preambolo del vecchio gentiluomo di Didimo: sai che e’ stava per narrare appuntino la storia della sua lunga vita, e il notaro aveva già tinta e ritinta la penna; poi non se ne seppe più nulla’ [painful preamble of the old gentleman Didimo: you know that he was just about to narrate the story of his long life, and the notary had already dipped and re-dipped his pen, and then nothing more was heard of it].125 The implication is clear: he will not fulfill his promise, very likely because of the sheer difficulty of embarking on a project so unequivocally autobiographical. In fact, if Foscolo does reveal quite a lot about himself in his private correspondence, he is at the same time very cautious when detailing the daily occurrences of his life. His thoughts and ideals are often minutely detailed, his feelings dissected and analyzed, and his literary doubles help him to address his impulses and unveil the contradictions of his soul, but in the whole of the Epistolario there is not one detailed biographical account of a period of his life, and the few summaries of past or present circumstances that he offers are almost always connected to an apology for his actions or ideas. The project he foreshadows to Quirina was ultimately too distant from his natural predisposition to the allusive and philosophical-moralizing style of his epistolary prose.126 During the Hottingen retreat, Sterne is Foscolo’s veritable companion and the Viaggio sentimentale becomes a kind of breviary in which he ref lects his own experiences. Hence, when Count Giovanni Capodistria asks him to leave Switzerland and follow him to Petersburg, Foscolo writes to Quirina saying that if Yorick could not suffer the Parisian hypocrisy he would never adapt to it in Russia:

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Sterne’s Presence (and Absence) [...] bisognerebbe che io mi scostassi non solo da’ miei principî, il che sarebbe difficile, ma ben anche dalla mia invecchiata natura, il che fino alla mia morte sarà fisicamente impossibile. In tutti i paesi, ma in quello segnatamente, uno non può farsi innanzi che per la strada tenuta alcune settimane dal parroco Yorick in Parigi — ed io su quella strada stramazzerei al primo passo.127 [[...] I would need to put aside not only my principles, which would be difficult, but also my stubborn nature, which would be physically impossible until I die. In all countries, but especially in this one, a man cannot get on except after the fashion that Parson Yorick held in Paris for a few weeks — and on that path I would collapse with my first step.]

The letter to Quirina provides one of the best examples of the interpretative filter with which Foscolo negotiates his relationship with Sterne’s prose. Once again, he selectively reuses Sterne’s fictional account, and while the Irish writer moves with extreme ease from the tragic to the comic register, Foscolo isolates here the tragic note and works it out in a representation of personal fortitude against life’s adversity. After declining Capodistria’s offer, his projects for the immediate future include instead a brief visit to England, a trip to the Greek islands, and then the return to Florence. Foscolo claims that once back in Italy he will seek, like the parson Yorick, an existence far away from hypocrisy and society’s honors and obligations, his only wish being to write in peace and quiet and to be forgotten by the world. By now Foscolo had given vent to his political indignation in the unfinished Discorsi sulla servitù d’Italia, and his quixotic love of Italy — together with the very concept of a homeland — can acquire at times an amiable ironic sentimentalism: Perch’io non essendo cosmopolita, non ho mai potuto accomodarmi alla massima: Patria è quella che ti dà da mangiare; bensì disperando ormai della chimera Patria, e un po’ piangendo, e un po’ ridendo d’essermi lasciato adescare dalle sue gloriose lusinghe, cangio alcune parole alla massima, e scrivo: ‘Patria è quella, dove, tu noiato del mondo, disingannato degli uomini, stanco, infermo e abbandonato quasi anche da te medesimo, trovi un cuore che t’ama, una mente che t’intende, e un seno che ti scalda e ti ricovera’.128 [Because I, not being cosmopolitan, have never been able to settle for the adage: A country is that which feeds you; but despairing of the chimera Country, and half crying, half laughing, for having let myself be lured by its glorious illusions, I am changing a few words of the adage, and I write: ‘A Country is where, bored by the world, disillusioned by men, tired, weak, and almost abandoned even by yourself, you find a heart that loves you, a mind that understands you, and a bosom that warms and shelters you’.]

A comparison with the letter written on 19 October 1813 to Giambattista Giovio indicates a different approach to the idea of cosmopolitism.129 Foscolo abandons the earlier radicalism, adjusts his aim out of practical circumstances, and makes clear that while he will never be a citizen of the world by choice, he may become one out of necessity. At a time of a radical reappraisal of his life Foscolo is, however, unwilling to question what he considers as the sheer necessity of his choice of exile and, more generally, the inner logic of his intellectual and practical resolutions. This is why he reacts with righteous anger to the Countess of Albany’s accusation of wanting to ‘passer pour original’ [pass for an eccentric].130 The lengthy reply to

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the Countess from Hottingen on 21 December 1815 (one of the longest letters in the Epistolario), is for the most part an unremitting defence from such allegations that undermine his political radicalism and his pursuit of an authentic independent voice. Through a detailed and forceful exposition of the principles that inform his actions Foscolo reveals the deep spiritual affinity with Sterne’s philosophical and moral universe. He explains how he discovered late in life that he had a ‘cervello singolare’ [singular brain], talks of his choice to comply with his nature ‘non solo nelle passioni virtuose, bensì anche nelle viziose’ [not only in virtuous passions, but also in immoral ones] — in order to open a road to them and be able to direct his passions rather then suppressing them and being swept away by their force — and claims that his sole guide has always been his conscience. Thus all he wishes for, he says, is to build a self-image pleasing to his own eye, in which resides ‘la poca felicità che si possa sperar sulla terra’ [the little happiness that one can hope for on earth].131 At the end of this letter ‘indiscretissimamente lunga’ [most indiscreetly long] Foscolo observes that he has not yet started to write that for which he picked up his pen, and exclaims: ‘Dio mi guardi dalle digressioni!’ [God keep me from digressions!].132 In perfect Shandean style his straying is only apparently aimless and instead allows him to provide a series of relevant observations that constitute the real objective of his epistolary narrative. Sterne’s digressions represent his literary substance and in this meta-textual act of homage to his mentor and literary sibling Foscolo replicates a narrative model that validates his sentimental education. In only a few months the Epistolario will, however, record a radical change of course and the almost complete disappearance of any overt stylistic or thematic reference to Sterne’s prose. A few sporadic mentions of the Irish parson and his work are scattered in the correspondence of the following eleven years, despite Foscolo’s ongoing work on the translation of A Sentimental Journey in England and the publication of four revised chapters as an appendix to the 1817 London edition of Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis. When in 1820 he brief ly entertains the idea of a new edition of the Viaggio sentimentale in London, the project is quickly shelved. The only letter that resembles Foscolo’s past engagement with Sterne’s writing is the one he writes to John Murray on 24 July 1818, which concerns the reproduction of his portrait engraved by William Sharp. Significantly, the letter is one of the first that Foscolo writes in English; the style closely echoes that of Sterne, with the frequent pauses in the articulation of the sentence, the use of the shandean dash (‘Dear Sir, — Mr Sharp is ready to engrave the portrait — at two conditions’), the mockingly sententious tone (‘provided the original is an odd one, and the picture a beautifull [sic] one, he will undertake the work. Mr. And Mrs. Cosway told him that I am the oddest of mankind, and my portrait the beautiest of the world’), and the use of ‘Pray’ at the beginning of a sentence (‘Pray give me an answer’).133 The majority of the Epistolario from the London years is in fact written in French and only in the 1820s does Foscolo start making regular use of English in his private correspondence. He deploys it, however, mostly for communications of a practical nature and not for conveying ideas and emotions that would require a more nuanced use of the language, and for which he makes the best of his far from perfect French. The singularity of this letter suggests that Foscolo, as a novice testing his skills writing

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in the English language, turns to the verbal expressions and syntactical structures of Sterne’s prose, the one literary model to which he was best attuned. This isolated re-use of Sterne’s stylistic devices does not herald, however, a new engagement with Sterne’s prose in the Epistolario. It appears to be an unrepeated instance and as such it rather speaks of the disengagement with Sterne’s prose that has taken place at an ideological level during the London years. 1.4. Political Flux and the Quixotic Self Once the 1813 edition of the Viaggio sentimentale is in print, the Epistolario reveals, together with an open dialogue with Sterne’s peripatetic text, an increasingly overt recourse to quixotic images and self-representations on the part of Foscolo. In the previous five years a handful of letters had already displayed this idiosyncratic use of Cervantes’s hero and his narrative style,134 but such operation — that at first co-exists and then progressively replaces the exploitation of Sternean moods and narrative motifs — becomes in the end a predominant trait of Foscolo’s epistolary writing during the years of his English exile. Several references to his Sternean/ Quixotic appearance, such as those to his ‘magra e malinconica mia persona’ [my meagre and melancholic person]135 and to his ‘povera e melanconica persona’ [poor and melancholic person], create an immediate association with Don Quixote, a character largely utilized by Sterne in Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey136 — as Foscolo reminds his readers in a note to the Viaggio sentimentale in which he states that ‘oltre la Bibbia [...] Yorick meditava assiduamente e imitava il Pantagruelismo, Shakespeare, Don Chisciotte e Montaigne’ [other than the Bible [...] Yorick used to meditate assiduously and to imitate Pantagruelism, Shakespeare, Don Quixote, and Montaigne].137 Among the most overt references to Don Quixote in A Sentimental Journey are Sanchio’s advice to his master on the uselessness of travels and associated sightseeing and discoveries (‘all which, as Sancho Pança said to Don Quixote, they might have seen dry-shod at home’),138 the episode of the dead ass that brings to mind Sancio’s lament for the theft of his animal,139 and the end of the novel with its playful ambiguity on Yorick’s forced intimacy with a Piedmontese lady and her ‘fille de chambre’ [chambermaid] that evokes Don Quixote I.16, where a series of mix-ups and misapprehesions first lead the Asturian Maritornes into Don Quixote’s bed and then precipitates the situation into chaos.140 There are then stylistic reminiscences of Cervantes’s predilection for truncated and open-ended narratives, as in A Senti­mental Journey’s chapter entitled ‘The Fragment’,141 and again at the very end of the novel.142 In the story of Maria Sterne declares — with ill-concealed irony — the chivalric principles that inform his sensitivity and, as a consequence, his prose: ’Tis going, I own, like the Knight of the Woeful Countenance, in quest of melan­choly adventures — but I know not how it is, but I am never so perfectly conscious of the existence of a soul within me, as when I am entangled in them.143

Foscolo shares with Sterne this functioning aspect of his soul and it is not from mere literary pose that in the Epistolario he often defines himself as the ‘cavaliere dalla

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triste figura’. In this lexical borrowing Foscolo plays also on the Sterne-Quixote physical analogy, famously portrayed in one of Sterne’s popular letters which was edited (and, as previously noted, largely forged) by William Combe in 1788: If you wish to have the representation of my spare, meagre-form — which, by the by, is not worth the canvas it must be painted on — you shall be most welcome to it; and I am happy in the ref lection, that when my bones shall be laid low, there may be any resemblance of me, which may recall my image to your friendly and sympathizing recollection.144

In evoking Quixote’s catchphrase Foscolo most certainly had also in mind Sterne’s passage in A Sentimental Journey in which Yorick asks Maria ‘if she remember’d a pale thin person of a man who had sat down betwixt her and her goat about two years before’.145 That character is Yorick, but in Foscolo’s reworking of the episode he is also Ortis facing the unhappy Lauretta. Rabizzani notes how ‘Da Ortis a Don Chisciotte il passo non fu breve: ma Don Chisciotte non è poi che una delle metamorfosi di Didimo’ [the transition from Ortis to Don Quixote was not brief. But Don Quixote is in the end one of Didimo’s metamorphoses].146 It should be noted, however, that Don Quixote becomes one of Didimo’s metamorphoses only because he already operates as one of Foscolo’s self-representations and literary doubles, which he filters at first through the Sternean model and to which only later he confers a more autonomous dimension. In this transitional phase, the words that he writes to Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi on the eve of his translation of A Sentimental Journey acquire a relevant meaning: ‘Pregate il cielo; così non avrete in me un cavaliere rotto, battagliato, sparuto, magro, e tristissimo come Don Chisciotte da cui forse io discendo; e davvero io l’amo, e mi pare di somigliargli in moltissime cose’ [Pray to heaven. This way you will not have in me a broken, beaten, haggard, lean and most sorrowful knight, like Don Quixote, from whom I possibly descend. And indeed I love him, and I seem to resemble him in very many things].147 The image of Don Quixote — which does not replace that of Yorick but co-exists with it in this phase of the Epistolario — takes shape at the very moment when Didimo acquires an autonomous literary voice. Luca Toschi underlines how Yorick and Don Quixote are interchangeable expressions of Foscolo’s melancholic and pathetic humour.148 If this may be the case in the preceding years — and in particular for the period 1808–10 — the quixotic self that Foscolo now devises acquires a different connotation which can be perceived in the Didimean outlook on the world and in the sharp contrast between the ideal and the real — between aspirations that day by day become more unattainable and the faith placed by Foscolo in the obstinate perseverance in one’s intellectual, moral, and practical habits. In the Notizia intorno a Didimo Chierico Foscolo has Didimo say that: la gran valle della vita è intersecata da molte viottole tortuosissime; e chi non si contenta di camminare sempre per una sola, vive e muore perplesso, né arriva mai a un luogo dove ognuno di que’ sentieri conduce l’uomo a vivere in pace seco e con gli altri. Non trattasi di sapere quale sia la vera via; bensì di tenere per vera una sola, e andar sempre innanzi.149 [the great valley of life is intersected by many extremely torturous paths, and he who is not happy to follow just one, lives and dies confused, and never arrives

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Sterne’s Presence (and Absence) in a place where each of these paths lead a man to live well and at peace with himself and others. It is not about knowing which is the true path, but about holding as true just one path, and always moving forward [along it].]

Didimo’s principles may seem bizzarre, and in fact Foscolo warns the reader that ‘Da’ sistemi e dalla perseveranza con che li applicava al suo modo di vivere, derivavano azioni e sentenze degne di riso’ [actions and maxims worthy of laughter derived from the systems and perseverance with which he applied them to his own way of living].150 The list of bizarre actions and maxims opens with a reference to Don Quixote, whom he used to celebrate ‘come beatissimo, perché s’illudeva di gloria scevra d’invidia; e d’amore scevro di gelosia’ [like the most blessed, because he was under the illusion that there can be glory free from greed, and love free from jealousy].151 It is indeed Cervantes’s hero who reveals the importance of remaining faithful to one’s illusions, even when fully aware of their ephemeral and deceptive nature. This is a lesson that Foscolo embraces without reservation and that assists him when, in the last years of his life, he advocates his philosophy of history and political convictions from a position of intellectual isolation. The ‘autobiografia letteraria e morale’ [literary and moral autobiography] of the Epistolario is then clearly characterized by a binary self-representation during the years 1812–13: on the one hand emerges the friend of the Irish parson, and on the other Don Quixote’s disciple.152 The discourse is organized through the syncretism of direct and indirect quotations, syntactic borrowings and inf lections, and the evocation of narrative moods. If, after the publication of the Viaggio sentimentale, Count Giovio could assert that ‘la mascheretta di Didimo è diafana affatto; e tutti sotto vi ravvisano l’Ugo’ [Didimo’s little mask is entirely transparent, and everyone recognized Ugo behind it],153 a variety of inf luences are at work in Foscolo’s private correspondence and contribute to the creation of a multifaceted and — at times — elusive identity. During the autumn of 1812 Foscolo is ill, suffering from a urinary tract infection that prevents him from prolonged intellectual application, but he can nonetheless complete the translation of A Sentimental Journey. He often complains to friends and acquaintances about his infirmity and writes to the Count and Senator Antonio Veneri that he lives [...] non lieto nè sano, ma vivo a ogni modo, e confortato dalla speranza perch’io sono certo, come dice S. Paolo, d’avere una buona coscienza, la quale, benchè falli e pecchi assai volte, non però dissimula a sè medesima i falli e i peccati commessi.154 [[...] neither happy nor healthy, but alive anyhow, and comforted by hope because I am certain, like St Paul says, of having a good conscience, which, though it errs, and sins many times, it does not hide from itself the errors and sins it has committed.]

He had just finished reading the essay ‘Sul modo d’intendere e interpretare l’Epistole di S. Paolo’ by John Locke from which, he states, ‘ho ricavati gran lumi per la mente, ma molta maggiore consolazione per l’anima’ [I have drawn great enlightenment for the mind, but much greater consolation for the soul].155 Beyond being an overt acknowledgment of St Paul’s words, the mention of his good conscience is also a clear reference to Corporal Trim’s sermon in Sterne’s Tristram

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Shandy, freely inspired by St Paul’s letter to the Hebrews and entitled ‘For we trust we have a good Conscience’.156 Foscolo replaces Sterne’s faith, not devoid of hope (‘For we trust’), with the certainty of his good conscience (‘perch’io sono certo’ [because I am certain]); by adding an overt reference to Locke’s essay it is quite apparent that in this letter Foscolo wants to prevent any ironic reference to Sterne’s sermon. The implicit allusion to a double source (Locke-Sterne) in the letter to Veneri, and his premeditated re-use of one of Sterne’s most famous lines is corroborated by a note to the chapter ‘The Box’ in the Viaggio sentimentale, in which Foscolo comments on the friar’s snuff box: Instrumental parts of my religion; frase spiegata dall’autore nel sermone Su la coscienza: — Dirà con l’Apostolo: ‘ho una buona coscienza’; e sel crede davvero... però declama contro l’incredulità del secolo — e frequenta i sacramenti — e tratta quasi a diporto parecchie parti istrumentali di religione —.157 [Instrumental parts of my religion, a sentence explained by the author in his sermon On conscience: — He will say with the Apostle: ‘I have a good conscience’; and he truly believes it ... but declaims against the incredulity of the age — and frequents the sacraments — and treats many instrumental parts of religion almost as a pastime —]

In the letter to Veneri, Foscolo wears Sterne’s robes but he does so ‘incognito’ and in a sorrowful mood. The letter in fact speaks of infirmity, death, and an ambivalent faith in the afterlife. The tone is ceremonious, as is suited to the recipient, and very little remains of Sterne’s sentimental playfulness. Once again, it shows how Foscolo re-works motifs and atmospheres of Sterne’s prose with great ease: he fully understands Sterne’s bizarre moods, although without always sharing his personal motivations and passions. The reoccurring image of Dulcinea, Don Quixote’s object of desire and metaphor of the power and function of illusions, emerges at this time in Foscolo’s correspondence as a link between Sterne and Cervantes’s fictional worlds, and, in this instance too, the translation of A Sentimental Journey sets the tone for such literary interplay. Up to this point only one reference to Dulcinea appeared in the Epistolario, when in June 1810 Foscolo sent to Angelo Dalmistro — who was the director of the San Cipriano’s seminary in Murano, teacher of Foscolo, and pioneer translator of English — a portion of the ‘Ragguaglio d’un’adunanza dell’Accademia de’ Pitagorici’, ‘romanzo fratello dell’Ortis; ma con altre tinte — con la tavolozza di Swift, dell’amico mio Lorenzo Sterne, di Don Chisciotte, di Platone’ [a companion novel to Ortis, but with other hues — with the palette of Swift, of my friend Lawrence Sterne, of Don Quixote, of Plato].158 In the accompanying letter Foscolo ironically remarks: ‘Leggetele e riderete forse di me povero Don Chisciotte della nostra dulcineata letteratura’ [Read them and you will probably laugh at me, the poor Don Quixote of our Dulcinean literature].159 In a footnote to the recently completed Viaggio sentimentale, he illustrates Sterne’s theory of love, according to which ‘Love is not much a sentiment, as a situation. Tristram Shandy, vol. VIII, cap. 34’, and quotes one of Sterne’s letters to John Wodehouse: ‘Godo che voi siate innamorato — guarirete così dell’ipocondria che è pessima per tutti, uomini e donne — ho sempre anch’io alcuna dulcinea per la testa — e l’anima così s’armonizza’ [I am glad that you are in love — you will thus be cured of the hypochondria that is

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most dreadful for all, men and women alike ... I, too, have always had a Dulcinea in my mind ... and in this way the soul is brought into harmony].160 On 10 June 1813, Foscolo writes to Sigismondo Trechi applying that same expression to himself: Non credere ch’io fossi innamorato: è vero ch’io ho sempre qualche Dulcinea per la testa; ma tu sai che l’Amore è forse la sola delle grandi passioni che sia espansiva, almeno quando non rode le potenze vitali come nel 1809 m’avvenne con la pallida ed infelice persona.161 [Don’t believe that I was in love. It is true that I have always a Dulcinea in my mind, but you know that Love is perhaps the only one of the great passions that is expansive, at least when it does not drain the vital forces, as happened to me in 1809 with the pale and unfortunate person.]

From a metaphor of the deceptive yet consolatory function of literature, Dulcinea acquires, in the letter to Trechi, her original symbolic connotation of love, characterized this time by a measured, disenchanted, and utilitarian use of passions. Again, in June 1813 a Quixotic and Sternean Foscolo writes from Bellosguardo to his friend Leopoldo Cicognara: Ma nè le sole vergini Muse — perch’io le mantengo vergini sempre — hanno posseduta per tanti mesi la vita mia. Sappiate — ma queste notizie vanno dette soltanto alla gentile Lucietta — sappiate che io sono, e sarò forse innamorato; e se l’amore mi diventerà in Firenze insopportabile, mi disporrò alla meglio a lasciarlo qui dov’è nato in me; ed io co’ miei libri andrò chi sa dove? Forse a Roma, ma senza l’amore in carrozza, perché m’incantererebbe il legno sul ponte della Carraia. E non crediate che la gentile poetessa m’abbia vinto davvero. Dio volesse! Ma l’amore, il cuore e l’ingegno di quell’amabile femminetta è amabilmente anacreontico; ed io son nato, per mia disgrazia, donchisciottescamente tragico. Le donnine piccine m’hanno fatto invaghire spesso, ma non mai impazzire da che vivo; e impazzisco sette volte al giorno. S’è dunque restati amici dopo due settimane. — Ma pur troppo! una di quelle altere e disdegnose come le amava il Petrarca, mi vinse in casa della Contessa. [...] Amo davvero, e son tornato timido; inoltre io come discepolo, amico e fors’anche discendente da Don Chisciotte, ho sempre temuto per la fama delle persone che mi amano.162 [But it is not only the virgin Muses — because I always preserve them as virgins — who have possessed my life for so many months. Know — but this information is only to be shared with the graceful Lucietta — know that I am, and likely will be, in love. And if love becomes intolerable for me in Florence, I will immediately prepare myself to let it go from where it was born within me, and I will go, who knows where, with my books. Perhaps to Rome, but without love in my carriage, because the wood on the Carraia Bridge would enchant me. And do not believe that the noble poetess has truly conquered me. Let God will it! But love, the heart and mind of that amiable little woman, is sweetly anacreonitic, and I was born, unfortunately, with a tragic Quixotic disposition. Little women have often charmed me, but never driven me crazy, and I go crazy seven times a day. After two weeks we remained friends — but unfortunately! One of these proud and disdainful ones that Petrarch used to love conquered me at the Countess’s home. [...] I truly love, and I am again shy. Furthermore, as a disciple, friend and perhaps also descendant of Don Quixote, I have always feared for the reputation of the people who love me.]

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His recurring madness insinuates a sharp irony into his new passion for Eleonora Nencini and the cantata that follows, based on Giovanni Meli’s Sicilian parody ‘Don Chisciotti e Sanciu Panza’, marks the official entry of Don Quixote as one of Foscolo’s self-representations: Sotto una quercia antica Che da un burrone protendea le frondi Con la fronte alla palma Ugo Chisciotte Mestissimo sedea: curva una vite, Congiunta ai rami, dalla quercia a un olmo, Faceva padiglione alla sua testa.163 [Beneath an old oak tree, whose fronds stretched out from a ravine with his brow to the palm a most doleful Ugo Quixote was seated: a vine bent, [and] joined to the branches from the oak to an elm, formed a canopy above his head.]

Foscolo’s inclusion, after every second stanza, of Meli’s rhymed couplet ‘mia Dea, / La mia cara Dulcinèa’ [my Goddess, / My dear Dulcinèa] (except for the final line ‘A te cara Dulcinèa’ [To you dear Dulcinèa]),164 together with Dulcinea’s increased presence in the Epistolario, indicates how at this time Don Quixote’s figure is largely characterized by his object of desire which marks the entry of the bewitching impact of utopia into everyday life. Like Don Quixote, Foscolo knows that his Dulcinea (be it a symbol of love or literature itself ) is most likely an illusion, but the role in his life of such a compellingly evocative image is irreplaceable. Mindful of Cervantes’s message, Didimo explains in the Notizia that what counts, in the end, is the steadfast fidelity to one’s dreams.165 As a Don Quixote who is subject to the charm of illusion and the logic of disenchantment,166 Foscolo adjusts the changeable appearance of his Dulcinea who, in the autumn of 1813, acquires yet another metaphoric value as the passion that dominates Foscolo’s mind and soul: his utopian, intense, and desperate love for Italy. The onset of the Napoleonic demise exposes the irremediable contradiction between Foscolo’s political and literary aspirations and the unfolding of history, and on 19 October 1813 he defines himself as a ‘Don Chisciotte aff littissimo della mia politica Dulcinea’ [Don Quixote, most distressed by my political Dulcinea].167 To Quirina Mocenni Magiotti, a few days later, he writes: ‘io sto per impazzire di troppo Don-Chisciottesco amore di patria più del povero Ajace’ [I am about to go mad, more than poor Ajax, from an excess of Quixotic patriotism],168 and in a letter to Trechi he eloquently explains: Ma la mia Dulcinea è l’Italia, e questa donChisciottesca passione di patria non mi lascia tanto buon senso che basti a ragionare placidamente: ogni passo degli Austriaci verso il Regno mi calpesta propriamente le ali del cuore; e la mia fantasia impazza non tanto pel timore dell’avvenire, quanto per le sciagure presenti, e pel terrore di tanti amici miei, e per gli esilii o forzati o spontanei delle persone che mi sono care a Milano.169 [But my Dulcinea is Italy, and this Quixotic passion for my country does not leave me with enough good sense to reason calmly: every step the Austrians

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Sterne’s Presence (and Absence) take towards the Kingdom literally crushes the wings of my heart; and my imagination goes crazy, less for fear of the future, than for present disasters, and in dread of the fate of so many of my friends, and for both the forced and spontaneous exiles of people who are dear to me in Milan.]

The web of literary suggestions through which Foscolo reworks and refracts his bewildered self (to use Varese’s definition)170 is captured in his private corresp­ ondence, which reveals this drifting from Sterne to Cervantes, and from Yorick to Don Quixote, guided by an inner logic dependent upon their literary kinship to the character of Didimo Chierico. Didimo heralds a more mature and disenchanted reading of Sterne’s work, and his self-representation in the guise of a ‘donchisciotte doloroso’ [sorrowful Don Quixote] is — in this regard — quite telling.171 Foscolo observes himself with a newly acquired critical distance, clearly identifying and analyzing the contradictions that characterize his life in an attempt to explain and justify them without any self-indulgence. In the confidential letter to Cornelia Martinetti, in which he announces the translation of A Sentimental Journey, Foscolo reveals that he is prey to that irremediable contradiction according to which his ‘volontà ha sempre lottato invano contro l’eterna necessità’ [volition has always battled in vain against eternal necessity].172 While a more thorough examination of the concepts of necessity and volition in relation to Locke’s philosophy is presented in the following chapter, it is here important to note how this clash brings Foscolo to assess the limits of individual responsibility in shaping one’s own life. He confesses, in this regard, a certain degree of fatalism: Bench’io non ami le opinioni del fatalista Paini, vedo nondimeno che v’è sempre in tutto un certo che di Fatale; o se non altro mi pare, che la Madre Natura abbia temprate certe anime in modo che vivano per desiderare ardentemente, ciò che non vogliono fortemente cercar di ottenere: ma sono compensate dalla voluttà dell’infortunio, voluttà secreta e delicatissima e dalla vittoria dolorosa della virtù.173 [Though I do not love the fatalist Paini’s opinions, I nevertheless see that in everything there is always a certain Fatal element. Or, it appears to me, at least, that Mother Nature has tempered certain souls in such a way that they live to desire ardently that which they do not strongly want to try and obtain, but they are counterbalanced by the pleasure of mischance, a secret and most delicate pleasure and by virtue’s sorrowful victory.]

In the draft of the same letter, this concept is expressed even more clearly and Foscolo talks of people who live ‘per desiderare ciò che non possono ottener mai; e quando l’ottengono, se lo contrastano da sè stesse per avere non so dire se il piacere dell’infortunio, o la vittoria dolorosa della virtù’ [to desire that which one can never obtain, and when they obtain it, they oppose it by themselves in order to gain, I cannot say whether the pleasure of mischance, or virtue’s sorrowful victory].174 Those words represent one of the rare moments of intimate and unguarded confession on the part of Foscolo. The contradiction between necessity and will, between gratification and pain, results in a paradoxical ‘voluttà dell’infortunio’ [pleasure of mischance] that Foscolo seems to witness with astounded powerlessness.175 If Sterne is able to soften and dissolve such contradictions in a self-indulgent smile, Don

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Quixote experiences, to the brink of paroxysm, the utopian ‘trionfo della virtù’ [triumph of virtue] in whose name all sacrifices and hardships find legitimization. Foscolo’s identification with Cervantes’s hero is not a temporary eccentric pose or affected emulation; rather, this quixotic spiritual lineage has its raison d’être in the light of Foscolo’s re-shaping of his inner self-representation, in which is foreshadowed his long-lasting political disillusionment and his redefined role as a writer, destined to remain largely unfulfilled until his death. 1.5. The English Exile: A Paradigmatic Shift Mario Scotti, who edited the Epistolario of the exile period, considers that the early English years were ‘sostanzialmente positivi e fecondi’ [essentially positive and fruitful].176 Foscolo’s activity as a literary critic increases considerably at this time due to the necessity of meeting his financial needs and his determination to leave a mark in the British literary world. At the same time, however, there can be detected in the Epistolario a profound change of perspective (and not a positive one) in Foscolo’s self-representation, dictated by a number of factors: first of all there is the radically different social environment in which Foscolo now lives and works, the distance from Italy and its political circumstances, and the controversy with the Italian romantics which yields to a combination of alienation and contempt and ultimately contributes to his further estrangement from the Italian literary establishment. There are then the objective and personal difficulties of conveying to family and friends in Italy a fathomable account of his life in London: Quirina Mocenni Magiotti, for example, endlessly complains about his silence and Foscolo writes the first letter to his sister only three years after his arrival. Foscolo is also well acquainted with the persistent and distressing rumours circulating in Italy that he sold out to the Austrians before setting off for his self-imposed exile, and that in London he was living in great comfort and wealth. The meditation on madness, on the fine line that separates it from what men call sanity, and the fear of losing his way in an extreme form of melancholy, are reoccurring themes in the Epistolario of the early English years. While, after leaving Florence, Foscolo could still express with tragic irony his quixotic love for his homeland and envision Italy under the guise of an unattainable Dulcinea for whom he was destined to wander in search of patriotic adventures, now in London he is forced to come to terms with the quixotic nature of his own life that has turned those adventurous premises into quotidian reality. Less than a month after his arrival in London, where he was welcomed ‘quasi fossi un Catone in esilio volontario’ [almost as if I were a Cato in voluntary exile],177 Foscolo provides his friend Francesco Aglietti with a suggestive account of the country and its inhabitants: Iddio mi ha condotto a Londra, e veggio Et penitus fato divisos orbe Britannos ed insieme il popolo più saviamente pazzo che sia mai vissuto e viva, o sia per vivere mai sotto la luna: e Dio lo conservi tale! perché, Aglietti mio, la saviezza tutta savia è pericolosa per il prossimo, e la pazzia tutta pazza, et loquor ab exsperto, è pericolosissima a chi la possiede; ma la pazzia ordinatamente

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Sterne’s Presence (and Absence) governata dalla saviezza, fa gran viaggio, come per esempio una barca che in burrasca sia provveduta di buon timone.178 [God lead me to London, and I see Et penitus fato divisos orbe Britannos and at the same time the most sensibly mad people who have ever lived, and live, or will ever live under the moon. May God keep it that way! because, my Aglietti, completely sensible wisdom is a danger for others, and an entirely mad madness, et loquor ab exsperto, is most dangerous to the one who possesses it. But madness methodically governed by wisdom journeys wide, like, for example, a ship in a tempest that is provided with good helm.]

The description of his first visit to Rose’s Gundimore House in Mudiford comes across as a perfectly fitting image of the sensible British madness that finds its materialization in the butler-librarian-cook-gardener-jester David Hinves: Ed eccomi davanti un servo in camicia e pantofole, con una candela che il vento smorzò; — e fui, per un labirinto di giravolte (perché la casa è circolare e spirale interiormente), condotto all’ospite mio, che attende a un poema di cui non vi dirò sillaba, prevedendo che a parlarvene a modo, il discorso sarebbe un’imitazione sputata delle storie di Buonaiuti; che Dio l’ajuti a parlare, ed ajuti voi ad ascoltarlo! — Bensì vorrei parlarvi d’un servo di Rose, il quale è

Librajo, giardinier, cuoco, pagliaccio, Legge la Bibbia, Cobbet e Boccaccio:

inoltre va due volte al giorno, e spesso tre e quattro, vestito da bestia e da oriolo, e fa delle lunghe conversazioni e dispute metafisiche col cane barbone di casa; ed esso e il cane sono di sì buona indole, che sebbene per lo più siano in disparere, e disputando si strapazzino come due letterati giornalisti, o due preti che aspirino a un medesimo beneficio, a ogni modo finiscono sempre da buoni amici, e si alzano da sedere stringendosi mano e zampa, e baciandosi.179 [And here I am before a servant in a nightshirt and slippers, with a candle that the wind extinguished; — and I was led, by a winding labyrinth (because the house is circular and spiralling inside), to my host, who is working at a poem of which I will not speak a syllable, anticipating that, were I to speak to you about it in accurate terms, the discourse would be a spitting imitation of Bonaiuti’s stories. May God help him to speak, and help you to listen to him! — Instead, I would like to speak to you of one of Rose’s servants, who,

Bookseller, gardener, cook, buffoon, Reads the Bible, Cobbet and Boccaccio:

Besides, he goes two times a day, and often three or four, dressed as an animal and a clock, and has long conversations and metaphysical disputations with the poodle of the house. And he and the dog are so good-natured that, although for the most part they are of differing opinions, and while arguing they scold each other like two literary journalists, or two priests who aspire to the same favour, they nevertheless end up as good friends. And they stand up, shaking hand and paw, and kissing each other.]

The ‘pazzia ordinatamente governata dalla saviezza’ [madness methodically governed by good sense] is quixotic in nature: all the intellectual faculties not

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subject to chivalric reveries operate in a perfect manner. However, the ‘pazzia tutta pazza’ [completely mad madness] that Foscolo experienced is equally pathological but potentially far more ruinous. A month later Foscolo is ill, in the grips of a melancholy so intense that it renders him almost completely unable to communicate. He writes to Giuseppe Binda a disconsolate letter in which he addresses him as his Acates ‘senza i conforti del quale, io povero Enea mi lascerei affogare dalla burrasca e tanto più rassegnato quanto che io non ho la speranza, che aveva l’altro Enea di riconquistare l’Italia’ [without the comforts of which, I, poor Aeneas, would allow myself to drown in the tempest, and all the more resigned the less I have that hope to reconquer Italy that the other Aeneas had].180 Italy is by now a far away mirage; its figurative ‘re-conquest’ would entail, in practical terms, a contribution to its political freedom and a full recognition on the part of the Italians of Foscolo’s role as writer and patriot. This would ultimately appease his ‘prophetic spirit’, restore the self-image he longs for, and empower and legitimate his literary work. Foscolo instead knows that there is no going back. He understood this quite early on in his exile (despite his contrary claims) and perhaps he even knew it before setting foot in England. His several projects to go back to Italy or move to Greece vanish because of practical difficulties and — most of all — because he hesitates and seems more inclined to remain true to the role of the exiled which, if not completely gratifying, at least defines his persona and his role as a writer. A sorrowful pragmatism permeates the letters of the early English months and when, in November 1816, he writes to Lord Holland to decline an invitation to Holland House on account of his health, the description reappears of the ‘magra e trista don-Chisciottesca figura d’un infermo che non ride più, parla poco; tosse sempre; non trova sonno di notte e lo cerca di giorno’ [lean and sorrowful Don Quixotesque figure of an invalid who no longer laughs, speaks little, always coughs, does not find sleep at night and does not seek it by day].181 It is indicative that Foscolo uses this stylized image and self-defining topos with his new British friends, in marked continuity with the past. The death of his mother in the spring of 1817 stimulates him to announce a radical change in his life: he has determined to leave England and travel to Greece before returning to Italy, but a riding accident puts a stop — providentially, it seems — to the planned trip.182 In a letter to John Allen — who, besides being a writer, historian, and politician, was also Lord Holland’s advisor and secretary — Foscolo, still convalescent, compares himself to Philoctetes, aff licted by an incurable wound, and says: je finirai par devenir la veritable figure du Héros Don Quixote mon ami, et, je crois, l’un de mes ancêtres. Et lorsque vous reviendrez vous m’admirerez: ‘magro, sparuto; e prima che morto, spento’. J’ai toutefois lavantage de m’etre habitué à suffrir, de maniere que c’est ma vie naturelle; et je ne puis pas distinguer la souffrance et une chose qui ne l’est pas.183 [I would end up becoming a veritable image of the Hero Don Quixote, my friend, and, I believe, one of my ancestors. And when you come back you will admire me: ‘meagre, haggard, and extinguished in advance of death’. I nevertheless have the advantage of being used to suffering, since this is my natural life, and I cannot distinguish suffering from a thing that is not it.]

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The textual analogy with the letter of July 1812 to Quirina, in which he establishes his descent from Cervantes’s character, is quite precise (EN, XVII, p. 65), but the observations that follow are directly connected to this specific moment in his British exile. Immediately after the quoted excerpt to John Allen, Foscolo notes in fact that his melancholic paroxysms make him feel akin to men like Johnson, Cowper, Georg Zimmermann, and Tasso, who lost their wits or were prey to melancholy and mania, and in his relativism he asserts that those examples ‘sont assez forts pur prouver que le bon sens et la follie ne sont divisé que d’un ligne imperceptible, comme celle entre la vie et la mort: ces son de lignes si minces qui se reduissent presque au zero’ [are strong enough to prove that good sense and madness are only divided by an imperceptible line, like that between life and death: these are lines so thin that they are almost reduced to nothing].184 His mother’s death, the recent riding accident, the uncertainty about his immediate future and his financial difficulties, are all factors that at this time contribute to enhancing his natural predisposition to melancholy. The quixotic prototype sets the tone for these musings and the image of the knight errant joins a family of men of letters with whom Foscolo feels a kinship. For the first time his fidelity to his principles and to his illusions (according to Didimo’s definition) seems insufficient to stem the impending madness or to contain it within the limits of a ‘ragionevole pazzia’ [reasonable madness]. The slightest accident or false move is all it takes to cross the ephemeral threshold between sanity and madness, and between life and death. Two months later, in November 1817, Foscolo comes back to this subject in a letter to Dionisio Bulzo, one of his closest friends and confidants at this time: Davvero, non so com’io abbia potuto reggere — né come oggi io regga, — né se reggerò: certo è ch’io sento quella specie di cupa atroce malinconia che confina con la frenesia — e come il punto che divide la vita dalla morte non è che un zero a chi ben lo considera, — così oramai credo che non vi sia maggiore distanza tra il buon senso e la pazzia — e non ti meravigliare se ti scrivessero un dì o l’altro ch’io sono impazzito: e tu dovresti meglio bramare ch’io sia sotterrato anziché pazzo — pure lo stato di pazzia sarebbe per me assai meno angoscioso dello stato di terrore, di angoscia, e di vergogna in cui vivo; e ogni giorno che passa accresce la mia miseria.185 [Indeed, I do not know how I was able to cope — nor how I cope today, — nor if I will cope. I certainly feel that kind of dark, dreadful melancholy that borders on frenzy — like the point that separates life from death is nothing to he who considers it well, — thus I now believe that there is no greater distance between good sense and madness — and do not be surprised if someone were to write you one of these days that I have gone mad. And you should better desire that I were buried instead of mad — yet the state of madness would be much less distressing than the state of terror, anguish, and disgrace in which I live. And every day that goes by my misery grows.]

After he interrupts the composition of the Lettere scritte dall’Inghilterra, which constitute his last attempt at a creative work, literary criticism becomes his main activity. What was intended to be a temporary compromise to ensure a stable income turns into a permanent occupation. Foscolo frets under restraint and is at the same time tempted by the opportunities that loom in the distance.186 The year

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1818 seees him still planning to return to Italy and to leave behind the financial difficulties that characterize his English lilfe, but it is also the year in which he foresees the possibility of some financial comfort thanks to his literary work, while hopes and disappointment follow one another. A downhearted Foscolo writes to Quirina Mocenni Magiotti on 20 February 1818, describing his engagements with the Edinburgh Review and the Quarterly Review as humiliating experiences, above all because he must write in French and then have his articles translated into English. On 18 May 1818, however, he writes again to Quirina pointing out the opportunities that those very collaborations bring about and noting that the first part of his article on Dante, which appeared in the Edinburgh Review in February, was exceptionally well received and thanks to it his work was now sought after and paid for beyond all expectations. Foscolo is again planning to publish the works of thirty-six Italian authors, with critical introductions and notes in English, in a run of 1000 to 2000 copies. However, the enthusiasm for this project gradually subsides as well, making way for renewed doubts and hesitations. As previously observed, the Epistolario at this time (and more markedly as we move into the London years) does not devote much space to intimate thoughts and confessions; after considerably loosening his ties with friends and family, his letters deal mostly with professional concerns and social commitments with the society of friends and acquaintances among whom he now lives. Nonetheless, in the spring of 1818 Foscolo returns to his meditations on madness in a letter to Lord Holland, in which he thanks his friend for the gift of his poem ‘A Dream’. In it, Lord Holland imagines a dialogue on the subject of education between George III and famous philosophers, among whom appear Sir Thomas More, Sir Francis Bacon, and John Locke. The portrayal of the king makes a deep impression on Foscolo: le malheur physique du Roi, et son bonheur moral par la conversation dont il jouit avec les morts avant d’etre descendu dans son tombeau, sont deux contrastes qui reussissent d’un grand effet et pour la censure, et pour le cœur. C’est une idée nouvelle, et etant appuyée au fait, et aux circonstances reelles de la folie du Roi, a aussi l’avantage d’etre puisé dans la nature humaine. Car la folie ne nous vient que, ou de la distraction continuelle de l’esprit dans plusieurs idées très-faibles, et très-vagues; ou de la fixation dans une idée seule, très-forte, et perpetuelle, et qui n’admet aucun espece de agregation des autres idées necessaires a la comparaison, et au jugement.187 [the physical unhappiness of the King, and his moral happiness through the conversation that he enjoys with the dead before having descended to his tomb, are two contrasts that achieve a great effect for both censure and the heart. It is a new idea, and having relied on facts, and on real circumstances of the King’s madness, [it] also has the advantage of being rooted in human nature. Madness does not come to us except by continuous distraction of the mind in many very weak and vague ideas, or by the perpetual fixation on one very strong idea that does not permit any kind of meeting of other ideas necessary to compare and to judge.]

Foscolo is now resorting to a scientific definition of madness and not, as he repeat­ edly did in the past, to literary images that embody and allegorize this condition. His insistence on the relativism of perceptions helps however to explain why

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the figure of Don Quixote now gains ground as Foscolo’s exclusive travelling companion, progressively replacing his other literary doubles, who are by now unsuited to portray adequately Foscolo’s life and aspirations. As he states in the recently interrupted Lettere scritte dall’Inghilterra, at this time Didimo is nowhere to be found and he has very little hope of meeting him again.188 One month later he is re-writing the second part of the article on Dante for the Edinburgh Review after the translator lost the original manuscript, and he struggles with the process. Foscolo asks the marquis Cesare Grimaldi for a loan in order to finance the weeks of unpaid work ahead of him and he defines himself as ‘povero cavallo del Gonnella’ [poor Gonnella’s horse] upon which befall ‘cento pazzi accidenti’ [a hundred mad accidents].189 As Scotti notes, Gonnella is one of Sacchetti’s characters: ‘il buffone Gonnella, che viaggia di continuo, andando spesso per lo mondo in più strani luoghi che potea, su un povero cavallo’ [the buffoon Gonnella, who travels continuously, often going around the world in the strangest places he could, on a poor horse].190 In the first chapter of Don Quixote, when Cervantes’s hero is getting ready for his new life as a knight errant, there is also a reference to Gonnella’s horse: He next proceeded to inspect his nag, which, with its cracked hoofs and more blemishes that the steed of Gonela, that ‘tantum pellis et ossa fuit’ surpassed in his eyes the Bucephalus of Alexander of the babieca of the Cid.191

Whether addressed in playful tone, supported by scientific evidence, or with overt reference to his mental and physical condition, the exploration of the ephemeral relation between sanity and madness is now a recurring theme in his letters. In 1818 John Murray publishes Hobhouse’s Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold; this includes the ‘Essay on the Present Literature of Italy’ which Foscolo wrote for Hobhouse and which provoked the anger of di Breme in reponse to the disparaging opinions on the Italian romantics there expressed. In the autumn of the same year, Foscolo plans with Hobhouse an account of Italy’s recent historical events; it is a project for which he is extremely grateful to his friend, not least because it would provide him with a considerable income and relieve him from the kind but humiliating support of his friends.192 It is within this context that Foscolo’s letter to Hobhouse — in which he compares himself to the poet William Collins and more specifically to Samuel Johnson’s portrayal of Collins in his Lives of the English Poets — should be read: Je sens que si je n’aurai un peu de tranquillité, je perdrai tout mes facultés; et je tomberai dans un êtait de folie et d’imbecillité. Je me vois à chaque instant dans l’êtat dans lequel Johnson a trouvé le poete Collins. Vous en rappellez vous? J’avaie gemi en lisant ce passage de la vie de Collins; maintenant j’y repense souvent, et je tremble pour moi-même. — La crainte de la hônte mene à la folie. Tout l’or de la terre ne pourrait pas me soulager si on mele donne par bienfait, ou par pitié.193 [I feel that if I were not to have a bit of peace, I would lose all of my faculties, and I would fall into a state of madness and stupidity. I see myself each moment in that state in which Johnson found the poet Collins. Do you remember it? I wept while reading this passage from the life of Collins. Now, I think about it

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often, and I tremble for myself. — Fear of misfortune leads to madness. All the earth’s gold could not soothe me if it were given to me out of kindness or pity.]

The newly established comparison with a poet who fell prey to folly points to a latent concern. In a letter to Silvio Pellico written shortly before the one to Hobhouse, Foscolo establishes yet another parallel — this time oblique and not avowed — between himself and the English poet. He describes to Pellico the planned series of Italian writers for which he claims to have a contract in hand with a number of booksellers ‘incalzato dalla Fortuna che pur vuole ch’io anziché vivere a studiare mi rassegni a studiare per vivere’ [pressed by Fortune that wants me to resign myself to studying to live rather than living to study].194 Johnson employs the very same expression in his portrait of Collins, when he observes that once the poet became rich he also gave in to madness: But man is not born for happiness. Collins, who, while he studied to live, felt no evil but poverty, no sooner lived to study than his life was assailed by more dreadful calamities, disease and insanity.195

This is not a mere lexical coincidence. In fact, although his financial situation was to remain precarious for most of the early London years, by admitting that he is forced to study in order to live Foscolo reassures himself that in the struggle to earn a living he would maintain his balance. On the other hand, the Epistolario shows also the alluring power of money which could put an end to the strain to maintain the lifestyle demanded by the high society in which Foscolo moves, feigning a wealth he does not have. Thus, while poverty is unbearable, wealth represents another menace: Foscolo fears that he may lose himself if wealth alters his nature. As a matter of fact, a brief period of financial comfort leads him later on to embark on the disastrous deal of the Digamma Cottage, a project which — marred by overexpenditure — brings Foscolo to financial ruin and mental prostration. Melancholy continues to plague him after almost three years in England. In January 1819 Foscolo complains to Matilda Baring, wife of the Member of Parliament Sir Henry Baring, of his poor health and a sensibilité morbide that rules over him in England as never before: La fièvre revient; et la melancholie ne me quitte jamais. Aussi, Madame, si à votre arrive à Londres je ne serai pas encore rétabili, vous reconnoitrez en moi le veritable portrait de mon ami — et peut-être qui’il fut aussi un de mes ancêtres — Don Quixotte: je suis ‘Magro, sparuto; e pria che morto, spento’.196 [The fever is returning, and melancholy never leaves me. Also, Madam, if upon your arrival in London I am not yet recovered, you will recognize in me the veritable portrait of my friend — and perhaps he was also one of my ancestors — Don Quixote: I am ‘meagre, haggard, and extinguished in advance of death’.]

Foscolo seems once again to be harping on about the same subject, but the recurring emphasis placed on this quixotic self-representation and the description of his serious depression are factors deeply connected to his current life. He portrays himself as a man ‘labouring under a morbid state of sensations’: C’est un êtat que je ne saurais exprimer ni en Italien, ni en Français; je ne l’ai

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Sterne’s Presence (and Absence) jamais éprouvé que an Angleterre. Ailleurs j’ai été peut-être plus malheureux qu’ici; et grace à mon age je suis presque à l’abri des maladies du cœur. Ainsi il ya tout apparence que ma sensibilité morbide ne soit l’effet que du climat; ma gaîté reviendra avec le printemps.197 [It is a state that I would not know how to express either in Italian, or in French. I have only experienced it in England. Elsewhere I was perhaps more unhappy than here, and thanks to my age I am almost sheltered from love sicknesses. Thus it truly appears that my morbid sensitivity is the effect of the climate. My gaiety will return in the spring.]

While a climatic explanation of his spleen is in line with contemporary scientific theories about hypochondria and melancholy, such protracted alteration of his faculties and his almost hallucinatory state seals Foscolo’s unprecedented empathy with Don Quixote. Since his move to England, Foscolo slowly but steadily drifts towards an identification with one of his literary doubles until the distance that separates the two is erased and he portrays himself as Cervantes’s character at the mercy of an altered imagination. The process of identification with his literary doubles Ortis, Didimo, Yorick, and Don Quixote — which in the past served as an interpretative key to his world — now loses this connotation and Foscolo appears more and more as a quixotic figure. This change of perspective ultimately explains the altered relationship with the Sternean world in which he had for so long ref lected himself. One of the last recorded proofs of this change is his radically different attitude towards A Sentimental Journey, a text with which he had been dialogically engaged since the early 1800s. As previously mentioned, after reprinting four chapters of the Viaggio sentimentale in Ortis’s 1817 London edition, in February 1820 he expresses his intention to reprint the whole Viaggio with lexical and paratextual changes. In the Epistolario there is only one mention of this project, in a letter to Giuseppe Molini (the publisher of the 1813 edition) and the contrast with the discussion that surrounds his first translation could not be greater. It is undeniable that Foscolo has by now lost interest in Sterne, who has almost disappeared from the Epistolario and of whom no direct mention, nor intertextualization with his prose, can be found in the letters written in the 1820s. The memory of the Irish parson is consigned to a past in which Foscolo barely recognizes himself. As a consequence, Didimo too fossilizes in the portrayal that Foscolo outlined in the Notizia autobiografica and the Hypercalipseos. To corroborate such interpretative claims, besides Sterne’s eloquent absence from the Epistolario there is a brief but revealing statement which cannot be ignored. In March 1821 Foscolo’s young friend Jane Harley writes to him from Milan with both surprise and alarm: ‘Mi dice la mia zia, quella “Dandi-dama”, che avete preso in avversione i romanzi sentimentali. Per carità ditemi donde nasce questa novità’ [My aunt, that ‘Dandy Lady’, tells me that you have developed an aversion to sentimental novels. For the love of God, tell me whence this novelty arises].198 It is not clear in which circumstances or when Foscolo expressed such aversion and, unfortunately, there is no reply to Miss Harley’s letter. In the light of the foregoing considerations, it seems legitimate to state that the her surprise stems from Foscolo’s radical change of course toward sentimental narrative in general and in particular towards the most

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patronized among the ‘modelli da imitare’ [models to imitate] in his life and art. In England, Foscolo acknowledged a twenty-year-long friendship with Sterne and at the same time receded from it. At close scrutiny, the almost complete disappearance of the Sterne-Foscolo dialogue from the Epistolario of the London years can be accounted for by considering that, once in England, Sterne can be located in the same social, moral, and literary contexts that Foscolo inhabits. With the English exile the elective affinities with Sterne’s outlook on the world that Foscolo had discovered and skillfully contrived since his youth cannot sustain the close encounter with a reality that, up until this point in his life, he had contemplated only at a distance, and which by that distance was nourished and kept alive. As a consequence, while in 1817–18 the functional (and fictional) reassemblage of his literary doubles in the Lettere Scritte dall’Inghilterra and in the Gazzettino del bel mondo was a successful operation in which, as Rambelli points out, Foscolo ‘riunisce finalmente tutte le diverse maschere, facendole dialogare serenamente tra loro, sedute di fronte all’Oceano e al cielo, sul tema letterario per eccellenza dell’amore’ [finally gathers togther all the different masks and makes them dialogue peacefully among themselves while seated in front of the Ocean and of the sky on the literary theme par excellence of love], of the literary doubles that characterize Foscolo’s selfrepresentation, only Don Quixote is now able to ref lect and express Foscolo’s image in the private dimension of letters.199 Notes to Chapter 1 1. Fubini, Ortis e Didimo, p. 182. 2. The Notizia intorno a Didimo Chierico can be found in EN, V, pp. 173–86. 3. Foscolo wrote the Hypercalypseos between 1810 and 1815 and he can therefore mention this work in Didimo’s opening remarks in the translation of A Sentimental Journey. Both editions of the Hypercalypseos indicate Zurich as the false place of publication and, while the ninety-two copies of the 1815 edition went up for sale, Foscolo gave the twelve copies of the 1816 edition to selected friends. The Notizia intorno a Didimo Chierico was reprinted with corrections and additions in the Hypercalypseos, and Didimo’s letter to the reader was re-published with several alterations in the 1817 London edition of Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis. Rambelli, pp. 83–86 compares the figure of Didimo in the Hypercalypseos and in the Notizia intorno a Didimo Chierico as published in A Sentimental Journey. 4. EN, XVII, p. 148 (13–14 September 1812). 5. EN, XVII, p. 212 (12 February 1813). 6. In 1935 the ‘Comitato Foscoliano’ discovered and purchased at a public auction an 1813 edition of the Viaggio sentimentale which is annotated by Foscolo and shows several variants to the text. A letter to Henry Edward Fox Holland (12 May 1817; EN, XX, pp. 149–50) reveals that Foscolo was thinking about a new edition of the Viaggio sentimentale in 1817, based probably upon the discovered annotated version. Mario Fubini elucidates the intricate history of the variants to the text in EN, V, pp. l-li. 7. EN, V, pp. 1–27. 8. Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (henceforth references to this 1978 edition will be shortened to Tristram Shandy). 9. Santovetti, ‘The Sentimental, the “Inconclusive”, the Digressive’, p. 198. 10. Sterne, Nouveau voyage de Sterne en France; Sterne, Voyage sentimental (1787). 11. See Sterne, Tristram Shandy, II, pp. 779–84; Sterne, A Sentimental Journey (2002), pp. 149–54. 12. Sterne, A Sentimental Journey (1802). See also Sterne, Viaggio sentimentale (1991), pp. xl-xlii. 13. Sentimental Journey, p. 150.

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14. Tristram Shandy, 1997 edn, p. 663. 15. EN, IV, pp. 351–55. All quotations from Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis are taken from the 1817 edition published (together with the 1798 and 1802 versions) in EN, IV. 16. EN, IV, pp. 349–50. The overt evocation of Sterne’s prose is evident both in subject and style in the letter to Bartholdy, written on 29 September 1808; while Foscolo acknowledges his re-use of the episode of poor Maria, at the same time he expresses his alleged disatisfaction with those fragments ‘perché sentono l’inopportunità dell’episodio e l’imitazione della Maria di Lorenzo Sterne’ [because the awkwardness of the episode and the imitation of Lawrence Sterne’s poor Maria are felt] (EN, XV, p. 485). 17. EN, XV, pp. 43–44 ([ January?] 1805). A portion of the Epistolario is written in French and English and the letters in both languages display a considerable number of orthographical and grammatical errors. They are here reproduced in their original version, as they appear in the Edizione nazionale delle opere di Ugo Foscolo. 18. EN, XV, p. 74 ([September 1805]). 19. Tristram Shandy, II, pp. 499–520. 20. Sterne, Voyage sentimental (1801). See Rabizzani, pp. 79–91. 21. Barbarisi, ‘Le postille di Didimo Chierico al Viaggio sentimentale’. 22. The volume is a translation of Original Letters of the Late Reverend Mr Laurence Sterne which were largely forged by William Combe. 23. See Nicoletti, La biblioteca fiorentina del Foscolo, p. 50. 24. For an overview of the literary criticism on Foscolo’s translation, see Alcini, ‘Repertorio dei maggiori studi critici sulla traduzione foscoliana’. As to the Foscolo-Sterne relation in the Epistolario, the most significant study is still Varese, Foscolo; by the same author see also Ugo Foscolo and the introduction to Vita interiore di Ugo Foscolo, pp. 11–33. Rabizzani’s Sterne in Italia remains a major, although to some extent dated, contribution, while Fubini’s Ortis e Didimo is still an authoritative study on the subject. Of considerable relevance are the two works by Fasano: Stratigrafie foscoliane and ‘La vita e il testo: introduzione a una biografia foscoliana’. Among the most recent publications are Barbarisi, ‘Le ragioni della traduzione del Viaggio sentimentale’; Ambrosino, La prosa epistolare del Foscolo; and Toschi, ‘Foscolo e altri “Sentimental Travellers” di primo Ottocento’. The introductory essays to the nine volumes of the Epistolario provide great insight into Foscolo’s writing process: they are authored by Plinio Carli (vols I, II, III, IV, V), Giovanni Gambarin and Francesco Tropeano (VI), and Mario Scotti (VII, VIII, IX). 25. A good summary of the highly debated issue of the relation between Foscolo’s Ortis and Goethe’s Werther can be found in Nicoletti, Foscolo, pp. 116–21 (‘L’Ortis e la tradizione europea del romanzo epistolare: l’incontro con il Werther’). 26. Varese, Foscolo, p. 67. 27. Ibid., pp. 66–67. 28. Fubini, Ortis e Didimo, p. 175. 29. Varese, Foscolo, p. 45. 30. Ibid., p. 40. 31. Ibid., p. 91. 32. Testa, p. 54. 33. Nihilism is here employed in a pre-Nietzschean sense and is closer to Turgenev’s early use of the word. 34. Fubini, Ortis e Didimo, p. 166. 35. EN, XIV, pp. 105–06 ([Summer 1801?]). 36. Considerable attention has been devoted to the presence of humour in Foscolo’s works. See in particular Toschi, pp. 90–120; Varese, Foscolo, pp. 11–45; Alcini, ‘Background di una traduzione’; Ambrosino, La prosa epistolare del Foscolo, pp. 142–74 (‘Il “quotidiano” fra elegia ed ironia’). 37. Foscolo, La Chioma di Berenice. See EN, VI, pp. 267–447. In his commentary on Catullus’s translation of Callimachus’s poem, Foscolo expresses his ideas on the function of poetry and on the need to invest philology with a new scope and praxis. See Gambarin’s introduction to EN, VI, pp. lxxxvi–cv, and Nicoletti, Foscolo, pp. 92–93. 38. See Praz, ‘Rapporti fra la letteratura italiana e la letteratura inglese’, p. 183; Kirkby, p. 216.

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39. EN, XIV, p. 196 (9 February 1804). 40. EN, V, p. 176. 41. EN, XV, p. 532 (4 December 1808). 42. Sterne first makes use of this expression in the dedication that opens the second edition of Tristram Shandy and Didimo Chierico reproduces it in his salutation to the reader that precedes the translation of the Viaggio sentimentale. The phrase is echoed in Sterne’s letter written on 7 May to the Archbishop of York: ‘I rest fully assured in my heart of yr Grace’s indulgence to me in my endeavours to add a few quiet years to this fragment of my life’ (Sterne, Letters, p. 196). A more faithful version of the novel’s original phrase can be found in the collection of Sterne’s letters edited (and largely forged) by William Combe: ‘Indeed, I am persuaded, and I think I could prove, nay, and I would do it, if I were writing a book instead of a letter, the truth of what I once told a very great statesman, orator, politician, and as much more as you please — that every time a man smiles — much more so — when he laughs — it adds something to the fragment of life’ (Combe, p. 7). 43. EN, XV, p. 150 (24 November 1806). Foscolo met Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi at the end of 1794 and was a frequent guest at her Venetian salon, where he came to know some of the most prominent contemporary writers (among them Melchiorre Cesarotti and Ippolito Pindemonte). Shortly after their encounter, the seventeen-year-old Foscolo and Isabella had a love affair and afterwards remained life-long friends. Married for the first time to the nobleman Carlo Antonio Marin, Isabella obtained the annulment of her marriage in July 1795. In March 1796 she secretly married Giuseppe Albrizzi. 44. EN, XV, p. 355 (23 January 1808). 45. EN, XV, p. 531 (4 December 1808). 46. Alcini, Il tradurre e i traduttori, p. 28. 47. Fubini observes how in the excerpts of the Viaggio sentimentale that Foscolo prints with the 1817 London edition of Ultime lettere di Iacopo Ortis he still favours sentimental episodes: ‘la scelta [...] è per noi indizio di una preferenza del Foscolo (e degli uomini del suo tempo) per lo Sterne patetico, che oggi meno gustiamo che non lo Sterne sottilmente sensuale di altre pagine, diffidando un poco del suo troppo edonistico e compiaciuto sentimentalismo così caro ai lettori dell’ultimo Settecento e del primo Ottocento’ [the choice [...] is a sign for us that Foscolo (and his time) preferred the sentimental Sterne, whom we appreciate less than the subtly sensual Sterne of other pages. We do not have confidence in his overly hedonistic and satisfied sentimentalism that was so dear to readers of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century] (EN, V, p. li). 48. See EN, XIV, p. 220 (n.d.). 49. EN, XIV, pp. 295–97 (n.d.). The correspondence with Antonietta Fagnani Arese details the love relationship between Foscolo and the Milanese Countess. The 135 letters, of which only two written by Antonietta Fagnani Arese survive, were written between 1801 and 1803 (see EN, XIV, pp. 207–414). For a recent edition of the letters see Foscolo, Lacrime d’amore. 50. EN XIV, pp. 296–97 (n.d.). The Synod of Pistoia was held on 19–28 September 1786 under the patronage of Leopold II, then Grand Duke of Tuscany, and was aimed at reforming the Catholic Church along the lines of jansenist doctrine. 51. Sentimental Journey, p. 105. 52. EN, XV, p. 88 (25 October 1805). Foscolo, who was well informed on the medical theories of melancholy and hypochondria, speaks ironically about the eighteenth-century belief that the only certain remedy to this condition was to be found in old age, when a slowing down of the vital functions and of the humours’ circulation weakens the disease’s attacks. 53. EN, XV, p. 44 ([ January? 1805]). 54. EN, XV, p. 85 (25 October 1805). 55. See Fubini’s introduction to EN, V, p. lviii. 56. Tristram Shandy, II, p. 500. 57. EN, XV, p. 104 ([May 1806]). 58. EN, V, p. lviii and Fubini, Ortis e Didimo, p. 162. 59. Rambelli, p. 83. 60. See EN, XV, pp. 69–71 ([1805]).

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61. Years later he recalls that time in a letter to Giovan Paolo Shulthesius. See EN, XVII, p. 191 (31 October 1812). 62. EN, XVI, p. 148 (1 May 1809). 63. EN, XV, p. 138 (26 July 1806). 64. EN, XV, p. 240 (4 July 1807). 65. EN, XV, p. 382 (March 1808). 66. Ibid. 67. EN, XV, p. 545 ([December] 1808). 68. Jean-Jacques Barthélemy’s Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce, dans le milieu du quatrième siècle avant l’ere vulgaire was first published in Paris in 1788. An Italian translation appeared in Venice in 1791–92 by the publisher Antonio Zatta with the title Viaggio d’Anacarsi il Giovine nella Grecia verso la metà del quarto secolo avanti l’era volgare: tradotto dal francese. Foscolo has in mind the Letters of Abelard and Heloise and not Rousseau’s Nouvelle Heloise as a source for his novel. In the 1816 Notizia bibliografica, added to the Zurich edition of Ultime Lettere di Jacopo Ortis, Foscolo criticizes Rousseau’s ‘romanzesco incredibile’ [incredible novel] and its characters who ‘volevano a forza sentire più di quel che naturalmente sentivano’ [wanted to feel by force more than they naturally felt] (EN, IV, pp. 479–541 (p. 491)). Palumbo provides an analysis of Foscolo’s evaluation of Rousseau in ‘Malattia d’amore e simboli naturali’, pp. 23–24. 69. EN, XV, pp. 542–43 (December 1808). 70. EN, XV, p. 543 (December 1808). 71. Fubini, Ugo Foscolo, p. 56. 72. Varese, Foscolo, p. 43. 73. EN, XV, p. 543 (December 1808). 74. On 27 July 1810, Camillo Ugoni reproaches Foscolo for the way in which he treated the poet Girolamo Murari della Corte in his ‘Ragguaglio d’un’adunanza dell’Accademia de’ Pitagorici’: ‘Foscolo mio, lo avete trattato troppo severamente, e troppo assai, tanto più che come infelice aveva diritto ad esercitare quella facoltà, di cui dite aver sortito dalla natura una porzioncella. È vero che voi lo compatite, ma non di quella compassione, che allevia i mali degli uomini, e che, pigliandone parte, li fa parere men gravi’ [My Foscolo, you treated him too harshly, and much too much, all the more because as a wretch he had the right to exercise that faculty, from which you say you received a small portion from nature. It is true that you sympathize with him, but not with that compassion that relieves the ills of men, and that, by sharing them, makes them appear less severe] (EN, XVI, p. 442 (27 July 1810)). Two years later, it is Foscolo who expresses to Ugoni his regret for the harsh words he wrote to their common friend Arici the day before: ‘E mi duole ora ricordandomi che nella lettera scritta ieri all’amico nostro ho gittate qua e là parole acerbissime contro quel disgraziato, che forse merita peggio; ma il mio cuore merita assai più ch’io gli serbi la compassione e la generosità che sovente mi fecero e mi fanno più caro a me stesso, ed intercedono nel tribunale della mia coscienza per mille errori e per mille colpe, che se non fossero scontate e corrette dalla compassione e dalla generosità mi renderebbero insopportabile’ [And I regret now, recalling [it], that in yesterday’s letter to our friend I threw around the most bitter words against that poor wretch, who perhaps merits worse. But my heart deserves even more that I reserve for him the compassion and generosity that often made, and still make, me dearer to myself, and that intercede in the tribunal of my conscience for the thousands of errors and thousands of misdeeds that, were they not atoned for and corrected by compassion and generosity, would render me intolerable] (EN, XVII, pp. 36–37 (15 April 1812)). 75. Fasano, ‘L’amicizia Foscolo-Sterne’, p. 19. 76. For a chronology of the 1812–13 translation and publication of A Sentimental Journey, see Alcini, Il tradurre e i traduttori, pp. 36–53. 77. EN, XVII, p. 19 (2 [April] 1812). 78. EN, XVII, pp. 19–20 (2 [April] 1812). 79. EN, XVII, p. 104 (19–20 August 1812). In his letters from London, Foscolo uses as a seal the image of an eagle with the words migro et respicio, which Maria Graham translates very appropriately as ‘look back, in migrating’ (EN, XX, p. 250 (5 March 1821)). The reference is explicitly political, as Foscolo gazes towards Italy from his self-imposed exile, but the image

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and the words that accompany it also hold a very personal meaning and allegorize another exile, to which the letters to Cornelia Martinetti and to Sigismondo Trechi in August 1812 clearly allude. 80. EN, XVII , p. 104 (19–20 August 1812). 81. Ibid. 82. Ibid. These lines appear in Pliny, The Letters of Pliny the Younger, I, p. 5. Calpurnia’s love for her husband is portrayed in the poetry that Foscolo’s quotes to Cornelia and is echoed in the editor’s observations on Epistle VII (book VI) that Pliny writes to her: ‘History scarce affords a brighter example of matrimonial friendship, than that which appears between Pliny and Calpurnia. They seem to have been suited to each other; and perfectly harmonious in disposition, and inclinations: nor did the want of children hinder the cement from being as close, and as firm, as the most numerous, or the most hopeful offspring could have rendered it’ (The Letters of Pliny the Younger, II, p. 20). 83. EN, XVII, p. 105 (19–20 August 1812). 84. Ibid. Among Foscolo’s ‘Pagine sparse, originali e tradotte’ [Scattered Pages: Original and Translations] for the years 1805–12 — now collected in EN, V, pp. 29–35 — there is a translation of one of Pliny’s letters to Calpurnia (p. 35). In it, Pliny expresses the pain of a temporary separation and his longing for his beloved. The letter is quite distant, in tone and subject matter, from the feelings expressed in the poetry that Foscolo translates for Cornelia, and indicates his predilection for emotions that don’t shun from the sensual aspect of love. 85. EN, V, p. 185. 86. EN, XVII, p. 127 (2 September 1812). Foscolo uses the very same expressions to describe Canova’s Venus to Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi on 15 October 1812 (EN, XVII, p. 178). 87. EN, XVII, p. 135 (5 or 6 September 1812). 88. Rabizzani, pp. 106–07. 89. Varese, Foscolo, p. 31. 90. EN, XVII, p. 191 (31 October 1812). 91. EN, XVII, p. 270 (8 June 1813). 92. EN, XVII, p. 273 (10 June 1813). 93. EN, XVII, p. 285 (15 June 1813). A similar remark can be found in a letter to his friend Santorre Santa Rosa from the English period: ‘scrivendo ad amici vorrei poter versare a tutto agio e liberissimamente nelle mie lettere tutto il mio cuore, tutto il mio spirito, tutto il mio soffrire, e i miei piaceri [...] Ma scrivere senza potere dir tutto e come l’animo detta dalle viscere, la è grande miseria per me; né mi ci posso mettere quando la mente e tutti i poteri della mia vita sono occupati, oppressi, e quel che è peggio, annojati talvolta da obblighi, da bisogni, da guai e da studj che sono piuttosto lavori di artigiano che di letterato; e mi fa tale, e mi sento sì diverso da me, ch’io mi credo incapace di conversare con amici; [...] Non però la mia mente si trovò mai in quell’armonia e in quella calma che m’erano indispensabili a rispondervi quanto e come avrei voluto’ [when writing to friends I would like to be able to spill out with ease and most freely in my letters all of my heart, my spirit, my suffering, and all of my joys [...] But writing without being able to tell all, and to express how the mind dictates from the my blood, this is a source of great misery to me. Nor can I put myself at it when my mind and all my vital powers are taken up, oppressed, and what is worse, weary — at times — of obligations, needs, problems, and studies that are more often works of the artisan than the man of letters. And it makes me feel so different from myself that I believe myself to be incapable of conversing with friends; [...] But my mind has never found itself in that harmony and in that calm that were indispensable to answer you as abundantly and in a manner I would have liked] (EN, XXII, p. 437 (16 September 1824)). 94. EN, XVII, p. 303 (24 July 1813). 95. Ibid. 96. EN, XVII, p. 309 (1 August 1813). 97. EN, XVII, p. 324 (16 August 1813). 98. EN, XVII, pp. 327–28 (16 August 1813). 99. As Foscolo writes to Sigismondo Trechi on 23 October 1813, quoting from Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (xxiii. 128), ‘il povero Ortis è morto; e l’anima sua che mi girava intorno talvolta, se n’è

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Sterne’s Presence (and Absence) andata in un luogo; in un certo luogo — so che n’avranno cura: ma io — e qui comincio a parlar seriamente, io non so più dov’io sia: Non son non son io quel che paio in viso Quel ch’era Orlando prima or è sotterra; La sua donna mestissima l’ha ucciso’ [poor Ortis is dead. And his soul, which at times wandered around me, has gone to a place, to a certain place — I know it will be cared for: but I — and here I begin to speak seriously, I no longer know where I am: I am not, I am not the person whom my face reveals What before was Roland is now buried; His most doleful woman has killed him] (EN, XVII, p. 401).

As in the lines that Foscolo quotes and translates from The Life of Pliny to Cornelia Martinetti, here too in the last line he alters ‘ingratissima’ [most ungrateful] with ‘mestissima’ [most doleful], clearly indicating the pre-eminence of the sentimental and melancholy note over the epic or tragic one. 100. EN, XVII, pp. 345–46 (14 September 1813). 101. EN, V, pp. 59–60. For this correlation see also Ambrosino, La prosa epistolare del Foscolo, pp. 166–67. 102. Varese, Foscolo, p. xxx. 103. EN, XVII, p. 344 (14 September 1813). 104. Santovetti, ‘The Sentimental, the “Inconclusive”, the Digressive’, p. 200. 105. EN, XVII, p. 411 (28 October 1813). 106. EN, XVII, p. 148 (13–14 September 1812). 107. EN, XVII, p. 411 (28 October 1813). 108. EN, XVII, p. 412 (28 October 1813). 109. EN, XVII, p. 395 (19 October 1813). 110. Ibid. 111. EN, XVII, p. 389 (11 October 1813). 112. EN, XVII, p. 437 (2 December 1813). 113. EN, XIX, p. 187 (30 December 1815). 114. EN, XIX, p. 133 (6 December 1815). 115. Ibid. Foscolo identifies at this time with sacrificial figures from the Bible, but he does not look back at the prototypical image of Job, so often summoned in his youth. 116. Fubini, Ortis e Didimo, p.163. 117. Nicoletti observes how Lorenzo Alderani represents a sublimation of Foscolo’s autobiographical dimension and a paternal figure who shares Ortis’s condition of exile and at the same time comforts and guides his friend: ‘Se ne evince un carattere di paterna sollecitudine e quindi la prefigurazione di un ruolo di consigliere effettivamente coinvolto nei casi dell’amico, quasi un alter ego che misuri lo spessore delle situazioni con un senso maggiore di razionalità e di equilibrio’ [One infers a character of paternal solicitude and thus the prefiguring of a role of counsellor effectively involved in the affairs of his friends, a quasi alter ago that measures the importance of situations with a greater sense of rationality and balance] (Nicoletti, Foscolo, p. 125). 118. EN, XIX, p. 153 (30 December 1815). Sterne’s expression appears in Sentimental Journey (chapter LXIV); Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (letter of 25 May); EN, XVI, p. 7 (3 January 1809); and EN, XXI, p. 317 (2 October [1821]). 119. EN, XIX, p. 152 (20 December 1815). 120. EN, XIX, p. 163 (21 December 1815). Foscolo’s love of Cervantes’s novel also appears to have won over some of his Florentine friends. After he left Florence, the Countess of Albany begins to read Don Quixote in order to spend some evening hours in a company worthy of Foscolo’s longed-for conversation. Quirina Mocenni Magiotti too is familiar with Cervantes’s hero and in solidarity with a shivering Foscolo in the Swiss snow she opts for the quixotic idea of abandoning her wool waistcoats and sharing with her friend the hardships of exile. Foscolo

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replies, amused and touched: ‘Ma tu Signora Don-Chisciottina non lasciare i camiciotti di lana. Davvero, amica mia; non ammalare; abbi pietà di te; ma molto più di me; e se tu morissi, io non saprei più dove voltare gli occhi, e riconsolare l’anima mia’ [But you, Little Lady Don Quixote, do not leave the wool waistcoats behind. Really, my friend, do not fall ill. Have mercy on yourself, but much more on me. If you were to die, I would no longer know where to turn my eyes, and to comfort my soul again] (EN, XIX, p. 231 (28 [ January] 1816)). 121. Fubini, Ortis e Didimo, pp. 238–39. The third edition of Ortis was published by Füssli in Zurich, 1816, with the false publication details of London, 1814. Foscolo added to it a Notizia bibliografica intorno alle Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis [EN, IV, pp. 477–541], which provides a detailed historical account and a critical evaluation of the novel. The 17 March letter is the most relevant of a series of additions and corrections to the novel. The unfinished work on the Discorsi refers to the Discorsi della sertvitù d’Italia which Foscolo started writing before leaving Italy and which he re-worked while in Switzerland and in England without ever bringing them to completion. See Nicoletti, Foscolo, pp. 262–68. 122. Fubini, Ortis e Didimo, p. 238. 123. EN, XIX, p. 224 (20 January 1816). 124. Tristram Shandy, I, p. 5. 125. EN, XIX, p. 254 (14 February 1816). Foscolo refers to chapter LVII of the Viaggio sentimentale, titled ‘Frammento’. See EN, V, pp. 145–49. 126. On Foscolo’s self-representations and his use of Didimo to herald and at the same time fend off a full disclosure of his own identity see Fubini’s illuminating thoughts in Ortis e Didimo, p. 167. 127. EN, XIX, p. 252 (14 February 1816). Sterne describes the end of his Parisian visit in the following terms: ‘For three weeks together, I was of every man’s opinion I met. — Pardi! ce Mons. Yorick a autant d’esprit que nous autres. — Il raisonne bien, said another. — C’est un bon enfant, said a third. — And at this price I could have eaten and drank and been merry all the days of my life at Paris; but ’twas a dishonest reckoning — I grew ashamed of it — it was the gain of a slave — every sentiment of honour revolted against it — the higher I got, the more was I forced upon my beggarly system — the better the Coterie — the more children of Art — I languish’d for those of Nature: and one night, after a most vile prostitution of myself to half a dozen different people, I grew sick — went to bed — order’d La Fleur to get me horses in the morning to set out for Italy’ (Sentimental Journey, pp. 147–48). See Foscolo’s translation of this passage in EN, V, p. 156. 128. EN, XIX, p. 253 (14 February 1816). 129. EN, XVII, p. 395 (19 October 1813). 130. EN, XIX, p. 64 (15 August [1815]). 131. EN, XIX, pp. 156–57 (21 December 1815). 132. EN, XIX, p. 161 (21 December 1815). 133. EN, XX, p. 347 (24 July 1818). 134. See in particular EN, XV, p. 456 (26 August 1808); EN, XVI, p. 385 (25 May 1810); and EN, XVI, p. 388 (23 May 1810). 135. See EN, XVII, p. 10 ([February 1812]); EN, XVII, p. 35 (15 April 1812); EN, VII, p. 96 (16 August 1812); and EN, XVII, p. 251 ([26 April 1813]). 136. Gardner. 137. EN, V, p. 91. 138. Sentimental Journey, p. 16. 139. Sentimental Journey, p. 53. 140. Sentimental Journey, pp. 160–65. 141. Sentimental Journey, pp. 134–40. 142. Sentimental Journey, p. 165. 143. Sentimental Journey, p. 150. On the connections between Foscolo, Don Quixote, Sterne’s Yorick, and European Romanticism see Fasano, Stratigrafie foscoliane, pp. 122–23. 144. Combe, Original Letters, p. 121. 145. Sentimental Journey, p. 152. 146. Rabizzani, p. 107. 147. EN, XVII, p. 67 (29 July 1812).

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148. Toschi, p. 92. 149. EN, V, p. 177. 150. EN, V, p. 178. 151. Ibid. 152. Varese, Foscolo, p. 67. 153. EN, XVII, p. 348 (17 September 1813). 154. EN, XVII, p. 203 (8 December 1812). 155. EN, XVII, pp. 203–04 (8 December 1812). The title of Locke’s work is: A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St Paul to the Galatians, I and II Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians. To Which is Prefixed An Essay for the Understanding of St Paul’s Epistles, by Consulting St Paul Himself. Written in 1702, it was published for the first time in London in 1707, three years after Locke’s death. 156. Tristram Shandy, I, pp. 142–64. Sterne’s sermon was first published on its own in 1750; it was later included in its entirety in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. 157. EN V, p. 60. 158. EN, XVI, p. 385 (25 May 1810). 159. EN, XVI, p. 393 (5 June 1810). 160. EN, V, p. 66 n. 1. Sterne’s original reads: ‘I am glad that you are in love — t’will cure you (at least) of the spleen, which has a bad effect on both man and woman — I myself must ever have some dulcinea in my head — it harmonises the soul’ (Sterne, Letters, p. 256). 161. EN, XVII, p. 274 (10 June 1813). The woman he refers to is Maddalena Bignami. 162. EN, XVII, pp. 285–87 (15 June 1813). 163. EN, XVII, p. 287 (15 June 1813). See Foscolo, Poesie, p. 426 for some observations on the poem’s versification and style. For the relation between Foscolo, Don Quixote, and Meli’s cantata see Ambrosino, La prosa epistolare del Foscolo, pp. 96–101 and 273–74; Fasano, Stratigrafie foscoliane, pp. 122–23; Sterne, Viaggio sentimentale di Yorick lungo la Francia e l’Italia, pp. xvi-xvii; and Mazzamuto. 164. EN, XVII, p. 288 (15 June 1813). 165. Don Quixote articulates this truth, which cast light on the interpretation of the novel as a whole, during one of his musings on Dulcinea del Toboso: ‘In the same way, Sancho, for all I want with Dulcinea del Toboso, she is just as good as the most exalted princess on earth. It is not to be supposed that all those poets who sang the praises of ladies under the fancy names they give them had any such mistress. Do you believe that the Amarillises, the Phyllises, the Sylvias, the Dianas, the Galateas, the Fílidas, and all the rest of them, that the books, the ballads, the barber’s shops, the theaters are full of, were really and truly ladies of f lesh and blood, and mistresses of those that glorified them? Nothing of the kind; they only invent them for the most part to furnish a subject for their verses, and that they may pass for lovers or for men valiant enough to be so. So it suffices me to think and believe that the good Aldonza Lorenzo is fair and virtuous. [...] I persuade myself that all I say is as I say, neither more nor less, and I picture her in my imagination as I would have her to be, as well in beauty as in condition. [...] And let each say what he will, for if in this I am taken to task by the ignorant, I shall not be censured by the critical’ (Cervantes, Don Quixote, pp. 184–85). 166. See Magris’s essay ‘Utopia e disincanto’ which opens his collection Utopia e disincanto, pp. 7–21. 167. EN, XVII, p. 396 (19 October 1813). The Battle of the Nations which sealed the fate of the Napoleonic Empire was fought on 17–19 October 1813. 168. EN, XVII, p. 404 (25 [October 1813]). 169. EN, XVII, p. 408 (28 October 1813). 170. Varese, Foscolo, p. 12. 171. Tripodi, p. 10. 172. EN, XVII, p. 105 (19–20 August 1812). 173. EN, XVII, p. 293 (23(?) June [1813]). 174. Ibid. This idea is dialectically linked to Foscolo’s ref lections on justice, which are scattered throughout the Epistolario. A systematic treatment of the subject can be found in his oration Sull’origine e i limiti della giustizia. See EN, V, pp. 165–86. 175. On November 1815 Foscolo writes to Quirina Mocenni Magiotti from his Swiss exile (which

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coincides, as we have seen, with another Sternean phase in the Epistolario), ref lecting upon recent events. He establishes yet another dichotomy that echoes the unresolved opposition between necessity and will: ‘Ah! s’io avessi tanto quanto, non dirò potuto, perch’io forse poteva — ma saputo antivedere il futuro, noi saremmo a quest’ora l’uno vicino all’altro; forse non lieti; ma men’aff litti a ogni modo’ [Ah! If only I not so much could have, because perhaps I was able to — but knew how to foresee the future, we would be beside each other at this moment; perhaps not happy, but less aff licted anyhow] (EN, XIX, p. 128 (25 November 1815)). In this insightful evaluation of ‘potere’ [to be able to] and ‘sapere’ [to know how to] Foscolo acknowledges that he could have foreseen the future unfolding of events but lacked the ability to decipher the real consequences of his actions. Such lack of foresight frees him — in his and Quirina’s eyes — from blame and confirms him in his belief in the imperfect nature of our faculties and the equivocal dimension of human volition. 176. EN, XX, p. ix. 177. EN, XX, p. 14 (20 September 1816). 178. EN, XX, p. 26 (2 October 1816). 179. EN, XX, p. 38 ([8 October 1816]). 180. EN, XX, p. 53 (28 October 1816). 181. EN, XX, p. 78 (29 [November 1816]). 182. Franzero, pp. 37–38, highlights the contradiction between Foscolo’s wish to leave England and his words in a letter written to Lady Flint on 15 August 1817 (three weeks after his riding accident) in which he expresses great distress at the thought of leaving his host country: ‘Avant de connoitre les Anglais, je ne me croyais obligé que de les estimer — à present je les aime; e je remercie le cheval qui m’a presque cassé la jambe; car en retardant mon depart pour la Grece, me donne des raisons très-fortes pour rester ici tout[e] cette année’ [Before meeting the English, I believed myself obliged to esteem them — at present, I like them. And I thank the horse that almost broke my leg, because in delaying my departure for Greece, it gave me very strong reasons to stay here all year]. For the letter to Lady Flint see EN, XX, p. 210. 183. EN, XX, pp. 223–24 (2 September 1817). A few days later Foscolo repeats almost verbatim the remarks on Philoctetes and Don Quixote in a letter to Roger Wilbraham, to which he adds that in ten days he hopes to be able to run like Achilles ‘e far il cavaliere errante per le campagne al pari dell’amico e antenato mio Don Chisciotte’ [and to be a knight-errant through the countryside just like my friend and ancestor Don Quixote] (EN, XX, p. 227 (8 September 1817)). 184. EN, XX, p. 224 (2 September 1817). 185. EN, XX, p. 247 (25 November 1817). 186. In his seminal essay on the critical activity of Foscolo in England, ‘Foscolo as a Literary Critic’, John Lindon observes how Foscolo questions the role of the critic and progressively defines and refines it over the years thanks to the inf luence that the British critical tradition exerts upon him. 187. EN, XX, p. 307 ([March 1818]). It is possible that Foscolo had in mind, for this explanation of madness, Camillo Brunori’s Il poeta medico ovvero la medicina esposta in versi, ed in prose italiane, printed in the early eighteenth century and reprinted in a very popular edition in 1793 (Cesena: Eredi Biasini). On the subjects of hypochondira and the so-called ‘errori di fantasia’ [errors of imagination], Brunori speaks of ‘delirio malinconico vago’ [vague melancholic delirium] when a person is unable to relate to the world in a well balanced, sensible way, and of ‘delirio malinconico fisso’ [ fixed melancholic delirium] when the mind ‘sopra di un solo oggetto talmente si fissa, che molte ridicole, e disordinate fantasie se ne forma’ [is so fixated on a sole object that it forms many ridiculous and disordered fantasies of it] (see Parmegiani, ‘Ipocondria, scienza medica e poesia’, p. 130). 188. EN, V, p. 298. 189. EN, XX, p. 315 (April 1818). 190. Ibid., n. 1. 191. Cervantes, Don Quixote, p. 28. 192. For an account of this project see Vincent, Byron, Hobhouse and Foscolo, and Ugo Foscolo, pp. 82–105. 193. EN, XX, p. 405 (14 October 1818). See Samuel Johnson’s description of Collins: ‘The latter part of his life cannot be remembered but with pity and sadness. He languished some years under

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that depression of mind which enchains the faculties without destroying them, and leaves reason the knowledge of right without the power of pursuing it. These clouds which he perceived gathering on his intellects he endeavoured to disperse by travel, and passed into France; but found himself constrained to yield to his malady, and returned. He was for some time confined in a house of lunaticks, and afterwards retired to the care of his sister in Chichester, where death in 1756 came to his relief. After his return from France the writer of this character paid him a visit at Islington, where he was waiting for his sister, whom he had directed to meet him: there was then nothing of disorder discernible in his mind by any but himself, but he had withdrawn from study, and travelled with no other book than an English Testament, such as children carry to the school; when his friend took it into his hand, out of curiosity to see what companion a Man of Letters had chosen, “I have but one book”, said Collins, “but that is the best”. Such was the fate of Collins, with whom I once delighted to converse, and whom I yet remember with tenderness’ ( Johnson, 1975 edn, p. 459). 194. EN, XX, p. 387 (30 September 1818). 195. Johnson, 1975 edn, p. 458. 196. EN, XXI, p. 10 (15 January 1819). 197. Ibid. 198. EN, XXI, p.161 (21 March 1820). 199. Rambelli, p. 95.

Chapter 2

v

Foscolo, Reader of Locke Although Foscolo never organized his philosophical thinking in a well-defined system or acknowledged the syncretic nature of his ideas, philosophical principles permeate many pages of his literary works and often surface in his private correspondence, with particular incidence — as we will see — during specific moments of his creative life.1 This allows the literary critic to observe closely the dynamics of Foscolo’s philosophical syncretism, and to uncover the way in which philosophical ideas develop and reverberate in his literary creations. Philosophy nurtures the man of letters, asserts Foscolo, and in 1809, during his very brief teaching post as professor of eloquence in Pavia, he exhorts his students to devote themselves to philosophical studies: ‘Se dunque, o giovani, volete ricavare il solo diletto che puro e inviolabile possono darvi le lettere, giovatevi dell’esperienza e della filosofia’ [If, therefore, o young ones, you want to draw the only pure and inviolable delight that letters can give you, take advantage of experience and philosophy]. Shortly after, he follows with: ‘seguiamo la filosofia, rivolgendo quest’arte alla nostra propria prosperità’ [let us follow philosophy, turning this art to our own prosperity].2 John Locke is the English philosopher who exerted a most significant and longlasting inf luence on Foscolo’s approach to knowledge and his investigation of moral principles. Foscolo, who had openly acknowledged his admiration for Locke during his lectures at the University of Pavia, reveals in the Epistolario the degree to which Locke’s philosophy guides him in his anti-metaphysical principles and supports his anti-idealistic positions. Locke’s ideas helps Foscolo to redefine his relationship with Platonism, they become a guiding principle on epistemological and moral ground, and affect his approach to textual criticism. Beyond the letters in which Locke is openly referred to, there are several instances in which Foscolo’s considerations presuppose an allusion to Locke’s ideas, as expressed mainly — but not exclusively — in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.3 The first mention of John Locke appears in Foscolo’s 1796 ‘Piano di Studi’, where he places the philosopher once under the entry ‘Metafisica’, together with the Spanish Jesuit Giovanni Andres (1740–1817),4 and another time under the entry ‘Logica per me stesso’ [Logic for myself ], a work that he anticipates ‘di mole tenuissima [...] tratta da Lock [sic], dal Volfio e dalla natura’ [of most tenuous dimensions [...] derived from Lock [sic], from Wolffius and from nature].5 During the next decade, Foscolo embraces without reservation Locke’s empiricism, which,

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if it taught him how to recognize in man’s ideas the result of an inductive process which cannot ignore the tangible elements of experience, did not preclude the achievements of great moral or political objectives. Thirteen years later, in the second and third of his 1809 lectures devoted to literature and morality at the University of Pavia (entitled, respectively, ‘La letteratura rivolta unicamente alla gloria’ and ‘La letteratura rivolta all’esercizio delle facoltà intellettuali’), Foscolo acknowledges the inf luence of Locke’s philosophy on the European Enlightenment and on his own philosophical ideas.6 In the lecture on literature and fame he fully recognizes the role of Locke’s philosophy in the contemporary debate on ideas and provides one of his most articulate assessments of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. After talking about the unpredictability of fame, subjected to ‘men’s blind injustice’ (‘la cieca ingiustizia degli uomini’)7 and to the unavoidable erosion of time, Foscolo mentions several great men on whom life did not bestow the deserved recognition. He alludes to Milton’s posthumous fame, Tasso’s tragic fate, and the trying existence of Ariosto who was forced to live on the brink of poverty while witnessing the unfair compensation conferred upon Aretino, a ‘uomo di mediocre ingegno e di anima sozza’ [man of mediocre intelligence and [having] a filthy soul].8 This is also, says Foscolo, the fate of many scientists, particularly philosophers, who have been — and still are — the victims of fortune’s whim. They are either slandered by the advocates of different doctrines or their ideas do not stand the trial of time and are rendered obsolete by the eternal law of what he defines — borrowing Vico’s terminology — as the courses and recourses of knowledge. Such courses and recourses not only undermine the possibility of any philosophical progress, but ensure the short-lived and uncertain existence of all philosophical ideas. Yet, the belief in the possibility of future glory, secured by a noble soul through the power of eloquence and the expression of truth, can and ought to remain a certainty in the life of great men, albeit not the sole motivation for their actions. Foscolo states that several examples could illustrate this truth, but he is persuaded that in order to convince his young audience he will only need to speak of John Locke’s philosophy and life: Giovanni Locke per universale consenso arricchì il suo secolo del libro più eloquente e più utile fra quanti mai illuminarono il mondo; più eloquente, perché non solo è scritto con tutta schiettezza di lingua e vigore di stile e calore di pensiero, che è reputato in ciò esemplare da tutti gli Inglesi, ma ben anche perché è disegnato con mirabile architettura di parti, eseguito con profondità di ragionamento, e dotato di quel tocco magico della persuasione a cui il solo stile e il solo ragionamento non giungono, ma che nasce da un certo vigore di concepire le idee e da certo amore nell’esporle; doti che dagli antichi Greci e Latini erano credute doni celesti, onde consacrarono templi ed altari alla dea della Persuasione. Alla bellezza del libro di Locke aggiungesi, come s’è detto, il merito dell’utilità, non tanto per le verità ch’egli espose, quanto per gli errori che dileguò. — E infatti la metafisica platonica e cartesiana, che ingombravano di tanti paradossi la strada delle scienze ne’ secoli antichi e moderni, e il gergo delle scienze scolastiche e delle cattedre superstiziose dei claustrali si dileguarono, appena pubblicato quel libro; e chi volesse esaminare i sistemi d’Elvezio, di Rousseau, di Bonnet e d’altri di ogni nazione sino a Kant, che tornò all’idealismo, s’accorgerebbe che, se gli errori sono di questi

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autori, il fondo della verità dei loro libri è tutto desunto dalle teorie del libro di Locke.9 [By universal consensus, John Locke enriched his century with the most eloquent and useful book that has even enlightened the world. Most eloquent, because it is not only written in an entirely pure language and with force of style and warmth of thought, which is reputed by all Englishmen to be exemplary, but also because it is designed with wondrous architecture of its parts, executed with profundity of reasoning and [it is] gifted with the magical touch of persuasion that style and reasoning alone do not achieve but that is born from a certain force of conceiving ideas and a certain love of explaining them. [These are] talents that the ancient Greeks and Romans believed to be heavenly gifts, which is why they consecrated temples and altars to the goddess of Persuasion. To the beauty of Locke’s book, it must be added, as it was said, the merit of its usefulness, not so much for the truth it expounds, as for the errors it dispels. — And in fact Platonic and Cartesian metaphysics, whose paradoxes obstructed the path of the sciences in ancient and modern times, the jargon of the scholastic sciences, the superstitious teachings of the cloisters dissipated as soon as the book was published. And he who would like to examine the systems of Helvetius, Rousseau, Bonnet, and others of every nation up to Kant who turned to idealism, will realize that, if the errors belong to these authors, the underlying truth of their books is gathered from the theories of Locke’s book.]

Foscolo reveals his deep appreciation for An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, a book ‘di stile, struttura, eloquenza e verità inimitabili’ [of inimitable style, struc­ ture, eloquence, and truth].10 His criticism of Platonic and Cartesian meta­physics and the allusion to the faults of idealism constitute the foundations of Foscolo’s philosophical principles and he credits Locke for the dispelling of such errors. The English philosopher is thus acknowledged as the architect of modern philosophy, and credited with all that can be salvaged from the ensuing f lawed philosophical systems.11 In his address, Foscolo then talks about the hardship that Locke had to sustain because of the controversial reception of his work by men whom he defines as ‘maestri di trivio’ [vulgar teachers].12 He exhorts his students to read the biographies of great men who can inspire emulation and indicates that they will find in Locke the highest example of an indissoluble connection between ideas and praxis, between intellectual discipline and discipline of life, noting that where this connection is missing, there can only be error or deceit. Foscolo notes that for ten years Locke’s philosophy did not know any opposition, but that later on: poiché s’accorsero che quelle verità non si ristavano nella sola teoria, ma s’erano rivolte alla pratica, primi fra tutti gli ecclesiastici inglesi, e quindi i maestri e discepoli di sistemi ideali si sfrenarono sì dirottamente sul libro, e dal libro, che era per sé stesso insensibile, i più maligni e i più accaniti ritorsero le loro vendette sull’autore; al quale, perch’era anch’egli, come noi tutti, uomo di carne e di sangue, vollero far parere amara la vita e terribile la vendetta per mezzo della calunnia, della povertà e dell’esilio.13 [since they realized that those truths did not reside in theory alone, but [that they] addressed practice, first and foremost the English ecclesiastics, and then teachers and disciples of ideal systems, ran excessively wild over the book, and

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Foscolo, Reader of Locke [then] from the book, which was in itself unaffected, the most malevolent and relentless men hurled back their vengeance on the author. To him — because he, too, is a man of the f lesh and blood like the rest of us — they wanted life to appear bitter and their vendetta [to appear] terrible by means of false accusations, poverty, and exile.]

He provides a similar evaluation of the English philosopher in his ‘Ragguaglio d’un’adunanza dell’Accademia de’ Pitagorici’, published in Annali di scienze e lettere on 5 May 1810.14 Here, again, Foscolo highlights Locke’s independence of thought and indifference towards fame, and laments the lack of a complete Italian translation of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which the British consider a ‘modello di lingua, d’eloquenza e di sapientissimo raziocinio’ [a model of language, eloquence and of most wise reasoning].15 Foscolo concludes the section of La letteratura rivolta unicamente alla gloria devoted to Locke with a consideration that brings the reader (and the audience) back to the opening thoughts on the futility of fame: Che se Giovanni Locke non si fosse armato di onestà, di fortezza e di tutte le virtù che lo studio dell’uomo e la rassegnazione ai decreti della natura possono somministrare ai letterati, s’egli al contrario non avesse cercata che la gloria, e vedendola perseguitata, piagata e derisa, avesse, come pur molti fanno, considerate come sue proprie quelle piaghe e que’ vituperi, quest’altissimo ingegno non sarebbe egli stato infelicissimo nel tempo stesso, e non avrebbe egli forse conosciuto che le lettere rivolte all’acquisto della fama o deludono, o aff liggono chi le coltiva?16 [That if John Locke had not been armed with honesty, strength and all of the virtues that the study of man and resignation to the decrees of nature can give to men of letters, if, on the contrary, he had only sought glory, and seeing it hounded, covered in sores, and mocked, he had, as many do, considered these sores and insults as his own, this highest intelligence would not have been the most unfortunate man of his time, and he would not perhaps have known that letters aimed at acquiring fame either delude or aff lict the one who cultivates them?]

Finally, in the third lecture on ‘Della morale letteraria’, Foscolo focuses again on one aspect of Locke’s life: ‘perseguitato, calunniato, esiliato, visse nondimeno riposato e soddisfatto nell’animo, perché, com’egli dice, non gli parea d’avere seguito se non se la verità e la propria coscienza. Così si può dir che l’allontanamento da’ propri principj, come l’errare di opinione in opinione e di perplessità in perplessità, è la causa più crudele dei nostri mali’ [persecuted, defamed, exiled, he nevertheless lived undisturbed and satisfied in his mind, because, as he says, he thought he followed truth and his own conscience. Therefore one can say that estrangement from one’s own principles, like the wandering from opinion to opinion, and from doubt to doubt is the most cruel cause of our ills].17 This consideration addresses the very notion of faithfulness to one’s own opinions, which Foscolo will in a short while endorse as one of the main principles of Didimo’s philosophy. Many of the references to Locke in the Epistolario are made in the years 1809–12. These are the years of Foscolo’s intense philosophical correspondence with Count Giambattista Giovio, while on the literary front he works on a project (which he

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will never complete) on the life and works of Machiavelli and on the translation of Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey.18 The Epistolario shows how Locke’s ideas inform and guide the writer in these two literary projects. In his study of Machiavelli, written in 1811–12, philosophical empiricism and literary historicism converge in the writer’s evaluation of the great Florentine. Mario Scotti observes that Foscolo interprets Machiavelli’s work using the theoretical tools of a radical political pragmatism and with a ‘realismo severo, nemico delle ideologie astratte e della retorica tribunizia’ [harsh realism, enemy of abstract ideologies and tribunicial rhetoric].19 Foscolo writes his pages on Machiavelli as a refutation of Angelo Ridolfi’s Pensieri intorno allo scopo di Nicolò Machiavelli nel libro del Principe (1810) and from the very beginning his main task is to place Machiavelli within a well defined philosophical perspective. Foscolo disagrees with Ridolfi’s interpretation of Machiavelli as a thinker guided by ‘quella superna legge che, come dice Tullio, è la retta ragione, conforme alla natura, comune a tutti, costante e sempiterna’ [that supernal law that, as Tullius says, is right reason, [which is] consistent with nature, common to all, constant and eternal];20 and he states the anti-metaphysical nature of The Prince, confirmed by Francis Bacon who was indebted to Machiavelli and to those writers who, like him, ‘aperte et indissimulanter proferunt quid hominess facere soleant, non quid debeant’ (‘write openly and without dissimulation what men do, and not what they ought to do’).21 Foscolo strives to conciliate his fascination with Platonism, his gnoseological empiricism, and his relativism in the sphere of passions and emotions, and it is not surprising that at the time of the Pavia lectures the Epistolario shows Foscolo wearing Didimo’s sentimental cloak while writing to his friend Ugo Brunetti: ‘Tu sai ch’io non giuro su le parole d’autore veruno, e molto meno del grande Platone che m’alza al cielo per togliermi dalla terra ove pur si gode di qualche piacere e se non altro s’impara a non cadere negli errori passati’ [You know that I do not swear by the words of any author, and much less on the great Plato who elevates me to the sky to take me from the earth, where man enjoys some pleasures and, if nothing else, he learns not to fall into past errors].22 In the ‘Ragguaglio d’un’adunanza dell’Accademia de’ Pitagorici’ Foscolo claims that he did not read works of philosophical empiricism for many years: ‘Ricordomi sempre (e sono più anni ch’io non leggo più di quei’ libri!) della prefazione del libro di Locke’ [I still remember the preface to Locke’s book (and for years I have no longer read those books!)],23 but as soon as he arrives in Florence in August 1812 he writes to Isabella Teotocchi Albrizzi saying that he had just purchased a life of Locke, whom he defines as ‘mio sacro amico, padre e maestro’ [my sacred friend, father and guide].24 In that book, and more precisely in the appendix to the Eloge historique de Mr Locke, Foscolo finds a copy of the epitaph that Locke had prepared for his tomb and rejoices in the similarity with the epitaph that he had written for his own grave.25 He provides Isabella Teotocchi Albrizzi with his own translation of Locke’s epitaph: Qui presso giace Giovanni Locke: se chiedi chi egli si fosse, ti risponde, ch’ei visse pago della sua mediocrità; educato alle lettere, non le coltivò se non quanto bisognava a sacrificare unicamente alla verità. E ciò imparalo da’ suoi scritti, che ti faranno fede assai migliore degli elogi sospetti d’un Epitaffio. S’egli ebbe alcune virtù non sono sì grandi ch’ei possa ascriverle a sua lode, né proporle

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Foscolo, Reader of Locke a te, o passeggero, in esempio. I suoi vizi restino seppelliti col suo cadavere. Che se tu cerchi esempi di costumi, tu li hai nel Vangelo: voglia il cielo che tu non possa trovar altrove esempi di vizi! — Ma l’esempio che tu sei mortale (e ciò ti giovi) lo troverai sovra questo sepolcro, e sovra tutta la terra. — Ch’ei nacque l’anno 1632, e che morì l’anno 1704 te lo ricordi questa lapide che anch’essa fra non molto dovrà perire.26 [Here lies John Locke: if you ask who he was, he answers you, that he lived satisfied with his mediocrity. Educated in letters, he did not cultivate them except as much as was solely necessary to sacrifice to the truth. And you learn this from his writings, which likely attest [to this] much better than the suspect praises of an Epitaph. If he had any virtues they were not so great that he could ascribe them to his praise, nor offer them to you, o passer-by, as an example. His vices remain buried with his dead body. If you are looking for moral examples, you have them in the Gospel: would to heaven that you were not able to find elsewhere examples of vice! — But you will find the proof that you are mortal (and may this be of use to you) on this grave, and on all the earth. — You are reminded by this stone that should also perish soon that he was born in 1632, and that he died in 1704.]

Foscolo’s epitaph is much shorter, but in its economy it echoes Locke’s approach to the evaluation of his vices and virtues:27 hugonis phoscoli vitia. virtus. ossa hic. post. an.... quiescere. coeperunt

Foscolo claims that upon reading Locke’s words ‘il mio cuore palpitò di gioia vedendo ch’io benché in altro modo, aveva fatto cenno de’ vizi, dote mia, come di tutti i nipoti d’Eva’ [my heart throbbed with joy seeing that although [I had done it] in a different manner, I [too] had mentioned vices, [which are] my endowment, like [they are for] all of Eve’s grandchildren].28 Foscolo’s mention of his own imperfection as something that should not be hidden from public view, but rather something to be treasured and bestowed on the world as a lasting legacy, is very much in line with several ref lections in the Epistolario. In The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, the great fictional re-elaboration of Lockean subjectivity, this concept is echoed in Corporal Trim’s speech for the death of master Bobby: ‘Now I love you for this — and ’tis this delicious mixture within you which makes you dear creatures what you are’.29 It is, ultimately, Locke’s philosophy that provides Foscolo with the gnoseological support to validate this conviction, while the unfinished work on Machiavelli proves yet again a testing ground for such ideas. In it, Foscolo credits the Renaissance statesman with a modern and most daring ethical position which looked without hypocrisy at the richness and complexity of the human condition. He observes that Machiavelli examined men’s vices and virtues with full awareness that both contribute ‘constructively’ to the definition of idea of justice. It is a ‘giustizia non ideale, non sovrumana, ma gagliarda e fondata sulla forza e sull’esperienza delle nostre passioni, [...] tale insomma che trovi elementi d’utilità tanto ne’ vizi quanto nelle virtù de’ mortali’ [justice [that is] not ideal, not superhuman, but gallant and

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founded on the strength and experience of our passions, [...] such that, in short, you find elements of usefulness as much in the vices of mortals as in their virtues].30 In a letter dated 11 April 1811, written to Count Giambattista Giovio while he was working on the Machiavelli project, Foscolo makes use of the same ethical criteria in an evaluation of his own vices and virtues: ‘non credendo nè volendo che si cancellino le partite delle mie colpe vado tentando che sieno controbilanciate dalle partite delle opere buone: e su questo libro voglio essere giudicato ed assolto o punito’ [neither believing nor wanting the lots of my faults to be erased, I try to counterbalance them through the lots of my good works. And according to this book I want to be judged and absolved or punished].31 The ref lection on virtues and vices, which Foscolo reassesses throughout his life, is directly connected — as previously seen — to the concepts of volontà and necessità. It is an inquiry that informs the many pages devoted to the role of passions and to the limits of individual responsibility, upon which Foscolo builds his personal ethical conception. Foscolo rejects any innate idea, hence his empirical approach to human passions and to their interactions in man’s soul, which determine the conduct of every rational being.32 In the long letter/confession written to Cornelia Martinetti in August 1812, Foscolo clearly expresses the contrast between any attempt of rational control over passions and ideas and their inevitable self-rule. He had long experienced such paradox, and by now has come to terms quite comfortably with it: Ma sia pure; ridete: ridereste assai più s’io vi dicessi che vi amo, e che spero d’essere riamato, e che ad un tempo io nel fondo del cuore non vorrei nè darvi, nè ricevere da voi mai una scintilla d’amore; ma la mia volontà ha sempre lottato invano contro l’eterna necessità.33 [But be it. Laugh. You would laugh a lot more if I were to tell you that I love you, and that I hope to be loved in return, and that at the same time, in the bottom of my heart, I would like neither to give to you, nor to receive from you even one spark of love. But my volition has always struggled in vain against eternal necessity.]

He therefore questions the existence of what men call free will, because — as he wrote to Camillo Ugoni three years earlier — ‘un demone o un dio ignoto a me stesso ed innominabile mi governa: e alla barba di tutte le dimostrazioni del libero arbitrio, io non posso sempre far ciò che devo nè ciò che voglio’ [a demon or a god, unknown to me and unnameable, governs me: and at the expense of all the demonstrations of my free will, I still cannot do what I ought to nor what I desire’].34 In 1813 Foscolo enquires again into this contradiction in a letter to Sigismondo Trechi,35 and all these considerations signal an affinity between Foscolo’s ideas and the ref lections on free will in Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Locke judges every voluntary act as ‘unavoidably voluntary’,36 and in this philosophical oxymoron Foscolo locates the tension between necessity and volition that he claims so often characterize his actions: [...] willing, or volition, being an action, and freedom consisting in a power of acting or not acting, a man in respect of willing or the act of volition, when any action in his power is once proposed to his thoughts, as presently to be done, cannot be free. The reason whereof is very manifest. For, it being unavoidable

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Foscolo, Reader of Locke that the action depending on his will should exist or not exist, and its existence or not existence following perfectly the determination and preference of his will, he cannot avoid willing the existence or non-existence of that action; it is absolutely necessary that he will the one or the other; i.e. prefer the one to the other: since one of them must necessarily follow; and that which does follow follows by the choice and determination of his mind; that is, by his willing it: for if he did not will it, it would not be. So that, in respect of the act of willing, a man in such a case is not free: liberty consisting in a power to act or not to act; which, in regard of volition, a man, upon such a proposal has not. For it is unavoidably necessary to prefer the doing or forbearance of an action in a man’s power, which is once so proposed to his thoughts; a man must necessarily will the one or the other of them; upon which preference or volition, the action or its forbearance certainly follows, and is truly voluntary. But the act of volition, or preferring one of the two, being that which he cannot avoid, a man, in respect of that act of willing, is under a necessity, and so cannot be free; unless necessity and freedom can consist together, and a man can be free and bound at once.37

Although later on in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke affirms the existence of what, according to him, is improperly defined as free will,38 in the letters in which Foscolo analyzes his emotions and justifies his pragmatic choices, he often revisits the Locke-inspired idea of a fundamental absence of freedom that informs most human actions. He provides Count Giovio with a telling differentiation between his free will (which he knows he does not possess) and his knowledge of good and evil, which ends up being quite useless since he acknowledges that he is fully enslaved to his nature: Ma a lei non resterà se non di pregare Dio Signore che muti in qualche parte l’indole che gli piacque di farmi sortire; ed è sì prepotente quest’indole, che nemmeno l’anno trentesimo terzo che mi sovrasta può farmi conoscere ch’io ho il libero arbitrio: ho bensì la conoscenza del bene e del male; onde spesso in vece di seguire la mia natura, la combatto finché mi strascini: così al danno inevitabile s’aggiunge un dolore procacciato inutilissimamente.39 [But you will have to pray to the Lord God that he may somehow change the disposition that he liked to allot me. And this disposition is so overbearing that not even the thirty-third year that hangs over me can make me know that I have free will; but I do have knowledge of good and evil. And so often instead of following my nature, I fight it until I am dragged along [by it]: a most uselessly self-inf licted pain is thus added to inevitable harm.]

A few months earlier, while still in Pavia, Foscolo had clarified to Count Giovio — and to himself — the process that led him to such discernment: dalle lunghe battaglie ch’io muovo, non so dire se più al corpo che all’animo mio, m’avveggo che il dolore talvolta va secondato; l’opposizione della ragione lo irrita, e solo il tempo ed i casi possono moderarlo; — così ho sempre creduto; ora non lo credo soltanto, lo so.40 [from the long battles that I set in motion, [and] I do not know whether more against the body than against my soul, I realize that one must sometimes give in to pain. Opposition from reason irritates it, and only time and circumstances can mitigate it. — I have always believed this. Now I do not only believe it, I know it.]

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The presence of Locke’s philosophy behind Foscolo’s considerations on this subject is confirmed by yet another letter to Count Giovio. He has just finished reading Giovio’s Il Manuale Cristiano41 and ref lects upon the concepts of pleasure and pain, those two elements of human life ‘donde viene poi speranza e timore, e donde il bene oprare e il male, e quindi l’esperienza e la previdenza, e i ragionamenti e la determinazione forzata ad agire per le cose che ci fanno maggior sensazione’ [from which then arise hope and fear, good deeds and bad, and thus experience and foresight, and reasoning and the forced determination to act in accordance with things that produce in us the strongest sensation].42 The role of pleasure and pain as the dominant agents that govern human actions was the subject of Pietro Verri’s thorough investigation in his Discorso sull’indole del piacere e del dolore published in Milan in 1781.43 In this work Verri, himself a devote reader of Locke, observed that ‘azione immediata sugli organi, speranza e timore’ [immediate action on the organs, hope and fear] were the principles behind pleasurable or painful emotions. Foscolo’s reference to pleasure and pain does not seem indebted to Verri but is rather overtly Lockean, as becomes even more apparent a few lines later when — upon commenting on Giovio’s words about ‘discordiam inter actiones et theoriam’ and how ‘necessitas urges nos’ — Foscolo observes:44 Il detto di Medea: Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor, è profondamente sviscerato da Giovanni Locke nel suo trattato dell’intendimento. Non mi ricordo del luogo; ma so ch’egli ne parla a lungo, e prova che gli uomini sono perpetuamente e necessariamente mossi dalla più forte sensazione, e che si opera il male presente ad onta delle ragioni poste innanzi dalla esperienza del passato, e dalle previdenze del futuro pel solo motivo che le cose presenti fanno più forza sull’animo nostro.45 [Medea’s saying, Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor, is thoroughly examined by John Locke in his treatise on knowledge. I do not remember where, but I know that he speaks about it at length, and he proves that men are perpetually and necessarily moved by the strongest sensation, and that present evil is performed in spite of the reasons brought forward from past experiences, and from foresights into the future, for the sole reason that present things have a greater impact on our mind.]

Locke quotes Medea’s words in Book II, chapter xxi of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding in an analysis of the concepts of will and desire. What determines the will to act or not to act is, he states, the discomfort caused by an absent good: ‘Good and evil, present and absent, it is true, work upon the mind. But that which immediately determines the will, from time to time, to every voluntary action, is the uneasiness of desire, fixed on some absent good’.46 Locke illustrates this with the case of an alcoholic who, despite clearly knowing the long-term advantages of abstaining from his vice, surrenders to the immediacy of desire and to the uneasiness caused by the absent good. It is true, Locke says, that ‘the great privilege of finite intellectual beings [...] [is] that they can suspend their desires, and stop them from determining their wills to any action, till they have duly and fairly examined the good and evil of it, as far forth as the weight of the thing requires’.47 However, often men do not choose the greater good and this happens for reasons which are seldom under

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one’s control: for example, because of a physical pain or because of an error in the evaluation of the absent good that one so intensely desires. Using again the example of the alcoholic, Locke observes: And thus he is, from time to time, in the state of that unhappy complainer, Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor: which sentence, allowed for true, and made good by constant experience, may in this, and possibly no other way, be easily made intelligible.48

Foscolo uses this portion of the Essay in a direct comparison to his own experience, thus declaring an intellectual and experiential connection with the father of British empiricism, whose philosophical system legitimates the working of his passions and the contradictions between will and desires that he had identified and analyzed in his own life. As previously seen, in his letters Foscolo repeatedly justifies the inconsistency between his will and his actions on the basis of an unavoidable incongruity embedded in human nature. He goes so far as proclaiming his innocence for actions that violate his conscience’s decrees, declaring himself ‘un reo cieco ed involontario,’ [a blind and involuntary offender] and ‘fatalmente reo, non volontariamente’ [fatally wicked, not willingly].49 Another fundamental point of convergence between Foscolo and Locke is represented by Laurence Sterne’s narrative, of which Locke’s Essay is a most prominent intertext. Melvyn New notes how ‘Locke had an inf luence on Tristram Shandy, but its extent and nature have been much debated, ranging from those who believe Tristram Shandy is structured on Lockean principles to those who believe it is written contra Locke’.50 Whether the character of Sterne’s writing is pro or contra Locke is debatable and not necessarily crucial in shedding light on the Lockean nature of the writer’s philosophical gaze. In this respect, Wolfgang Iser contends that: The fact that Sterne made Locke’s empiricism into his central field of reference is an indication of the innovative character of represented subjectivity, for only by deconstructing the prevailing code could he draw attention to and establish the necessary conditions for its conceivability.51

Manfred Pfister convincingly argues that Sterne is always particularly sensitive to the aspects of Locke’s philosophy that endanger the established rational order. This can be seen in particular in Locke’s treatment of the imperfection of words — which are mere signs established by conventions, whose correlation with ideas is insufficient in any philosophical discourse — and in the explanation of the association of ideas, which occur either by a ‘natural correspondence’ or by ‘chance or custom’.52 Sterne parodies, exaggerates, belittles, and stretches the limits of Locke’s ideas to allow for a ‘physiological writing’ that is based on ‘the language of the body [...], sympathy and sentiment’: Sterne’s dialogue with Locke is so intensive because he does not only disagree with him but shares his basic empiricist assumptions: that man possesses no innate ideas, and that all the ideas that man acquires and possesses derive from two sources, sensations drawn from the experiential world and his own ref lections upon them. In the words of Sterne’s title: there is the lived ‘Life’ and there are ‘Opinions’.53

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The parody of Lockean principles is clear from the very first pages of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, when Mr Shandy’s act of conception is interrupted by his wife’s most famous reminder to wind up the clock, thus upsetting the animal spirits that preside over the creation of a new life. Beyond being a great example of Locke’s theory of the association of ideas, the interruption originates a chain effect of which the foetus first and then the man will carry indelible marks. It is worth remembering that Locke considered sensory reception to be in charge of the individual’s thinking from the very first stages of conception — that is, in the uterus: I doubt not but children, by the exercise of their senses about objects that affect them in the womb, receive some few ideas before they are born, as the unavoidable effects, either of the bodies that environ them, or else of those wants or diseases they suffer [...] no otherwise differing in their manner of production from other ideas derived from sense, but only in the precedency of time. Whereas those innate principles are supposed to be quite of another nature; not coming into the mind by any accidental alterations in, or operations on the body; but, as it were, original characters impressed upon it, in the very first moment of its being and constitution.54

Although the connection between Locke and Sterne’s Tristram Shandy is never openly revealed in Foscolo’s writings, it seems legitimate to read Foscolo’s letter to Quirina Mocenni Magiotti, in which he promises to provide her with a full account of his life from its very beginning in the uterus, as an overt allusion — not devoid of irony — to the interconnections between his own epistolary writing and Sterne’s (mis-)use of Locke’s epistemology.55 In Book V, chapter XVIII, of Tristram Shandy, Sterne relates one of the many philosophical debates between Mr Shandy and Uncle Toby, which is largely based upon Locke’s analysis of the ‘Idea of duration and its simple modes’.56 He makes Uncle Toby’s daily life a parody of Walter Shandy’s systematic theorizations in his philosophical quest for truth, thus satirizing the concepts of freedom and necessity — so central to Foscolo’s moral system — exposed by Locke in Book II, chapter xxi of the Essay. [...] my uncle Toby, who (honest man!) generally took everything as it happened; — and who, of all things in the world, troubled his brain the least with abstruse thinking; — the ideas of time and space, — or how we came by those ideas, — or of what stuff they were made, — or whether they were born with us, — or we pick’d them up afterwards as we went along, — or whether we did it in frocks, — or not till we had got into breeches, — with a thousand other inquiries and disputes about infinity, prescience, liberty, necessity, and so forth, upon whose desperate and unconquerable theories, so many fine heads have been turned and crack’d, — never did my uncle Toby’s the least injury at all.57

Unlike Uncle Toby, Foscolo painstakingly — and unsystematically — ref lects on these very issues and, beyond the Epistolario, his philosophical answers are penned for the most part by Didimo Chierico, his alter ego in progress. The character of Didimo stems from the 1812 translation of A Sentimental Journey, a book which represents Sterne’s last — and lasting — answer to Locke’s endangered rational

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order, to which the writer opposes the all-pervasive new ethic of sentimentalism: apodictic, self-conscious, and ironic. Sterne’s analysis (via Locke) of the human heart and Machiavelli’s political pragmatism, towards which Foscolo nurtures great admiration and unwavering faith, represent the two aspects of a political and ethical system that in Foscolo continuously intersect and, at times, converge. If both Hobbes’s ideas and Hume’s philosophy will play a central role in Foscolo’s definition of man’s social responsibility and of the role of passions, it is Locke’s system that remains for him a consistent point of reference and exerts an unaltered fascination, because it confirms — to a large extent — the epistemological and ethical premises of his own thought.58 In his study ‘Il Credo filosofico di Ugo Foscolo’, Eugenio Donadoni draws attention to Foscolo’s empiricism, and considers it the central element of the writer’s philosophy.59 In a letter written at the end of August 1814 to the Countess of Albany, Foscolo himself defines the limits of his philosophical empiricism, observing how: [le] indisposizioni d’animo dipendano dalla tempra del corpo; e se non temessi di urtare nel materialismo, e di darle mezz’ora di noja, vorrei provare che gli epitteti [sic] di spirituale e di morale sono indefinibili e inutili; e che tutto dipende da quel muscolo carneo che chiamano cuore, e dalle sue fibbre, e da tutta la sua mortale e malconosciuta materia.60 [[the] indispositions of the mind depend on the body’s constitution. And if I were not afraid to come up against materialism, and to cause you a half hour nuisance, I would like to prove that the epithets of spiritual and moral are indefinable and useless, and that everything depends on the f leshy muscle that is called the heart, and on its fibres, and on all of its mortal and poorly known matter.]

Five years earlier, he wrote to Count Giovio that ‘tutta la forza della nostra filosofia, tutta la forza dell’anima nostra risiede nelle forze de’ nostri muscoli, del nostro cuore di carne, e del nostro cervello tal quale le dita della madre natura l’hanno impastato’ [all the strength of our philosophy, all the strength of our soul resides in the strengths of our muscles, of our heart of f lesh, and of our brain as the fingers of mother nature have shaped it].61 From such a position derives a lack of faith in any ‘perfettibilità progressiva’ [progressive perfectibility] that he considers a mere illusion with which he cannot comfort himself.62 He justifies this philosophical position that openly disputes the dawning idealism ‘de’ buoni filosofanti tedeschi’ [of the good German so-called philosophers] in a letter to the Countess of Albany by turning again to Locke’s principles: Locke ha detto: ‘Figliuoli miei, esaminate i fatti, e troverete i principj; se non altro dalla serie costante e perpetua di molti fatti imparerete come dovrete condurvi’: — e questi tedeschi dicono: ‘Dai principj derivano necessariamente i fattj: dunque cerchiamo per la più corta i principj; e i principj sono che l’uomo deve un giorno o l’altro diventare perfetto’; ma cercando la strada da un punto ignoto per arrivare a un punto ancora più ignoto, i buoni tedeschi si vanno perdendo, empion libri di sogni, e non s’intendono neppure fra loro, benché si lodino, e si diffendano. E di queste immaginazioni è pieno, a quanto intendo, perché io non l’ho letto, un volume dell’opera di Mad.a de Staël, di cui Ella, mia Signora, m’ha fatto motto.63

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[Locke said: ‘My children, examine the facts, and you will find the principles, if nothing else, from the constant and perpetual sequence of many facts will you learn how to conduct yourself ’: — and these Germans say: ‘The facts are necessarily derived from principles, therefore we look for the principles by taking the shortest path, and the principles are that man must one day or another become perfect’. But by seeking a path starting from an unknown point to arrive at an even lesser known point, the good Germans get lost, fill their books of dreams, and do not even agree among themselves, though they praise and defend each other. And a volume of Madame de Staël’s work that you, Milady, mentioned to me, is full of these kinds of imaginings — from what I understand, because I have not read it — .]

Pragmatism in the realm of actions paves the way for relativism in the fields of passions and religious beliefs. Once again, his correspondence with Count Giovio reveals the web of Foscolo’s philosophical positions: Nè io mi credo più felice o più misero degli altri, perch’io non ho mezzi da paragonare il mio cuore all’altrui; e la felicità e la miseria del cuore umano sono nomi di due idee senza limiti; ogn’uomo crede di vederne gli estremi in sè stesso, e ognun s’inganna in sè stesso. Come dunque daremo ad intendere agli altri lo stato dell’animo nostro? Come pretenderemo ch’ei creda alle nostre asserzioni? Come noi staremo sull’altrui giudizio? Come daremo, come seguiremo il consiglio? E poi la tranquillità dell’animo è ciò che l’occhio non vide, che l’orecchio non udì, e che il cuore dell’uomo non ha mai concepito.64 [Nor do I believe myself to be more happy or miserable than others, because I do not have the means to compare my heart to that of others. And the happiness and the misery of the human heart are names for two boundless ideas. Each man thinks he sees the extremes of them in himself, and each one is mistaken. How then will we make our state of mind known to others? How can we pretend that others believe our assertions? How can we judge those of others? How will we give or follow advice? In the end peace of mind is that which the eye did not see, the ear did not hear, and the heart of man has never conceived.]

Given that sensations produce an infinite number of combinations on the human soul, and that the shades in which pleasure, pain, and desire manifest themselves are infinite, it follows that man can never exert a definitive judgment on his own passions or on those of his fellow human beings. In the name of a philosophy, which is ‘tollerantissima con le passioni e intollerantissima co’ vizi’ [most tolerant with passions, and most intolerant with vices],65 Foscolo goes as far as justifying religious fanaticism and, as he states with regard to Tasso, he respects and loves more ‘un pazzo sensibile che un savio egoista’ [a sensitive madman, than a wise egoist].66 In dealing with religious and philosophical principles, Foscolo often does not draw a clear line between the two areas. Religion and philosophy tend to blend into each other, as revealed by the figure of Didimo, clergyman, philosopher, and Yorick’s literary sibling, who, from assiduous reading of the Bible coupled with his layman convictions rooted in stoicism, elaborates a personal synchretic philosophical system that he follows with religious devotion. ‘Ella sa’, writes Foscolo in one of his earliest letters to Count Giovio, ‘che si può pensare stranamente ed essere galantuomini’ [You know that one can think strangely and be a gentleman] because ‘non v’e’ principio di filosofia o di religione che non possa essere santamente o

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scelleratamente applicato: tutto dipende dal cuore, dall’indole del nostro cuore’ [there is not a principle of philosophy or religion that cannot be saintly or wickedly applied: everything depends on the heart, on the disposition of our heart].67 The how counts more that the what, and the proof of it can be found at the very end of this letter, in which Foscolo aknowledges: ‘i nostri pareri sono forse diversi; ma il nostro cuore li applica allo stesso uso’ [our opinions may differ, but our heart puts them to the same use].68 He has an absolute, Didimean faith in these principles, and is ready to defend them against all odds and all criticisms. As he explains to Count Giovio, sono i miei principj — non posso cangiarli perché sono salito sino ad essi per una via lunga, faticosa, e senza l’aiuto degli altri, e senza pertinacia di sistema e senza entusiasmo di singolarità. Saranno falsi; ma gli uomini mortali che sanno eglino mai di certo e d’incontrastabile su la terra? Nascere, vivere, morire; ecco cosa sappiamo, e lo sappiamo non già per le cause, bensì per l’esperienza continua degli effetti; ma il come e il perché d’ogni cosa stanno e staranno a quanto io credo eternamente nella Mente imperscrutabile dell’universo. E questa Mente io adoro senza temerla; e riposo ne’ suoi consigli, senza indagarli; solo guardo gli effetti, e da quegli effetti desumo alcuni principj, e dico: Così dev’essere poiché così sempre fu. — M’inganno? — sarà; ma chiunque non s’inganna quegli solo aspiri a disingannarmi; intanto io seguirò il mio proprio errore poiché ad ogni modo credo che abbandonandolo dovrei seguire l’altrui. Vanitas, et omnia vanitas: ma il cielo vuole che gli uomini s’illudano su queste vanità e guai se le conoscessero!69 [these are my principles — I cannot change them because I have ascended to them by a long, laborious road, and without the help of others, without stubborn adherence to a system and without keenness to come across as peculiar. They might be false, but do mortal men ever know anything that is certain and incontestable on earth? Being born, living, and dying. This is what we know. And we do not know the reasons for it all, but only the continuous experience of their effect. But the how and the why of each thing is and will be, at least as I believe it, in the eternal, inscrutable Mind of the universe. I adore this Mind without fearing it, I adhere to its decisions without questioning them. I only look at their effects, and from these effects I deduce some principles, and I say: It must be thus, because it has always been. — Am I mistaken? — perhaps, but whosoever is not mistaken let him alone aspire to disillusion me. Meanwhile, I will follow my own error because, in any case, I believe that [in] abandoning it, I would have to follow [that of ] others. Vanitas, et omnia vanitas, but heaven wants men to deceive themselves about these vanities and heaven help those who know them!]

A few days later, Foscolo reaffirms those ideas and clarifies the nature of his philosophical convictions: Io sono in età ormai da tenermi, come Palladio, a quella filosofia che fu da me alimentata e che m’alimenta: non che io la reputi per certa e migliore delle altre; solo mi pare di vederla ragionevole per se stessa, e necessaria alla mia vita, perché sento che i suoi principj mi stanno radicati nell’anima; nè potrei, volendo, sradicarli senza sgominare le fondamenta delle mie facoltà intellettuali. Primo e sommo dono fatto dalla natura e dalle lettere agli uomini reputo la stabilità della propria mente. Poco importa al ben vivere su quali basi questa stabilità sia

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già edificata; importa bensì di non errare d’opinioni in opinioni, e quindi di errore in errore: si crede a tutti, e non si compiace a veruno; si cammina sempre a quel modo e si fa pochissimo viaggio; si dubita senza ragioni proprie, e si teme senza vedere alcun porto che ne raccolga. Beato dunque chi ha una opinione certa, invincibile e perpetua! Vivrà ingannato, forse, ma vivrà certamente tranquillo, ed avrà dentro di sè un tribunale e una regola; chè non v’è da sperare fuori di noi nel giudizio degli uomini veruna sentenza giusta e sicura.70 [I am now at an age in which I hold on, like Palladium, to that philosophy that I nourished and that, in return, nourishes me. Not that I believe it to be certain and better than others, only I think that I see it as reasonable in itself, and necessary to my life, because I feel that its principles are rooted in my soul. Nor could I, wanting to, uproot them without defeating the foundation of my intellectual faculties. I consider consistency of mind as the first and highest gift made by nature and by letters to men. It matters little, in order to ensure one’s good life, on what bases this stability has been constructed, but it does matter that one does not wander from opinion to opinion, and thus from error to error. A man who believes everything, satisfies no one. [If he] continues to walk in this manner, he travels very little [distance]. He doubts in the absence of his own reasons, and he is afraid without seeing any port in which to take shelter. Thus blessed is he who has a certain, unshakeable and perpetual opinion! Perhaps he will live deceived but he will certainly live at peace, and he will have inside of himself a tribunal and a rule, because there is no hope for any just and sure sentence outside of ourselves in the judgment of men.]

Foscolo is well aware that his opinions — which are the principles on which he organizes his philosophical, moral, and religious beliefs — could easily be defined as prejudices. As he writes to Giuseppe Pulieri, these principles are nourished by his passions, and thus tied to their subjective nature, but also to their irreducible evidence.71 It is from this core of personal ref lections that originate the famous didimean precepts on opinions — a word always uttered by Didimo ‘con serietà religiosa’ [with religious seriousness] — and the profound respect for other people’s philosophical and religious beliefs.72 Didimo too considers consistency of heart and mind as the highest virtue: once a person chooses a set of values and beliefs, they must be pursued until the end, making such determination a life-long moral compass and a philosophical support along the perilous path of life. Hence Didimo’s apparent aloofness: [pareva] che senza dar noia agli altri, se ne andasse quietissimo e sicuro di sé medesimo per la sua strada, e sostandosi spesso, quasi avesse più a cuore di non deviare che di toccare la meta. Queste a ogni modo sono tutte mie congetture.73 [it appeared] that without boring others, he walked most calmly and sure of himself along his path and stopped often, as if he were more concerned not to stray than to reach his destination. These are all, in any case, just my conjectures.]

Thanks to the Epistolario, we do know that Didimo’s moral paradoxes cover with a thin veil the antinomies that Foscolo perceived at work within himself. In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Locke too debates the significance and consequence of other people’s opinions, and warns against the power that

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opinions exert on their bearer and on others: There is another [ground], I confess, which, though by itself it be no true ground of probability, yet is often made use of for one, by which men most commonly regulate their assent, and upon which they pin their faith more than anything else, and that is, the opinion of others; though there cannot be a more dangerous thing to rely on, nor more likely to mislead one; since there is much more falsehood and error among men, than truth and knowledge.74

Whereas for Locke the power of opinions can be dangerously misleading and thus a potential stumbling block in the search for philosophical truths, Foscolo is less preoccupied with this epistemological hazard. He is instead quite in accord with Locke’s main exploration of the power and outcome of religious opinions carried out in A Letter Concerning Toleration. The Letter was written at the time of Locke’s political exile in Amsterdam and was published for the first time anonymously in 1689. Its historical framework is the battle for political and religious tolerance in England at the end of the seventeenth century. According to the principle of revelation as natural religion, Locke acknowledges, from a theoretical point of view, those opinions which constitute articles of faith,75 while from a practical point of view he defines religious opinions as closely related to those ‘indifferent things,’ which are religious beliefs and practices not openly documented in the Bible, but considered by different groups as necessary to their own salvation.76 The distinction between the two areas is not always easily identifiable and the Letter, written as an instrument in defence of the right to civil and religious dissent within the Christian community, is one of the most authoritative claims to individual freedom on the path to salvation. A definite harmony of thoughts and feelings can be traced between Locke’s Letter and Foscolo’s positions. Foscolo knew this work because it was included in the Oeuvres Diverses de Monsieur Locke which he purchased in Florence, and he may well have had previous knowledge of it. The discourse on religious tolerance, the clear distinction between religious and civil spheres of inf luence, and the condemnation of the recourse to violence as an instrument of persuasion, are all in line with several positions expressed by Foscolo in his private correspondence and these principles resonate also in his appendix to the Opere di Raimondo Montecuccoli illustrate da Ugo Foscolo, where he re-frames in theoretical terms his own past experience of counsel for the defence of soldiers in military tribunals. Locke’s insistence in the Letter on the word ‘opinion’ is particularly intriguing, given Foscolo’s Shandean literary lineage and the fact that he makes of this word a key rhetorical device of Didimo’s language. Tolerance is one of the constitutive elements of Didimo’s nature and it is constantly implied in that word opinioni, which is used as a catchword in his speeches. Didimo knows that he must employ such tolerance first and foremost towards himself because, if, on the one hand, his beliefs are at the foundation of his ethical system, on the other hand, they are subject to the ability of his judgment and to the ultimate test of history. In dealing with philosophical or religious principles, Foscolo summons only his conscience, as the rich correspondence with Giambattista Giovio extensively corroborates. The old Count can not agree with Foscolo’s relativism, which is in line with Locke’s statement that ‘the care of each Mans [sic] Salvation belongs only

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to himself ’,77 but Giovio is nonetheless favourably inclined towards his younger friend and shows great respect for his layman’s faith — stoical and profoundly tolerant. Foscolo’s vindication of individual freedom on the path to salvation is very much in tune with Locke’s concept of conscientious dissent as expressed in A Letter Concerning Toleration. Here Locke lashes out at the hypocrisy of those who persecute men and women in the name of God: For if it be out of a Principle of Charity, as they pretend, and Love to Mens [sic] Souls, that they deprive them of their estates, maim them with corporal Punishments, starve and torment them in noisom Prisons, and in the end even take away their Lives; I say, if all this be done merely to make Men Christians, and procure their Salvation, Why do they suffer Whoredom, Fraud, Malice, and such like enormities, which (according to the Apostle) manifestly rellish of Heathenish Corruption, to predominate so much and abound amongst their Flocks and People? These, and such like things, are certainly more contrary to the Glory of God, to the Purity of the Church, and to the Salvation of Souls, than any conscientious Dissent from Ecclesiastical Decisions, or Separation from Publick Worship, whilst accompanied with Innocency of Life.78

Foscolo embraces the concept of conscientious dissent and, as previously seen, in the name of innocence not only justifies religious fanaticism, but also redefines the limits of individual responsibility and guilt. His interest in Locke’s religious writing is also documented in the letter sent from Florence in December 1812 to Antonio Veneri, in which Foscolo — as we have seen — says that he has just finished reading Locke’s essay on how to interpret St Paul’s Epistles,79 and emphasizes his conviction about having a ‘good conscience’ that does not conceal to itself its own sins. As previously observed, the Epistle of St Paul to the Hebrews is in fact the source of Tristram Shandy’s sermon ‘For we trust we have a good Conscience’, a passionate and ironic defence of the Anglican position on the assessment of a good conscience, with the prescribed mediation of religion and reason on the path of individual salvation, and the outright condemnation of any alternative form of mediation, as found first and foremost in the Catholic doctrine. Foscolo read l’Essai pour l’entendement des epitres de S. Paul in its first French translation (Amsterdam, 1732), which appeared without the paraphrase of the Pauline text. In his essay Locke states that the epistles should be read with the theological interpretations set aside, interpretations that over the course of centuries have distorted the epistles’ message, offering at times different and even totally opposite readings. Arthur Wainwright observes how Locke’s hermeneutical analysis, aimed at dispelling the obscurity of the text and conducted ‘by consulting Paul himself ’,80 offers a thorough historical re-contextualization of St Paul, with an inquiry into ‘the Occasion of his writing’81 and of ‘the Temper and Circumstances those he writ to were in’.82 Only at the end of such process ‘The Particularities of the History in which these Speeches are inserted, shew St Paul’s end in Speaking; which, being seen, casts a light on the whole, and shews the Pertinency of all that he says’.83 The analysis of the apostle’s language is the principal tool at Locke’s disposal and in his preface to the Essay he thoroughly explains the need for a semantic interpretation of the letters according to proto-ethnolinguistic paradigms:

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Foscolo, Reader of Locke The Words are Greek; a Language dead many Ages since; a Language of a very witty volatile People, Seekers after Novelty, and abounding with Variety of Notions and Sects, to which they applied the Terms of their common Tongue with great Liberty and Variety; [...] The Terms are Greek, but the Idiom, or Turn of the Phrases, may be truly said to be Hebrew or Syriac. [...] Nor is this all; the Subject treated of in these Epistles is so wholly new, and the Doctrines contained in them so perfectly remote from the Notions that Mankind were acquainted with, that most of the important Terms in it have quite another Signification from what they have in other Discourses.84

Locke’s paraphrase offers therefore a new methodological approach to the reading of St Paul, rather than another dogmatic or confessional interpretation of the epistles. As Victor Nuovo observes, If anything is presupposed it is the assurance that beneath the various voices and personae of St Paul there is a thinking self, a mind crowded with thoughts, cultivated but prolific, and faced with opportunities and demands to express them. A mind and circumstances much like Locke’s own, but in Locke’s judgement more divine.85

Such an approach and re-evaluation of the Pauline language appealed to Foscolo, comforting his soul and confirming him in his view of religion as inextricably bound to the existence of man in the world and in history. Wainwright highlights the independence of Locke’s text from any school of thought, and defines it as ‘the work of a man with a mind of his own’,86 while Nuovo observes that Locke ‘seems to have discovered the practice of contextualization long before it became fashionable’.87 In a similar way, in the Epistolario Foscolo proclaims his independence from any philosophical and moral systems, and in his works of criticism he champions a literary historicism ante litteram, corroborated by the planned historical reinterpretation of the life and work of Machiavelli based on a new study of fifteenth-century Florence and, later on, by his ambitious series of London lectures on the ‘Epoche della lingua italiana’ in which he intended to re-evaluate the whole of Italian literature along a binary historical and linguistic interpretative path. Binni identifies in Foscolo’s historicism a primary aspect of his literary activity also in the field of translation: Già nel 1808 [...] vediamo il Foscolo preoccupato di una storia dei tempi omerici almeno altrettanto che della versione dell’Iliade: vediamo chiaramente come dal traduttore si sviluppi il critico, e ad un tempo come da questi esercizi si faccia in lui più chiara la coscienza della poesia in generale.88 [Already in 1808 [...] we see Foscolo preoccupied with a history of Homeric times, at least as much as with the version of the Iliad. We clearly see how from the translator developed the critic, and at the same time how, from these exercises, the consciousness of poetry in general became more clear in him.]

It was in fact the long practice of translation that brought Foscolo to his in depth ref lections on the nature and function of language, and the pages devoted to the translation of the Odyssey reveal how behind the translator is always at work the critic who — in line with Locke’s theory of conf lation — is eager to bring each poetical word to its original meaning and, at the same time, to enrich it with the

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‘molte minime idee accessorie e concomitanti, che danno sempre più movimento e più tinte al significato primitivo’ [many minute additional and concomitant ideas, that add movement and hues to the primary meaning].89 This position can be already traced in the lectures delivered in Pavia in 1809, although there he had only hinted at his intention to reinterpret Italian literature with a re-contextualization of its premises and outcomes in close connection to Locke’s philosophy of language.90 During the years 1812 and 1813 Foscolo continues his investigation of these concepts and two texts confirm this ongoing interest: Michele Leoni’s article on the translation of A Sentimental Journey, written under Foscolo’s specific instruction, and a long letter that Foscolo writes to Giovan Paolo Shulthesius from Florence on 27 August 1812.91 In the latter, Foscolo outlines the project of a philosophical vocabulary of the Italian language that would be ‘sicuro, abbondante, spregiudicato’ [sure, abundant, and unconventional] and quite divergent from the vocabulary of the Crusca Academy, an enterprise the premises of which he considers to be imperfect and incomplete, and which was not even able to fulfil its inadequate objectives.92 As he had already acknowledged in the article on the translation of the Odyssey, Foscolo states that for each word it is necessary to conduct a multiple set of inquiries: first an etymological study, followed by an analysis of the metaphorical ideas connected to it (those idee accessorie and concomitanti [additional and concomitant ideas] mentioned above), a historical investigation, a stylistic identification and categorization, and, finally, a negative vocabulary (‘vocabolarietto negativo’) that would include a treatment of local expressions and foreign words which are part of everyday language, accompanied by the correspondent Tuscan words and expressions.93 This project follows the precepts of Locke’s linguistic empiricism, already seen at work in the interpretation of St Paul’s epistles, according to which, Words are general, as has been said, when used for signs of general ideas, and so are applicable indifferently to many particular things; and ideas are general when they are set up as the representatives of many particular things: but universality belongs not to things themselves, which are all of them particular in their existence, even those words and ideas which in their significance are general. When therefore we quit particulars, the generals that rest are only creatures of our own making.94

The letter to Shulthesius offers a very detailed project that, in Foscolo’s view, should help the languishing early nineteenth-century Italian language, threatened by an excess of variety, uncertain codification, and too many French expressions and grammatical structures. He then illustrates the expressive variety of particles, a concept only brief ly mentioned in the article on the translation of the Odyssey. His definition is here quite articulate: dove la Crusca pecca imperdonabilmente si è nelle particelle, le quali in ogni idioma sono le vere e sole giunture delle idee principali del discorso; danno inoltre i toni e mezzitoni come nella musica; ed aiutano lo scrittore a quel chiaroscuro che tanto è più grato quanto le minime tinte che lo distinguono spiccano meno.95 [where the Crusca [Academy] lacks unpardonably is in the particles, which are, in every idiom, the true and only connections among the main ideas of a discourse. Moreover they provide tones and semitones like in music, and help the writer to [achieve]

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Foscolo, Reader of Locke that chiaroscuro that is the more agreeable the less that its distinguishing minimal shades stand out.]

Foscolo claims to be very proud of this definition which he weighs against the philosophy of Locke who ‘nell’opera sua maggiore ne parla con altri termini, ma con lo stesso principio, e con quella eloquenza sicura, calda, e tranquilla ad un tempo che nessun filosofo ha mai conseguito’ [in his greatest work talks about it in other terms, but according to the same principle, and with that eloquence that is at once confident, warm, and calm [and] that no philosopher has ever attained].96 He refers here to Book III, chapter VII of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding entitled ‘Of Particles’, where Locke deals with the use of adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions. Locke examines how the human mind makes use of particles to communicate a motion or ‘direction’ related to its ideas: They are all marks of some action or intimation of the mind; and therefore to understand them rightly, the several views, postures, stands, turns, limitations, and exceptions, and several other thoughts of the mind, for which we have either none or very deficient names, are diligently to be studied.97

This is what Foscolo calls the thought’s ‘toni’ [tones] or ‘mezzitoni’ [semitones] and its ‘coloratura’ [colouring] that can undergo infinite variations. At close scrutiny, it is not a coincidence that Foscolo examines Locke’s philosophy of language at this point in time. August 1812 marks the declared beginning of his second translation of A Sentimental Journey, which he finished in December of the same year. It seems therefore undeniable that Locke’s philosophy constitutes a methodological support to the translation’s process. It has been previously noted how in a letter to Camillo Ugoni written in October 1813 — when the new translation of Sterne’s novel had already been published — Foscolo expresses the frustration he experienced in shaping the linguistic material while trying to avoid at each step the dangers of ‘linguistic mechanism’.98 His fear represents the anxiety of a defeat in that field of philosophy of language, which constitutes a constant aspiration of Foscolo’s aesthetic excellence. While it is not possible to establish whether Foscolo’s first exposure to Locke’s philosophy took place via his reading, during the Venetian years, of Sterne’s novels, it is however certain that when Foscolo re-translates A Sentimental Journey he re-reads Locke and in his private correspondence ponders those aspects of Locke’s philosophy that directly speak to his current enterprise: his historical and critical exegesis of language in the essay on the epistles of St Paul and his attention to the multifaceted referential function of language theorized in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, as well as his insistence on the role of sensible data in the epistemological process and in the definition of the will and passions. In the light of these considerations, it is particularly relevant that on 27 August 1812, the same day on which he writes the long letter to Shulthesius on the project of a philosophical dictionary and on the scientific method he envisages for his linguistic analysis, Foscolo sends to Cornelia Martinetti another letter, in which he stresses the ‘necessità del moto perpetuo delle passioni’ [necessity of the perpetual stirrings of the passions], the great Sternean theme that he was at that point revisiting in his translation.99 Locke’s philosophy and Sterne’s narrative are deeply interconnected at several

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levels in Foscolo’s work. While Sterne is the faithful friend who accompanies Foscolo in his quest to unravel the enigma of the human heart, Locke is the philosopher who directs his epistemological search and who contributes like no other to establish ‘un tribunale e una regola’ [a tribunal and a rule] on which to judge his own and other people’s actions.100 Notes to Chapter 2 1. Several works of literary criticism on Foscolo’s poetry and prose deal, in a more or less marginal way, with the writer’s philosophical positions. The most comprehensive analysis remains, to this date, that of Donadoni who in ‘Il credo filosofico di Ugo Foscolo’ provides a comprehensive overview of Foscolo’s philosophical ideas and their sources (Donadoni, pp. 17–45). M. Loré in the introduction to his study on Foscolo’s Dell’origine e dell’ufficio della letteratura further elaborates some aspects of Donadoni’s investigation (see Foscolo, Dell’origine e dell’ufficio della letteratura, pp. i–cxliii). Other general contributions that address Foscolo’s philosophical background are: Cian, ‘Ugo Foscolo all’Università di Pavia, 1809–1909’; Fubini, Ugo Foscolo; Binni, Foscolo e la critica; Fasano, Stratigrafie foscoliane; Macrì, Semantica e metrica dei ‘Sepolcri’ del Foscolo; Palumbo, Saggi sulla prosa di Ugo Foscolo, in particular pp. 20–39 and 117–32. For Foscolo’s relationship with Vico’s thought, see G. Rossi, Il pensiero di G. B. Vico intorno alla natura della lingua e all’ufficio delle lettere. See also Zerella, Le lezioni pavesi di Ugo Foscolo; Sciacca, ‘L’Elogio di Elena di Gorgia e l’Orazione Inaugurale di Ugo Foscolo’; and Masiello, ‘Foscolo e Vico’. 2. EN, VII, pp. 157, 163. 3. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, first published in 1690, was reprinted four times during Locke’s life. In the seventeenth century, forty editions of the Essay were published. For a brief history of this work, see Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, I, pp. xi-xv. 4. Andres was the author of Dell’origine, progresso e stato attuale d’ogni letteratura. 5. EN, VI, p. 7. 6. The two lectures are in EN, VII, pp. 117–38 and 139–64. 7. EN, VII, p. 122. 8. EN, VII, p. 123. 9. EN, VII, pp. 126–27. 10. EN, VII, p. 128. 11. Wolfgang Iser, in his study Laurence Sterne: Tristram Shandy, observes that ‘Locke’s theory of cognition marks an apex of epistemology in the modern world’ (p. 14). 12. EN, VII, p. 128. 13. EN, VII, p. 127. 14. EN, VII, pp. 231–81. 15. EN, VII, p. 253. 16. EN, VII, p. 128. In the light of these considerations, it is not surprising that Foscolo takes great offence at the Countess of Albany’s accusation that he sought ‘la gloriole du moment’ [vainglory of the moment] (EN, XVIII, p. 49 (14 February 1814)). He feels the need to justify himself and admits to having ‘aspirato alla fama più che non si converrebbe ad un uomo filosofo’ [aspired to fame more than is acceptable for a philosophical man], but adds that ‘la gloriole non potrà vincermi mai, ed ho peccato d’orgoglio sdegnoso, anziché di ridicola e misera vanità’ [vainglory could never conquer me, and I sinned with disdainful pride, rather than with ridiculous and miserable vanity] (EN, XVIII, pp. 49–50). 17. EN, VII, p. 159. 18. Frammenti sul Machiavelli (EN, VIII, pp. 1–63). 19. Scotti, pp. 83–84. 20. EN, VIII, p. 3. 21. EN, VIII, p. 4. See also Parmegiani, ‘In Search of a Nation’, p. 148. 22. EN, XVI, p. 22 (18 January 1809). 23. EN, VII, p. 252.

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24. EN, XVII, p. 108 (22 August 1812). 25. Locke, Oeuvres Diverses de Monsieur Locke. Jean Le Clerc’s Eloge historique de feu Mr Locke is in I, pp. i–cxix. The book is listed by Nicoletti in the writer’s Florentine library (Nicoletti, La biblioteca fiorentina del Foscolo, pp. 53–54). Locke’s epitaph reads: ‘Siste Viator. Hic juxta situs est Joannes Lockius. Si qualis fuerit rogas, mediocritate sua contentum se vixisse respondet. Litteris innutritus eousque tantum profecit, ut veritati unice litaret. Hoc ex scriptis illius disce quae quod de eo reliquum est majori fide tibi exhibebunt quam epitaphii suspecta elogia. Virtutes si quas habuit, minores sane quam sibi laudi duceret, tibi in exemplum proponeret; vitia una sepeliantur. Morum exemplum si queras in Evangelio habes: vitiorum utinam nusquam. Mortalitatis certe (quod prosit) hic et ubique. Natum Anno Domini mdcxxxii. Mortuum xxviii. Octobris mdcciv. Memorat haec tabella, brevi et ipsa interitura’ (reproduced as the frontispiece to Locke, The Locke Reader). 26. Italics not in Foscolo’s translation. EN, XVII, p. 108 (22 August 1812). 27. Except for a minor variation, Foscolo’s epitaph (ibid.) coincides with the one he wrote for Didimo at the end of the Notizia intorno a Didimo Chierico in the edition of the Viaggio sentimentale published in Pisa in 1813: didymi. clerici vitia. virtus. ossa hic. post. annos. ††† conquiescere coepere (EN, V, p. 186) In the last edition of the Notizia, published at the end of the Ipercalisse (Zurich, 1816), he replaces the last line with the verb ‘conquieverunt’ (ibid.). 28. EN, XVII, p. 108 (22 August 1812). 29. Tristram Shandy, V, p. 435. As Melvyn New observes, the idea expressed in A Sentimental Journey that ‘there is nothing unmixt in this world’ is ‘central to Sterne’s thought’ (in Sterne, Tristram Shandy, 1997 edn, p. 616). Foscolo’s translation ‘in questo mondo non v’è cosa che sia tutta pura’ [in this world there is nothing that is wholly pure] adds a moral tinge to Sterne’s satire. See Viaggio sentimentale, in EN, V, p. 130. 30. EN, VIII, p. 5. 31. EN, XVI, p. 506 (11 April 1811). Foscolo had expressed a similar concept in another letter to Giambattista Giovio, written from Milan on 20 December 1810 (EN, XVI, p. 481). 32. John W. and Jean S. Yolton observe that ‘it was the negative aspects of Locke’s response to the traditional morality — no innate idea of God, no innate moral truths, not even a natural inclination to virtue — which his contemporaries saw as a secularisation of human nature’ (in Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, p. 26). 33. EN, XVII, p. 105 (19–20 August 1812). 34. EN, XVI, pp. 328–29 (December 1809). 35. EN, XVII, p. 293 (23 June 1813). See Chapter 1, above. 36. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, I, Book II, xxi, 24, p. 328. 37. Ibid., 23, pp. 325–26. 38. Free will should be confined within the power of suspending the fulfilment of a desire: ‘For, the mind having in most cases, as is evident in experience, a power to suspend the execution and satisfaction of any of its desires [...] In this lies the liberty man has; and from the not using of it right comes all that variety of mistakes, errors, and faults which we run into in the conduct of our lives, and our endeavours after happiness; whilst we precipitate the determination of our wills, and engage too soon, before due examination. To prevent this, we have a power to suspend the prosecution of this or that desire; as every one daily may experiment in himself. This seems to me the source of all liberty; in this seems to consist that which is (as I think improperly) called free-will’ (ibid., xxi, 48, p. 345). 39. EN, XVI, p. 481 (20 December 1810). 40. EN, XVI, p. 145 (1 May 1809). 41. Il Manuale cristiano di G. B. Giovio (Modena: G. Vincenzi e comp., 1811). For a description of the work see EN, XVI, p. 536 (8 November 1811), n. 1. 42. EN, XVI, p. 538 (8 November 1811). 43. Reprinted as Verri. 44. The passage in Il Manuale cristiano that Foscolo interprets — not without irony — as addressed

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to himself is as follows: ‘Heu quoties auribus insonuerunt meis verba ejus tali pacto espressa, discordiam inter actiones et theoriam esse tam veterem atque irreconciliabilem, ut saepe actiones et theoria pugnent secum ipsae sibi in mente et corde hominis etiam unius. Aliter agitur, docetur aliter. Necessitas urget nos’ [Oh, so often his words pronounced on this relationship have sounded in my ears: the tension between acts and intent is so primal and intractable that often deeds and thoughts battle with one another in the heart and mind of even a single man. He is enticed one way, taught in another. Necessity compels us] (EN, XVI, p. 536 (8 November 1811), n. 1). 45. EN, XVI, p. 539 (8 November 1811). The expression Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor is found in Ovid, Metamorphoses, VII. 20–21. Petrarch adopts it in Canzoniere, CCLXIV, 136 (‘e veggio ’l meglio et al peggior m’appiglio’ [and I see the better, and I follow the worst]). In the sonnet ‘Non son chi fui; perì di noi gran parte’ [I am not who I was; a great part of us has died], Foscolo closely follows the two poets, as lines 12–13 attest: ‘Tal di me schiavo, e d’altri, e della sorte, /Conosco il meglio ed al peggior m’appiglio’ [Like a slave to myself, and to others and to fate, / I know the better and I follow the worst] (EN, I, p. 88). 46. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, I, Book II, xxi, 33, p. 334. 47. Ibid., 53, p. 349. 48. Ibid., 35, p. 336. 49. EN, XVIII, p. 3 (1 January 1814). 50. Tristram Shandy, 1997 edn, p. 547. 51. Iser, p. 20. 52. Pfister, pp. 64 and 66. For a treatment of Sterne’s appropriation and fictional exploitation of Locke’s association of ideas, see Iser, pp. 11–20. 53. Pfister, p. 74. 54. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, I, Book II, ix, 6, pp. 184–85. 55. EN, XIX, p. 224 (20 January 1816). See Chapter 1, above. 56. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, I, Book II, xiv, pp. 238–56. 57. Tristram Shandy, I, p. 223. 58. In their introduction to Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education, p. 19, John W. and Jean S. Yolton claim that ‘there is no other work in the seventeenth century that gives such a detailed account of moral man, and of how to develop that man into a responsible person’. 59. In Donadoni, pp. 17–45. 60. EN, XVIII, p. 227 (31 August 1814). 61. EN, XVI, p. 146 (1 May 1809). 62. EN, XVIII, p. 227 (31 August 1814). 63. EN, XVIII, p. 228 (31 August 1814). In a letter to Lady Dacre, with whom Foscolo kept in frequent contact during his English years, he compares the knowledge of the ancients to that of the moderns and reaffirms his conviction that an increase of knowledge does not correspond to human progress nor does it lead towards perfection: ‘nous sommes boucoup plus savant qu’eux; mais laissez dire, Madame, à vos Messieurs qui voient le genre humain avançant vers la perfection; je n’y crois rien, — nous sommes plus savants que les anciens; mais notre esprit s’est affaibli, et notre ame est courbée sous le poid enorme de notre savoir’ [we are much wiser than them, but let it be said, Madam, to your Sirs who see human nature progressing towards perfection, I do not believe it at all, — we are wiser than the ancients, but our mind has weakened, and our soul bends under the enormous weight of our knowledge] (EN, XXII, p. 273 (between 22 and 30 September 1823)). In the address Sull’origine e i limiti della giustizia Foscolo questions the very principles according to which humankind investigates the world. Once established, such principles must be applied to each field of human knowledge: ‘Le scienze fisiche e le arti, che ingannano le noie e diradano le tenebre della vita, incominciano dall’esperienza e dai fatti; e perché non la scienza della giustizia? Parte invece dai principj; ma i fatti s’accordano a quei principj? Guardai d’intorno a me, e parvemi d’affermare che no’ [The physical sciences and the arts, which deceive life’s troubles and dissipate its shadows, rest on experience and facts: and why not [so] the science of justice? Instead, it rests on principles. But do the facts agree with these principles? I looked around me, and it seemed to me that they do not] (EN, VII, p. 167). 64. EN, XVI, p. 343 (7 January 1810).

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65. EN, XVI, p. 150 (1 May 1809). 66. EN, XVI, p. 162 (3 May 1809). 67. EN, XV, p. 475 (29 September 1808). 68. Ibid. 69. EN, XVI, pp. 82–83 (12–16 March 1809). 70. EN, XVI, pp. 103–04 (25 March 1809). 71. EN, XVI, p. 446 (30 July 1810). 72. EN, V, p. 177. 73. EN, V, p. 185. 74. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II, Book IV, xv, 6, pp. 367–68. 75. Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, p. 46. 76. Ibid., pp. 40–41. 77. Ibid., p. 47. 78. Ibid., p. 24. 79. EN, XVII, pp. 203–04 (8 December 1812). 80. Locke, A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St Paul, p. 11 81. Ibid., p. 103. 82. Ibid. 83. Ibid., p. 111. 84. Ibid., pp. 103–04. 85. Nuovo, p. xxxviii. 86. In Locke, A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St Paul, p. 58. 87. Nuovo, p. xxxix. Locke also analyzes the relativism of language and its inadequacy to convey the religious truths found in the Old and New Testaments in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II, Book III, ix, 22–23, p. 120. In the third address on ‘Della morale letteraria’, Foscolo opposes the constancy of Locke’s thought to the inconsistent philosophy of Newton who, ‘vinto dall’orrore sacro della religione, s’immerse nelle tenebre teologiche, ove nè calcolo né ragione umana possono più affidarci e guidarci. Commentò l’Apocalisse, e il mondo gli perdonò il ridicolo, rispettando anche la debolezza di quel sommo capo’ [conquered by the sacred horror of religion, he immersed himself in theological obscurities, where we can no longer rely upon or be guided by calculation nor human reason. He commented upon the Apocalypse, and the world forgave him the ridicule, out of respect for the weakness of that great mind] (EN, VII, pp. 159–60). 88. Binni, Foscolo e la critica, pp. 194–95. 89. Foscolo, ‘Sulla traduzione dell’ Odissea’, EN, VII, pp. 197–230 (p. 206). The article appeared first in the Annali di Scienze e Lettere in April 1810. Foscolo’s translation practices and his theoretical relation with Locke’s philosophy of language are examined in Binni, Foscolo e la critica, pp. 192– 95; dell’Aquila, pp. 171–76; Fasano, Stratigrafie foscoliane, pp. 146–49; and Macrì, pp. 219–21. 90. See the linguistic observations in the first lecture ‘De’ principj della letteratura’ (EN, VII, pp. 59–75), and in particular chapter V, pp. 65–68. The same concepts can be found also in the Discorso storico sul testo del Decamerone, EN, X, pp. 304–75 (p. 355). 91. Leoni’s article was published in the Giornale Enciclopedico di Firenze, 5.55 (1813), 193–206. For the letter to Giovan Paolo Shulthesius see EN, XVII, pp. 112–19 (27 August 1812). 92. EN, XVII, p. 114 (27 August 1812). 93. EN, XVII, p. 115 (27 August 1812). 94. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II, Book III, iii, 11, pp. 21–22. 95. EN, XVII, p. 116 (27 August 1812). 96. Ibid. 97. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II, Book III, vii, 4, p. 99. 98. EN, XVII, p. 411 (28 October 1813). 99. EN, XVII, p. 121 (27 August 1812). 100. EN, XVI, pp. 103–04 (25 March 1809).

Chapter 3

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Foscolo and Hume While Foscolo left several traces — at times overt, and at others inferred — of his acquaintance with Locke’s philosophical ideas, his relation with the most celebrated representative of Scottish empiricism is more concealed, less intuitive, and can be located within a web of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century philosophical inf lu­ences that include Helvetius, Locke, Condillac, Bayle, Bentham, Cartesio, Montaigne, and Pascal. In September 1808 Foscolo writes to Jakob Salomo Bartholdy that when he started working for the third time on his Ortis, ‘oltre Seneca e Tacito, io aveva già letti Hume, Robeck, Montaigne, e gli altri difensori della morte volontaria’ [in addition to Seneca and Tacitus, I had already read Hume, Robeck, Montaigne, and the other defenders of voluntary death].1 In them, Foscolo finds a philosophical confirmation of his own ideas: io aveva già conosciute indegne di nuova confutazione le declamazioni de’ teologi e le leggi de’ criminalisti, e m’avvidi che i miei ragionamenti non erano al più che espressi con novità perché io li aveva sentiti e ricavati da me, ma che, stando essi nella eterna ragione della natura e del vero, erano già stati veduti in tutte le età dai filosofi e illustrati dall’eloquenza degli scrittori, e santificati dall’esempio di molte grandi anime.2 [I had already found the declamations of theologians and the laws of criminalists unworthy of new confutation, and I realized that my reasonings were, at most, expressed with newness, because I had felt them and drawn them from myself, but that, since they reside in the eternal reason of nature and of truth, they had already been conceived in all periods by philosophers, illustrated by the eloquence of writers, and sanctified by the example of many great souls.]

Foscolo seldom declares his literary or philosophical debts overtly, but rather, with clear insight into his own intellectual life, he acknowledges his tendency to incorporate and elaborate solicitation and ideas into a new, original syncretism,3 and Hume’s philosophical inf luence on Foscolo should be read with this premise in mind. Among the books that Foscolo left behind in Italy at the time of his self-imposed exile and entrusted to his friend Silvio Pellico, are the essays of Montaigne, Locke, and Hume, while in London Hume’s letters to Robertson are a frequent source of inspiration during the composition of the Lettere scritte dall’Inghilterra.4 Foscolo planned also to write on Hume’s autobiography in his Gazzettino del bel mondo, but

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only a brief draft of this project remains.5 Eugenio Donadoni observes that Foscolo’s empiricism, which stems from Locke, owes a great deal to Hume’s ideas as to the investigation of human passions and of the power and function of imagination.6 What is then the nature of those passions towards which Foscolo proclaims himself most tolerant and that since the composition of Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis he defines as indomitable, ‘forse più dell’istinto fatale della vita’ [perhaps more than the fatal instinct of life]?7 In his seminal essay ‘Foscolo di fronte all’“Ortis”: la difficile abiura delle passioni’, Palumbo traces the development of this early novel in relation to Foscolo’s views on human passions. At first, he suggests, passions are depicted as tyrannical forces that dominate Ortis’s destiny and characterize his ‘ricchezza ideale, il fervore della coscienza e dell’immaginazione, ma anche lo costringono allo scacco, alla delusione, alla morte’ [ideal richness, the fervour of his conscience and imagination, but they also force loss, disillusion and death upon him];8 while, later on, at the time of the novel’s revision in Zurich, Foscolo reassesses their impact and destructive power. Whether passions are the source of virtuous ideals or are reduced to the role of instincts ‘che bisogna saper incanalare o a cui bisogna saper rinunciare per poter vivere’ [that one needs to know how to channel or to renounce in order to live], in Foscolo’s epistemological and ethical view they remain firmly in charge of man’s happiness.9 Locke saw in natural reason a ref lection of God’s revelation, while Hume identifies it exclusively with the empirical faculty that enables man to distinguish truth from falsehood. Within his distinction between moderate and violent passions, Hume observes that often men call reason what is instead a moderate passion that does not produce any disorder in man’s soul: every action of the mind, which operates with the same calmness and tranquillity, is confounded with reason by all those, who judge of things from the first view and appearance. Now ’tis certain, there are certain calm desires and tendencies, which, tho’ they be real passions, produce little emotion in the mind, and are more known by their effects than by the immediate feeling or sensation. These desires are of two kinds; either certain instincts originally implanted in our natures, such as benevolence and resentment, the love of life, and kindness to children; or the general appetite to good, and aversion to evil, consider’d merely as such. When any of these passions are calm, and cause no disorder in the soul, they are very readily taken for the determinations of reason, and are suppos’d to proceed from the same faculty, with that, which judges of truth and falshood [sic].10

Not only is reason often confused with passions but, observes Hume, ‘reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will; and [...] it can never oppose passion in the direction of the will’.11 Moral distinctions too do not derive from reason: ‘Reason is wholly inactive, and can never be the source of so active a principle as conscience, or a sense of morals’.12 In a radical redefinition of the role of reason, Hume considers ideas to be copies or images of our feelings or passions; they constitute man’s epistemological tools and the basis of his moral doctrine. Foscolo, who claims that ‘L’uomo non sa di vivere, non pensa, non ragiona, non calcola se non perché sente’ [man is aware of his life, thinks, reasons, calculates, only because he feels],13 who in the second of his Pavia lessons teaches his students that ‘gli agenti che secondano eternamente le leggi della natura [...] sono le nostre passioni’ [the

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agents that eternally comply with the laws of nature [...] are our passions],14 and who has Jacopo Ortis say that his life can be epitomized under the entry ‘storia delle mie passioni’ [‘the story/history of my passions’],15 is exceptionally close — albeit a-systematically — to Hume’s philosophical positions.16 Foscolo draws a fundamental opposition, not devoid of irony, between reason and necessity in the address Sull’origine e i limiti della giustizia: I dotti sono guidati dall’eterna ragione, ed io sono con gli altri miei compagni nell’ignoranza strascinato dall’onnipotente necessità. Come poi la ragione e la necessità sieno cose sì opposte, questo è quello ch’io non ho mai fino ad ora saputo, né sono più in età da impararlo.17 [The learned are guided by eternal reason, and I am, with my other fellow human beings, in ignorance, dragged along by omnipotent necessity. What I have not found out, until now, is how reason and necessity are such opposite things, nor am I any longer at an age to learn it.]

In the same text he then establishes another opposition, this time between reason and passions, in a fundamental epistemological identification of such antinomies: Lascio ai savi di dire che l’onnipotenza e sapienza di Dio deve aver ordinata una giustizia universale, eterna, assoluta fra gli uomini; e che non sarebbe né sapiente né giusto se avesse permesso che la ragione fosse più serva che regina delle loro passioni, ed avesse bisogno di essere eccitata dagli interessi ed esercitata dalle forze. Ma io, adorando la sapienza ed onnipotenza di Dio, e senza giudicarla, né esaminare il meglio ed il peggio nelle cause del mondo, né interpretare i suoi fini, mi rassegno ai fatti, benché discordino da’ miei desideri, e cerco di giovarmi dell’esperienza continua che essi mi porgono, conformandovi le mie opinioni e dirigendo col suo lume fra tante tenebre il corso della mia vita.18 [I leave it to the wise to affirm that the omnipotence and wisdom of God must have ordered a universal, eternal, absolute justice among men, and that he would neither be wise nor just had he allowed reason to be more the servant than the queen of their passions, in need to be excited by interests and exercised by force. I worship the wisdom and omnipotence of God, and do not judge it, nor examine the better and the worse in the causes of the world, nor interpret its ends. I resign myself to facts, even though they disagree with my desires, and I seek to benefit from the continuous experience that they offer me, conforming my opinions to it and directing the course of my life through much darkness with its light.]

This passage seems to echo Hume’s words when he states that ‘We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them’.19 From these premises of the sovereignty of passions and of the impossibility for reason to be a reliable gnoseological instrument, several points of convergence between Foscolo’s ideas and Hume’s philosophy can be established. One of the most relevant is the centrality of that impulse towards pleasure and aversion to pain that Foscolo considers to be the regulating principles of human feeling and, consequently, of all intellectual and physical faculties.20 Besides Foscolo’s familiarity with Epicurean theory (to which he feels ill-suited), we have already seen that he is fully aware of Locke’s treatment of the subject. Hume

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seems to be an equally relevant source for his elaboration, later on in life, of these principles. The Scottish philosopher claims that without pleasure and pain man would not be able to feel nor act, limited in his relations with himself and others, and unable to form any moral judgment: The chief spring or actuating principle of the human mind is pleasure and pain; and when these sensations are remov’d, both from our thought and feeling, we are, in a great measure, incapable of passion or action, of desire or volition.21

Foscolo embraces this empiricist principle, and Palumbo points out that a passage of the Dissertazione su di un antico inno delle Grazie, written in London in 1822, proves that it remained for Foscolo a central concern throughout his life: Il maggiore o minore grado di felicità goduto da ciascuno è in proporzione dell’armonia che regna fra le sue passioni; ed è in conseguenza della discordia o della dissonanza dei nostri sentimenti che noi siamo infelici. Improvvise scosse e violente emozioni, facendo perdere alla mente la sua stabilità ed equilibrio, stordiscono o agitano l’uomo nella sua intima struttura: allora ogni piacevole idea, ogni grazioso sentimento ci si dilegua. Smoderata gaiezza e profondo dolore sono quindi sconosciuti alle Grazie: queste divinità, talora sorridendo con temperata letizia, talora sospirando con compassione gentile, fanno che di tempo in tempo l’uomo si ricordi d’essere stato affidato alla alterna custodia del Piacere e del Dolore, come a due guide, che hanno lo scopo di sostenerlo con un cammino diritto ed equilibrato lungo lo spazio di vita che gli è concesso: il Piacere gli dà forza e coraggio a sopportare la mano punitrice del Dolore, dal quale gli viene insegnato il cammino che mena alla virtù e alla gloria.22 [The greater or lesser degree of happiness enjoyed by everyone is proportional to the harmony that reigns among their passions, and it is because of the discord or dissonance of our feelings that we are unhappy. Sudden shocks and violent emotions, causing the mind to lose its stability and balance, stun or unsettle man in his inner structure: then every pleasing idea, every gracious feeling vanishes from us. Immoderate gaiety and profound pain are thus unknown to the Graces: these divinities, at times smiling with temperate happiness, at other times sighing with kind compassion, make man remember from time to time that he has been entrusted to the alternate care of Pleasure and of Pain, two guides whose aim is to provide him with a direct and balanced path in the life span allotted to him. Pleasure gives him strength and courage to bear the punishing hand of Pain, from which he is taught the way that leads to virtue and glory.]

The unusually serene tone of this passage is symptomatic of Foscolo’s pursuit of the appeasement of the conf licts of the passions during the restless and often trying English years. Far from his youthful bewilderment before life’s mystery and the insufficiency of man’s intellectual faculties, in England Foscolo seems to have reconciled himself with the impenetrability of passions, and finds in pleasure and pain two aids offered by nature to regulate man’s life. In a letter to Giambiattista Giovio written thirteen years earlier, he recalled how as a young man he was naturally inclined to philosophical stoicism but did not possess the ‘fibra cornea degli stoici’ [horny fibre of the stoics],23 and his deter­ mination to face life’s adversities could therefore never lead to the stoic apatheia, the ultimate victory over passions that represents for the stoics a most desirable

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condition.24 Foscolo cannot, and does not want to, renounce his passions that, although permanently at war within his soul, nonetheless — he says — conform to nature’s will and are the vital principles of every human being. If stoicism represents therefore an unattainable but not entirely undesirable goal, and as such is a noble but impossible task, scepticism is instead a much more real philosophical challenge for Foscolo, who often ponders the ultimate consequences that radical scepticism — or pyrrhonism — would entail. Pyrrhonism, with its prescription of a systematic epochē (or suspension of judgment), precludes the rational foundation of any epistemological process and, according to Hume, its acceptance would in the end impede all actions and destroy life. In the long letter that Foscolo writes in the spring of 1814 to the Countess of Albany and F. X. Fabre, he theorizes on the nature of philosophical speculation and his conclusion is bleak: e chi esaminasse le sètte filosofiche degli antichi s’accorgerebbe che il carattere individuale e l’indole de’ primi fondatori d’ogni setta cooperò alle opinioni e a’ principj di Pittagora, di Zenone, e d’Epicuro, più che la meditazione del vero; meditazione la quale, quand’è giunta al suo vero ed ultimo grado si riduce in fine del conto al tenebroso nulla dell’uomo.25 [and whoever examined the philosophical sects of the ancients would realize that the individual character and the temperament of the first founders of every sect were much more instrumental to the opinions and principles of Pythagoras, Zeno, and Epicurus than the meditation of truth; a meditation that, when it reaches its true and ultimate level, is reduced, in the end, to the obscure nothingness of man.]

A letter sent a year later to the same recipients helps to clarify Foscolo’s position. He writes from Hottingen, in Switzerland, at the beginning of his self-imposed exile, and compares the systems of Bayle and Descartes: da mezz’Ottobre in qua mi sono ridotto in questo tugurio dove non ho più libri; e fra il leggerne troppi o nessuno, non so cosa mi piglierei; credo nessuno. Vedo che Bayle a forza di leggere, di esaminare e raffrontare, e pesare per trovare la verità, l’ha perduta; e non solo e’ confessa, ma si gloria quasi d’averla perduta; ed oltre alla verità speculativa, la quale non ha prove materiali, ha trovato e sparso egli medesimo tenebre su la verità de’ fatti; tenebre ragionevoli sempre: ma l’uomo non viaggia dritto mai fra le tenebre; e ci vuole un lume qualunque reale o illusorio che lo conduca. Dall’altra parte Cartesio gittò via, a quanto ei scrive di sé, tutti i libri; e cercò la verità meditando: ch’ei la trovasse, non dico; né me ne intendo: ma certo è ch’egli stimò d’averla afferrata, e se ne persuase, e ne convinse gli altri. Chi de’ due fu meno infelice nel mondo? A me pare Cartesio: che se Bayle non fu atterrito da quel suo pirronismo, se trovò in tutte le cose discordia, e incertezza, ed errore, e notte perpetua, e nondimeno fu sì forte d’animo da tenere aperti ognissempre gli occhi in quel Caos, io lo giudicherei l’intelletto più eroico che abbia creato mai la Natura.26 [since mid-October I have been back at this hovel where I no longer have books. And between reading too many or none, I do not know what I would prefer: none, I believe. I see that Bayle, by dint of reading, examining, comparing, and weighing to find the truth, lost it. And not only does he confess it, but he almost takes pride in having lost it. And in addition to speculative truth, which

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Foscolo and Hume does not supply material proofs, he found and shed darkness on factual truth. This is indeed a reasonable darkness, but man can never walk straight through darkness and needs a light, however real or illusory, to guide him. On the other hand Descartes, according to what he wrote about himself, threw away all books, and sought the truth by meditating. Whether he found it [or not], I can not say, nor do I know it, but it is certain that he thought he grasped it, he persuaded himself of it, and convinced others. Which of the two was less unhappy in the world? It seems to me Descartes: if Bayle was never frightened by his Pyrrhonism, if he found discord, uncertainty, error, and perpetual night in all things, and despite this, was so strong a mind to keep his eyes forever open in that Chaos, I would deem him the most heroic intellect that Nature ever created.]

The French philosopher Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), in The Historical and Critical Dictionary (1st edn, 1697; 2nd edn, 1702), systematically refuted all the main philosophical and theological systems with the tool of radical scepticism. Although Foscolo correctly identifies in Bayle the great destroyer of a whole philosophical tradition, he seems to ignore — perhaps deliberately — the fact that Bayle too found in his intellectual fideism a ‘lume reale o illusorio’ [real or illusory light]. Bayle’s ideas exert a profound fascination on Foscolo who, at the same time, perceives the inherent danger of a system informed by unparalleled erudition and a seemingly unquestionable intellectual coherence. At length Foscolo attempts to find a solution to radical scepticism, a danger that ominously surfaces quite early in his philosophical ref lections and is recorded in the lectures delivered at the University of Pavia. In The High Road to Pyrrhonism, Richard Popkin defines Bayle as ‘the great defender of Pyrrhonism’, but reserves for David Hume the role of ‘the greater defender of Pyrrhonism’ because he brings pyrrhonian scepticism to its ultimate consequences in a philosophically daring operation that no philosopher of the Enlightenment before him had attempted.27 Hume admits that the pyrrhonists’s scepticism cannot be refuted and that its theorization affects all fields of knowledge as well as natural and moral philosophy. He accepts the pyrrhonian questioning of the legitimacy of causal reasoning and its belief in the unverifiability of associationism, and logically concludes that there is no reason to prefer one truth to another. Following this trajectory, the recourse to a systematic epochē is fully legitimated. Despite this irrefutable argument, Hume observes that men live according to judgments and beliefs derived from nature and from the inclinations of their minds and souls. These judgments and beliefs are not philosophical truths, and they elude philosophical demonstration; however, the force with which they impress themselves upon the mind and their necessary existence for the preservation of life force us to acknowledge that, although devoid of any rational foundation, they comply with nature’s imperative: Nature, by an absolute and uncontroulable [sic] necessity has determin’d us to judge as well as to breathe and feel; nor can we any more forbear viewing certain objects in a stronger and fuller light, upon account of their customary connexion with a present impression, than we can hinder ourselves from thinking as long as we are awake, or seeing the surrounding bodies, when we turn our eyes towards them in broad sunshine.28

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Hence, specifies Hume, ‘belief is more properly an act of the sensitive, than of the cogitative part of our natures’.29 He identifies in nature’s non-rationality and its indemonstrable laws a solution to reason’s systematic doubt. The two concepts co-exist in what appears as a process of simultaneous opposition and compensation: pyrrhonism is philosophically indisputable, but nature does not allow man to embrace it. ‘Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian’, says Hume, ‘were not nature too strong for it’.30 Foscolo, who forcefully perceives the post-Baylean hermeneutical impasse, is fundamentally in agreement with Hume’s view of pyrrhonism and tries to find his own solution — as a man of letters, not a philosopher — to the danger of radical scepticism. In the second of his Pavia lessons he expounds the road to pyrrhonism, and illustrates how, once taken, it is almost impossible to deviate from its course: Il danno peggiore che a noi possa fare la filosofia si è quello di svelarci le vanità della vita, di elevarci a contemplazioni nel cui labirinto noi dobbiamo necessariamente perderci, abbagliati dallo splendore delle cose superiori all’uomo, accecati e atterriti dall’oscurità universale della natura; e finalmente avviliti dall’ostinato e sprezzante silenzio con cui l’universo risponde sempre alla nostra infaticabile ed altera curiosità. A quest’ingegni maggiori degli altri, e maggiori per loro sventura, si squarcia il velo dell’illusione, per cui vedono miseramente il silenzioso e sterile interminabile campo del disinganno, ove né fragranza di voluttà, né incantesimo di natura può mai ministrare consolazione veruna. Quindi quel funereo pirronismo nel cui regno quando una volta dopo lungo viaggio di meditazione s’è giunti, non è più possibile di sottrarsi; quindi il silenzio delle passioni e la noia di tutte le cose; quindi si spiegano le cause del suicidio di tanti filosofi dell’antichità, i quali lo cercarono non tanto per lo spavento delle umane sciagure, quanto per fatale convincimento della inutilità della vita.31 [The worst damage that philosophy can do to us is to reveal the vanity of life to us, and to elevate us to contemplations, in the labyrinth of which, we must necessarily get lost, dazzled by the splendours of things superior to man, blinded and frightened by the universal darkness of nature; and finally downcast because of the obstinate and contemptuous silence with which the universe always answers our tireless and proud curiosity. To these greater minds, whose greatness is their misfortune, the veil of illusion is torn aside, and in their misery they see the silent, sterile, endless field of disillusion, where neither the fragrance of pleasure, nor the enchantment of nature can ever furnish any kind of consolation. Thus it is no longer possible to escape this mournful pyrrhonism, a kingdom that is reached after a long journey in meditation, hence the silence of the passions and the tedium of all things. This explains the causes of suicide of so many philosophers of antiquity, who sought it not so much for fear of human misfortunes, as for the fatal conviction that life is pointless.]

In the address Sull’origine e i limiti della giustizia, Foscolo personalizes and drama­ tizes those ref lections with a quotation from Blaise Pascal’s Pensées [Thoughts] on ‘Contre l’indifférence des Athées’ [Against the Indifference of the Atheists].32 He addresses the ‘defiant silence’ of the universe and the labyrinth of philosophical contemplations:

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Foscolo and Hume Io non so né perché venni al mondo, né cosa sia il mondo, né cosa io stesso mi sia; e se io corro ad investigarlo, ritorno sempre in una ignoranza più spaventosa di prima. Non so cosa sia il mio corpo, i miei sensi, l’anima mia; e questa stessa parte di me che pensa ciò che io scrivo, e che medita sopra di tutto, e sopra sé stessa, non può conoscersi mai. Invano io tento di misurare con la mente questi immensi spazi dell’universo che mi circondano. Mi trovo come attaccato ad un piccolo angolo di uno spazio incomprensibile, senza sapere perché sono collocato piuttosto qui che altrove, o perché questo breve tempo della mia esistenza sia assegnato piuttosto a questo momento che a tutti quelli che precedevano o che seguiranno. Io non vedo da tutte le parti che infinità che mi assorbono come un atomo. Tutto quello che io so, è che vivo con un sentimento perpetuo di piacere e di dolore.33 [I do not know why I came to this world, or what this world is, or what I am. And if I rush to investigate it, I always return to an ignorance more frightening than before. I do not know what my body, my senses, or my soul are, and the very same part of me that thinks what I am writing and that meditates on everything and on itself, can never truly know itself. I try in vain to measure with the mind these vast spaces of the universe that surround me. I find myself [feeling] as if [I were] attached to a small corner of an incomprehensible space, without knowing why I am placed here rather than elsewhere, or why this brief period of my existence is assigned to this moment rather than to all those that precede it or those that will follow. I only see, from all sides, the infinities that absorb me like an atom. All that I know is that I live with a perpetual feeling of pleasure and pain.]

Pyrrhonism’s victory would mean inaction, the inanity of passions, hopes, and desires, the loss of life’s meaning, and the triumph of anguish. Only death could free man from the grips of such existence. In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), Hume argues that if pyrrhonism’s principles were universally acknowledged and acted upon, this would ultimately lead to the end of man’s life: ‘All discourse, all action would immediately cease; and men remain in a total lethargy, till the necessities of nature, unsatisfied, put an end to their miserable existence’.34 Foscolo seems to partake of Hume’s view of man’s inaction, as a letter to Count Giovio yet again reveals: La vita, pur troppo, non è che agitazione; agitazione alterna e perpetua simile al pendolo d’un oriuolo; arrestato il pendolo, le ruote non si muovono più; spente le passioni e le loro illusioni, non v’è più corda; le ore dell’uomo non progrediscono più, e la assoluta tranquillità d’ogni ente mortale comincia col silenzio, con l’oscurità, e si compie con l’eterna dissoluzione.35 [Unfortunately, life is nothing but agitation; variable and perpetual agitation similar to the pendulum of a clock. When the pendulum is stopped, the cogwheels move no longer. When passions and their illusions are stif led, no chord is left. The hours of man no longer progress. The absolute peace of every mortal being begins with silence, with darkness, and it ends with eternal dissolution.]

Popkin observes how epistemological pyrrhonism is, for Hume, rationally viable but its implementation is prevented by nature’s decrees, and therefore the Scottish philosopher distinguishes between ‘the problems of rational evidence for beliefs, and the psychology of beliefs’.36 While this is a distinction with which Foscolo

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agrees in principle, he identifies the origin of pyrrhonism in a constitutive, ‘natural’ deficiency — that is to say, in an improper use, or abuse, of passions. He provides an example of the ‘freddo silenzio delle passioni, per cui l’uomo diventa o cattivissimo o infelicissimo’ [cold silence of the passions, by which man becomes either most wicked or most wretched] in Della morale letteraria, where he warns his students against an inordinate love of glory, a passion that ‘quanto più diviene eccessiva e sicura, tanto più si disinganna da sé medesima, simile al fuoco che parco riscalda, ed eccessivo distrugge’ [becomes more disillusioned by itself the more excessive and sure it becomes, like fire, which heats when moderate, but destroys when excessive].37 Our passions — among which the love of glory is one of the most powerful — originate in nature, and by nature are balanced. It is only thanks to nature’s regulatory agents that we live as if our life had meaning and purpose, because, says Foscolo, nature itself ‘vuole l’esistenza del genere umano’ [wants the existence of mankind].38 If man abuses the passions which nature instilled in his soul and redirects them, in a heterogenesis of aims, to a different objective than that to which they were originally predisposed or, if, on the other hand, man exceedingly exercises his passions, he transgresses the limits set by nature, deprives passions of their original functions and of the power given to them to direct and nourish all human faculties. To these men, nature denies ‘la vita della passione che li alimentava con quella mistura di un perpetuo piacere e dolore’ [the life of passion that nourished them with that mixture of perpetual pleasure and pain] and they experience ‘la impotenza dell’uomo e la amarezza, e la vanità infine e la sazietà’ [man’s helplessness and bitterness, and ultimately vanity, and repletion].39 The outcome of this abuse of passions is philosophical pyrrhonism and man faces either unbearable disenchantment or madness. Passions therefore must be seconded but not abused to the point of deplorable excesses that deprive them of their harmonizing function between human faculties and needs. On the other hand, Foscolo claims that passions should not be repressed because — as he writes to the Countess of Albany — such opposition irritates them and the outcome may be equally devastating: Non fu uomo forse sopra la terra che abbia quant’io secondata a vele piene la propria natura, e non solo nelle passioni virtuose, bensì anche nelle viziose: il che ho fatto, perché secondo il modo mio di sentire, le passioni tutte sono torrenti; e va loro aperta la strada; così si possono poscia diriggere: altrimenti straripano e ti sommergono e ti travolgono seco.40 [There has perhaps never been a man on earth who has indulged his own nature with full sail, as I have, and not only the virtuous passions, but also the wicked ones. I have done this because, according to my conception, all passions are torrents, and the road to them must be opened. This way, they may then be directed. Otherwise, they overf low, overwhelm man, and carry him away with them.]

In this instance, too, Foscolo’s position seems to find confirmation in Hume’s theory of passions. Hume observes in fact how a dominant passion tends to incorporate less intense passions and in this process the newly created passion acquires enhanced strength. This is especially evident in the case of two contrasting passions:

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Foscolo and Hume This happens, among other cases, whenever any object excites contrary passions. For ’tis observable that an opposition of passions commonly causes a new emotion in the spirits, and produces more disorder, than the concurrence of any two affections of equal force. This new emotion is easily converted into the predominant passion, and encreases [sic] its violence, beyond the pitch it wou’d have arriv’d at had it met with no opposition. Hence we naturally desire what is forbid, and take a pleasure in performing actions, merely because they are unlawful. The notion of duty, when opposite to the passions, is seldom able to overcome them; and when it fails of that effect, is apt rather to encrease [sic] them, by producing an opposition in our motives and principles. The same effect follows whether the opposition arises from internal motives or external obstacles. The passion commonly acquires new force and violence in both cases. The efforts, which the mind makes to surmount the obstacle, excite the spirits and inliven [sic] the passion.41

According to Foscolo, man is bound to comply with the course of his passions firstly because they provide the illusion of life’s meaning and secondly because there is no alternative to their imperative. Foscolo never goes so far as to declare — as Hume does — that such compliance to nature’s law is the most complete demonstration of his scepticism; he is not a philosopher and to a resolution of his theoretical principles Foscolo prefers an ongoing comparison of theory and praxis in his personal and artistic experience. It is therefore not a mere coincidence that the old pyrrhonist philosopher whom Foscolo envisioned as a character of his novel Olimpia Morata — which never went beyond a mere outlined plan — ref lects a humanized and pious outcome of philosophical scepticism. We have already seen how, in a letter to Vincenzo Monti, Foscolo describes the old pyrrhonist as ‘pieno di compassione per gli errori e le sventure dell’uomo, pieno di dubbi su le sentenze de’ sapienti e de’ teologi’ [full of compassion for the errors and misfortunes of man, full of doubts about the aphorisms of wise men and theologians],42 and pictures him lavishing his advice on the two young protagonists of this sentimental novel which is characterized by ‘un’accorta economia di passioni, di avvenimenti, di filosofia e di aneddoti’ [a discerning economy of passions, events, philosophies and anecdotes].43 Foscolo explains how ‘le opinioni politiche religiose e morali, saranno discusse e applicate alle passioni’ [political, religious, and moral opinions will be discussed and applied to passions],44 thus placing passions at the centre of this tragic story woven around the great themes of unhappy love, exile, and religious conf lict. The old pyrrhonist is — as previously noted — a literary precursor of Didimo Chierico and a heir to the Diogenes of the Sesto Tomo dell’Io, but he is also a self-portrait of the writer and as such he acquires a more meaningful status in the light of the relations between Foscolo’s ideas, Hume’s philosophy, and radical scepticism. If passions and nature’s imperatives shape man’s inner life and his actions, what is the role that Foscolo ascribes to education? Which correlation — if any — can be found between education, passions, and natural laws? Foscolo’s answers to these questions are all but straightforward and, at times, quite contradictory, but they reveal an ongoing preoccupation with the role and limits of education. Foscolo often praises his free education and in the Pavia lessons he considers it to have been instrumental to the fostering and strengthening of his artistic genius. It is, it seems, first and foremost an education gathered from direct experience of the

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world: ‘Io attendo sopra ogni cosa a vivere in pace con me medesimo, secondando la mia natura e godendo de’ frutti d’un’educazione che io mi sono procacciata per molti anni di assidua esperienza nel mondo’ [I attend above all things to living at peace with myself, indulging my nature and enjoying the fruits of an education that I procured through many years of assiduous experience of the world].45 At the same time he expresses his disagreement with what he defines as ‘i paradossi d’Elvezio su l’onnipotenza dell’educazione’ [the paradoxes of Helvetius on the omnipotence of education],46 and emphasizes a veritable opposition between nature and education where the latter acquires a markedly negative connotation. At first sight Foscolo may seem close to Rousseauvian positions, but he disagrees deeply with Rousseau’s philosophy both on the definition of the state of nature — as he points out in the Notizia bibliografica — and on the primacy of morality in art. When a didactic purpose governs a work of art — notes Foscolo — it leads inevitably to artifice and deceit; as to the state of nature, it corresponds neither to the Rousseauvian original condition of virtue and freedom, uncorrupted by civilization and social life, nor to Hobbes’s condition of perpetual war.47 As for Hume, and Montesquieu before him, for Foscolo (a careful reader of Vico’s Scienza Nuova) the state of nature is a sheer philosophical abstraction because man is essentially a social animal and the state of nature and the ‘state of society’ are one and the same. In A Treatise of Human Nature Hume states that: ’tis utterly impossible for men to remain any considerable time in that savage condition, which precedes society; but that his very first state and situation may justly be esteem’d social. This, however, hinders not, but that philosophers may, if they please, extend their reasoning to the suppos’d state of nature; provided they allow it to be a mere philosophical fiction, which never had, and never cou’d have any reality. [...] The state of nature, therefore, is to be regarded as a mere fiction, not unlike that of the golden age, which poets have invented.48

Foscolo shares Hume’s position on this subject, although his view of man as social and warrior at the same time shows the Hobbesian nature of his thought, as a passage from Sull’origine e i limiti della giustizia reveals: Cercai finalmente l’uomo in istato di natura; ma i filosofi l’avevano veduto fuori della natura, poiché lo stato dell’uomo è come nelle api, nelle formiche, nei topi del settentrione, essenzialmente guerriero e sociale; e conobbi il funestissimo errore di distinguere la natura dalla società. [...] L’uomo tal quale è in società, con ciò che gli uni chiamano vizi, gli altri passioni, gli uni scienza, gli altri ignoranza, è pur l’uomo tal quale fu creato dalla natura; ma dividendo natura da società e società da usi, pregiudizi ed istituzioni, per conoscere l’uomo si guarda partitamente ciò che è inseparabile, in modo che, diviso nelle sue parti, perderebbe il suo tutto. Così la filosofia divide anima e corpo; ma chi vede anima senza corpo? — Divida per ipotesi, ma purché almeno si colga la vera linea di divisione.49 [Finally, I looked for man in a state of nature, since the state of man is like that of bees, ants, and mice in the North, essentially bellicose and social. The philosophers, however, examined him outside of nature. And I realized this most fatal error of distinguishing nature from society. [...] Man, as he is in society, with what some call vices, and others call passions, some science, and other ignorance, is nonetheless man as he was created by nature. But

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Foscolo and Hume in separating nature from society and society from habits, prejudices, and institutions, in order to understand man one looks separately at that which is inseparable, so that divided into its parts the whole would be lost. This is how philosophy separates the soul from the body. But who sees the soul without the body? — Separate hypothetically, but only as long as you grasps the true dividing line.]

Foscolo’s man is not naturally good or virtuous, nor naturally inclined toward peace and tranquillity; nature makes him into a mixture of vices and virtues, subject to passions’ perpetual impulse. It is impossible to avoid this unstable balance, and man’s task is to follow, second, and channel as much as possible those passions that nature bestowed upon him. Education can either guide him to noble ideals, or be an agent of corruption. Foscolo addresses this issue in a letter to Count Giovio and in the preliminary remarks he clarifies his ethical position on the concepts of responsibility and guilt: given that actions can only be judged in relation to passions, it is impossible, says Foscolo, to speak of objective responsibility. In accordance with Hume’s philosophy — that says ‘We are never to consider any single action in our enquiries concerning the origin of morals; but only the quality or character from which the action proceeded’ — Foscolo identifies in education’s f laws the original sins that effects those qualities, or attributes, from which derive our actions.50 On the basis of such principles Foscolo defends the old Countess of Crevenna’s religious fanaticism: Or io mi taccio quando veggo che il dolore, o tal azione che ha nome di colpa sgorgano dalla natura e dalla forza delle umane passioni; ma io griderò contro quei vizi che provengono dalla triste e sciocca abitudine, dal misero calcolo, dalla servitù delle scuole e dalla ciarlataneria de’ moralisti e dei dotti; vizi insomma non generati dalla natura dell’individuo, ma procurati dall’educazione che è peste attaccaticcia. Le passioni veementi sono le meteore tempestose del genere umano; possono agitarlo, scaldarlo, e talvolta nobilitarlo; ma le sciocche e laide abitudini sono le corruzioni della nostra natura [...] il fanatismo insomma è passione che inganna e strascina lo spirito e il corpo che n’è invasato; — trattanto l’ipocrisia addotrinandosi per lungo tempo a ridere del cielo e degli uomini, non inganna se non se gli altri, e senza mettere il suo carato nel grande commercio delle passioni sociali, tende a ingrassare la sua tremante epa di prete.51 [I am silent when I see pain or an action called misdeed f low[ing] forth from nature and from the force of human passions. But I will cry out against those vices that come from unhappy and foolish habits, from miserable calculation, from slavery to schools, and charlatanism of the moralists and the learned; in short, vices that are not generated by the individual’s nature, but are caused by education, which is a sticky scourge. Vehement passions are human nature’s tempestuous meteors. They can agitate man, excite him, and sometimes ennoble him, but inane and filthy habits represent the corruptions of our nature [...] in short, fanaticism is a passion that deceives and drags along [with it] the spirit and the body, which are consumed by it; — whereas hypocrisy that learned for a long time to laugh at heaven and at men, only deceives others, and without putting its share in the greater commerce of social passions, intends to fatten its own priest-like trembling belly]

Fanaticism is a passion and as such it may be misleading and directed to deceptive

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aims, but hypocrisy and cunning — education’s vices — represent nature’s corruption and the negation of passions: this, says Foscolo, ‘ferisce il pudore; e perduto il tribunale del pudore non rimane alla società se non il tribunale che ha primi ministri il carceriere ed il boia’ [it wounds modesty; and with the tribunal or decency lost, society is left with the tribunal that has for its prime ministers the gaoler and the executioner].52 He establishes two sets of virtues and vices: to the triad of nature/passions/modesty he opposes that of education/cunning/hypocrisy. There is indeed a mixture of passions and education in every human being, but it is imperative to ennoble and purify passions while avoiding at all times the vices of education. According to Foscolo, Paolo Giovio, one of the Count’s sons, personifies these principles. A restless young man for whom his parents showed great concern, he displayed a ‘precoce filosofia — filosofia matta e impertinente’ [precocious philosophy — mad and impertinent philosophy], which was probably — says Foscolo — the outcome of his educators’s intolerance and which prompted his rebellion and revenge.53 Foscolo seems to identify himself with Paolo Giovio, praises the young man’s character and his actions in accordance to nature, passions, and modesty. These observations stem from his conviction that ‘madre natura dotò alcuni di noi di tali facoltà che ove non fossero indebolite dall’educazione ci darebbero ali e muscoli da correre come per istinto alle virtù per cui ci ha creati’ [mother nature granted some of us such faculties that, were they not weakened by education, would give us wings and muscles to run, as if by instinct, towards those virtues for which she created us].54 Once again, possible echoes of Hume’s philosophy underlie Foscolo’s discourse. Education, says Hume, is the result of habits so entrenched in the mind that they assume the characteristics of unquestionable beliefs: I am persuaded, that upon examination we shall find more than one half of those opinions, that prevail among mankind, to be owing to education, and that the principles, which are thus implicitely embrac’d, over-balance those, which are owing either to abstract reasoning or experience. As liars, by the frequent repetition of their lies, come at last to remember them; so the judgment, or rather the imagination, by the like means, may have ideas so strongly imprinted on it, and conceive them in so full a light, that they may operate upon the mind in the same manner with those, which the senses, memory or reason present to us. But as education is an artificial and not a natural cause, and its maxims are frequently contrary to reason, and even to themselves in different times and places, it is never upon that account recogniz’d by philosophers [...] Men will scarce ever be persuaded, that [...] the far greatest part of our reasonings, with all our actions and passions, can be deriv’d from nothing but custom and habit.55

Education therefore cannot be the source of philosophical principles and it is quite irrelevant that men believe the opposite to be true. As already pointed out in the section devoted to pyrrhonism, Foscolo deems all the major philosophical systems not the outcome of knowledge and education, but rather the by-products of natural inclinations: La Filosofia, Signor mio — e lasci dire Elvezio e Compagni — non è già effetto dell’educazione, degli studi, e dell’esperienza; bensì una sistematica modificazione del carattere individuale d’ogni uomo; come appunto gl’innesti migliorano e temprano e fanno in parte variare le piante fruttifere.56

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Foscolo and Hume [Philosophy, dear Sir — and let Helvetius and company say it — is not the consequence of education, study, and experience, but rather a systematic modification of the individual character of every man. Just like grafts improve, temper, and in part, alter fruit-bearing plants.]

Therefore, concludes Foscolo, Cato was compelled to think and feel as a stoic and Pomponius Atticus as an Epicurean, and Caesar could not subject himself to any system because his mind’s strength was the sole guide for his thoughts and actions: ‘la Natura lo aveva creato con questo carattere; i tempi lo educarono, e la fortuna lo ajutò’ [Nature created him with this character, time educated him, and fortune assisted him].57 Ultimately, what counts is to follow one’s own passions according to that direction imprinted on them ‘ab origine’, by nature, and to do it consistently to the very end of one’s life. When education clashes with man’s natural disposition, then it is transformed from nature’s aid to a source of vice. It follows that what men call eccentricity or singularity of manners — of which Foscolo had often been accused since his childhood — can be the result of the f laws of nature or education, and consequently ‘si può essere naturalmente, oppure artificiosamente singolari e originali’ [one can be naturally or artificially peculiar and original].58 Foscolo reveals a profound affinity to philosophical empiricism in his conception of nature and education, as well as in his view of passions and the limits of rational inquiry. We have to reckon with what we are, and not with what we could or would like to be. And what we are is determined by what we feel and by how well, in the end, we balance and regulate our passions. Hume observes that ‘upon the whole, this struggle of passion and reason, as it is call’d, diversifies human life, and makes men so different not only from each other, but also from themselves in different times’.59 Foscolo acknowledges this function of human passions and the enrichment of society that it entails: ‘la natura non vuole se non moto e fuoco ed attrito negli uomini, passioni insomma; e quanto più le passioni s’urtano, si combaciano, e si confondono tanto più cresce l’agitazione, e la fecondità, e la ricchezza della società’ [nature only wishes for motion, ardour, and friction in men, in short, passions. And the more the passions collide, join, and mingle, the more the ferment, fertility, and richness of society grows].60 As a philosopher, Hume admits that this struggle is not entirely within the grasp of his discipline’s speculation and that ‘Philosophy can only account for a few of the greater and more sensible events of this war; but must leave all the smaller and more delicate revolutions, as dependent on principles too fine and minute for her comprehension’.61 In his third Pavia lecture on Della morale letteraria, devoted to ‘La letteratura rivolta all’esercizio delle facoltà intellettuali’, Foscolo seems to imply that the man of letters can break this epistemological limit through the very tools of experience and comparison that Hume reserves for the philosopher: poiché l’arte sua, che riguarda perpetuamente le opinioni e le passioni degli uomini, che lo costringe ad osservare attentamente i moti del proprio cuore e quelli degli altri onde sapere come usare meglio dell’eloquenza, che lo innalza nelle storie del genere umano, nelle sciagure, negli errori, ne’ pentimenti di tutti gli uomini, che in una parola necessariamente gli fa vedere le sorgenti di tutte le nostre passioni e il corso di tutta l’umana fortuna, gli somministra per

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questa via i due mezzi più possenti a rinvigorire la sua ragione, l’esperienza ed il paragone. Queste due armi, da cui è nutrito l’intelletto di tutti i mortali, sono per la necessità dell’arte in esercizio perpetuo nella mente del letterato, e niuno meglio di lui [può] imparare a maneggiarle utilmente.62 [since his art, that perpetually addresses man’s opinions and passions, that forces him to attentively observe the stirrings of his own heart and those of others in order to know how best to make use of eloquence, that elevates him in the histories of humankind as well as in men’s disasters, errors, and regrets, and that, in a word, necessarily reveals to him the sources of all of our passions and the course of all human fortune, his art thus provides him with the two most potent means of instilling new life into his reason: experience and comparison. These two tools, that nourish the intellect of all mortals, are perpetually at work in the mind of the man of letters because of the very nature of his art, and no one [can] learn to wield them more profitably than he.]

It seems, then, that literature can achieve — through different paths and with differ­ ent means — what is precluded from philosophical speculation. Foscolo ultimately sees profound continuity between philosophical investigation, artistic expression, and critical exegesis, but the starting point is the study of passions which, with their infinite combinations and shades, constitute the only interpretative paradigm and the ultimate mystery of man’s existence. Notes to Chapter 3 1. EN, XV, p. 484 (29 September 1808). 2. EN, XV, pp. 484–85 (29 September 1808). 3. Palumbo devotes illuminating pages to this subject in ‘Foscolo di fronte all’“Ortis”: la difficile abiura delle passioni’, in Saggi sulla prosa di Ugo Foscolo, pp. 117–32. 4. Nicoletti, La biblioteca fiorentina del Foscolo, p. 101. In Nicoletti’s list of Foscolo’s books there is no indication of which edition of the Essai de Hume he owned. It should be noted, however, that in the second half of the eighteenth century almost all of Hume’s works were translated into French, and that in Italy — especially in the Venetian Republic and in Lombardy — these editions had been widely read. For an account of Hume’s translations in Italy and for the reception of his ideas in the peninsula, see the works by Zanardi and Mazza. See also Foscolo, Gli appunti per le Lettere scritte dall’Inghilterra. Hume’s letters to Robertson are printed in Stewart. 5. EN, VII, pp. 275–76. 6. Donadoni, p. 38. 7. EN, IV, p. 417. 8. Palumbo, Saggi sulla prosa di Ugo Foscolo, p. 119. 9. Ibid., p. 130. 10. Hume, Book II, iii, 3, p. 417. 11. Ibid., Book II, iii, 3, p. 413. 12. Ibid., Book III, I, 1, p. 458. 13. EN, VII, p. 20. 14. EN, VII, p. 142. 15. EN, IV, p. 415. See also Palumbo, Saggi sulla prosa di Ugo Foscolo, pp. 119–20. 16. In a letter sent to Jeremiah Holme Wiffen on 12 December 1822, Foscolo expresses his conjecture that since feeling is what determines the intellectual faculties and plants can feel, then plants can also think: ‘Indeed — and my theology a part — I believe that plants do really think in their own way. For as every man is convinced that plants feels [sic], I am convinced that we proud philosophizing mankind think only because we feel. But were I to write ten volumes of dissertations on these matters I would perceive after all that it was not worth while to go to the

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Foscolo and Hume end of a page — although I do not dislike to welcome the thoughts now and then as long. As all these f loating thoughts I find Upon the surface of my mind. — But I get rid often as soon as my bold hypothesis tempts me to embody them into a system’ (EN, XXII, pp. 146–47). Foscolo slightly alters the two verses from William Cowper’s ‘A Poetical Epistle to Lady Austen’ (Cowper, p. 431): And all the f loating thoughts we find Upon the surface of the mind.

17. EN, VII, p. 166. 18. EN, VII, p. 182. 19. Hume, Book II, iii, 3, p. 415. 20. See Donadoni, pp. 34–35, and Palumbo, Saggi sulla prosa di Ugo Foscolo, p. 131. 21. Hume, Book III, iii, 1, p. 574. 22. EN, I, pp. 1113–14. See Palumbo, Saggi sulla prosa di Ugo Foscolo, p. 131. 23. EN, XVI, p. 82 (14 March 1809). 24. In a later letter to the Countess of Albany and François-Xavier Fabre, Foscolo points instead to his political inclination towards stoicism, ‘che imponeva per legge sacra ad ogni cittadino d’ingerirsi nelle faccende della sua patria,’ [‘which imposed by sacred law to every citizen to meddle in the affairs of his country’] and observes that Fabre is instead naturally leaning towards political epicureanism, ‘che riponeva la beatitudine possibile in questa misera vita nel ritiro e nel piacere, ed in certo indulgente disprezzo delle passioni ambiziose, e delle commozioni politiche de’ mortali’ [which placed all the happiness that can be experienced in this miserable life in a solitary existence, in the search for pleasure, and in a certain indulgent distain of ambitious passions and of men’s political turmoil] (EN, XVIII, pp. 116–17 (23 May 1814)). In line with these remarks, three years earlier he wrote to Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi: ‘la natura non mi ha dotato delle fibbre felicissime d’Epicuro, e perchè vedo che anche Socrate volle sacrificarsi alla verità ed alla patria, io non m’abbandono alla tentazione e vo secondando la mia natura, e la mia fortuna’ [nature did not give me the most happy fibres of Epicurus, and because I see that even Socrates wanted to sacrifice himself to truth and to his country, I am not abandoning myself to temptation and I indulge my nature, and my fortune] (EN, XVI, p. 515 (14 May 1811)). 25. EN, XVIII, pp. 115–16 (23 May 1814). 26. EN, XIX, p. 160 (21 December 1815). 27. Popkin, pp. 140–41. It is worth noting that in 1761 Hume’s Philosophycal Essays, as translated by Johann Bernhard Merian (Amsterdam, 1758), were listed in the index of forbidden books with the accusation of materialism and pyrrhonism. See Mazza, p. 185. 28. Hume, Book I, iv, 1, p. 183. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid., Book I, iv, 1, p. 104. 31. EN, VII, pp. 182–83. 32. Quoted in Nicoletti, Foscolo, pp. 114–15. 33. EN, VII, pp. 121–22. At the end of Book I of A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume dramatizes his own philosophical bewilderment: ‘The intense view of these manifold contradictions and imperfections in human reason has so wrought upon me, and heated my brain, that I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another. Where am I, or what? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return? Whose favour shall I court, and whose anger must I dread? What beings surround me? and on whom have I any inf luence, or who have any inf luence on me? I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, inviron’d with the deepest darkness, and utterly depriv’d of the use of every member and faculty’ (Book I, iv, 7, pp. 268–69). 34. See Popkin, p. 124. 35. EN, XV, p. 476 (29 September 1808). 36. Popkin, p. 128.

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37. EN, VII, pp. 141–42. 38. EN, VII, p.142. 39. EN, VII, p. 156. 40. EN, XIX, p. 156 (21 December 1815). 41. Hume, Book II, iii, 4, p. 421. 42. EN, XV, p. 543 ([Pavia, December 1808]). 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid. 45. EN, XVI, p. 517 (5 July 1811). 46. Ibid. 47. This position is supported by the last pages of the Orazione sull’origine e i limiti della giustizia in which Foscolo only partially redeems the Hobbesian principle of the state of nature as a state of war: ‘sento che dal dolore de’ mali sgorga necessariamente il piacere de’ beni, perché, mentre la guerra, l’usurpazione e l’avidità agitano la vita degli uomini, i bisogni di tali tendenze sono sempre superiori alle forze, e questo dolore persuade i mortali all’amore della società, della pace e della fatica, bisogni fecondissimi di piaceri, perché l’uomo ha forze bastanti da soddisfarli. [...] Vedo che l’eterna guerra degli individui e la disparità delle loro forze produce sempre un’alleanza, per cui l’amore de’ miei, della mia famiglia, della mia città, e tutti, uniscono con me e i bisogni e i piaceri e le sorti della loro vita contro i desideri insaziabili degli altri mortali. E per confermare questa alleanza, la voce stessa della natura eccita nelle viscere di molti uomini, che hanno bisogno di unirsi e di amarsi, due forze che compensano tutte le tendenze guerriere e usurpatrici dell’uomo: la compassione ed il pudore, forze educate dalla società ed alimentate dalla gratitudine e dalla stima reciproca.[...] Io dunque nella guerra del genere umano trovo pace; nell’ingiustizia generale trovo leggi; nelle diversità delle passioni provo più spesso l’ardore delle meno infelici; ne’ dolori e ne’ vizi indispensabili della vita vedo sempre misto un compenso di virtù e di piaceri [...]’ [‘I feel that the pleasure of good things f lows necessarily from the pain of ills, because while war, encroachment, and greed disrupt the life of men, the needs of these tendencies are always greater than their strengths, and this pain persuades mortals to the love of society, peace, and hard work. [These] needs lead to bountiful pleasures, because man does have enough strength to satisfy them [...] I see that the eternal war of individuals and the disparity among their strengths always produces alliances for which the love of my own, my family, my city, and all, join with me their needs, pleasures, and their life’s fortunes against the insatiable desires of other mortals. And in order to confirm this alliance, the very voice of nature stirs in the blood of many men, who need to unite and to love each other, two forces that counterbalance all the bellicose and usurping tendencies of man: compassion and modesty, [which are] forces educated by society and nourished by gratitude and mutual esteem [...] I thus find peace in the war of humankind. In general injustice, I find laws. In the variety of passions, I more often experience the ardour of the least unhappy ones. I always see a balance of virtues and pleasures mixed in with the necessary pains and vices of life’] (EN, VII, pp. 184–85). These statements are in line with those expressed in his pages on Machiavelli and in the Opere di Raimondo Montecuccoli illustrate da Ugo Foscolo, where his acknowledgment of the unavoidability of a state of war is not a-critical and leads him to question Hobbes’s political and social theories. See EN, VI, p. 615. 48. Hume, Book III, ii, 2, p. 493. 49. EN, VII, pp. 173–74. 50. Hume in the Treatise states that: ‘morality is not an object of reason. [...] The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object. You never can find it, till you turn your ref lexion into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of fact; but ’tis the object of feeling not of reason. So that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it. Vice and virtue, therefore, may be compar’d to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind’ (Hume, Book III, i, 1, pp. 468–69). Later on he specifies that ‘If any action be either virtuous or vicious, ’tis only as a sign of some quality or character. It must depend upon durable principles of the mind, which

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extend over the whole conduct, and enter into the personal character. Actions themselves, not proceeding from any constant principle, have no inf luence on love or hatred, pride or humility; and consequently are never consider’d in morality’ (Hume, Book III, ii, 1, p. 575). 51. EN, XVI, pp. 148–49 (1 May 1809). 52. EN, XVI, p. 150 (1 May 1809). 53. EN, XVI, p. 152 (1 May 1809). 54. EN, XVI, p. 151 (1 May 1809). 55. Hume, Book I, iii, 9, 117. 56. EN, XVIII, p. 115 (23 May 1814). 57. This is a concept that Foscolo extends to the political realm in Ortis’s letter from Ventimiglia, permeated by Vico’s philosophy and characterized by a dark, desperate pessimism: ‘Sorgono frattanto d’ora in ora alcuni più arditi mortali; prima derisi come frenetici, e sovente come malfattori, decapitati: che se poi vengono patrocinati dalla fortuna ch’essi credono lor propria, ma che in somma non è che il moto prepotente delle cose, allora sono obbediti e temuti, e dopo morte deificati. Questa è la razza degli eroi, de’ capisette, e de’ fondatori delle nazioni i quali dal loro orgoglio e dalla stupidità de’ volghi si stimano saliti tant’alto per proprio valore; e sono cieche ruote dell’oriuolo. Quando una rivoluzione nel globo è matura, necessariamente vi sono gli uomini che la incominciano, e che fanno de’ loro teschj sgabello al trono di chi la compie’ [‘Meanwhile, now and then a few more bold mortals arise. At first derided as lunatics, and often as ill-doers, they are decapitated. And if they are supported by fortune, which they believe is theirs alone, but that, in short, is nothing more than the prevailing motion of things, they are then obeyed and feared, and after death they are deified. This is the race of heroes, of sect leaders, and of founders of nations who from their pride and the stupidity of the plebs consider themselves raised so high by their own worth, while they are blind cog-wheels of the clock. When a revolution in the world is mature, there are necessarily men who begin it, and who make of their skulls a footstool for the throne of he who brings it to completion’] (EN, IV, p. 437). 58. EN, XIX, p. 155 (21 December 1815). 59. Hume, Book II, iii, 8, 438. 60. EN, XVI, p. 151 (1 May 1809). 61. Hume, Book II, iii, 8, 438. 62. EN, VII, pp. 155–56.

Chapter 4

v

‘Et penitus fato divisos orbe Britannos’:1 British Culture in the Epistolario During the eleven years spent in England, Foscolo’s thorough immersion in the British cultural milieu was instrumental to his acquisition of the status both of iconic figure in the cultural community of European expatriates in London and of its most prominent Italian intellectual and scholar. Vincent’s study Ugo Foscolo: An Italian in Regency England (1953), Viglione’s Ugo Foscolo in Inghilterra (1910), Wicks’s The Italian Exiles in London: 1816–1848 (1968), and the more recent book by Franzero, A Life in Exile: Ugo Foscolo in London, 1816–1827 (1977), constitute the main biographical accounts of Foscolo’s life and works during the London years, while the relationship between Foscolo, Hobhouse, and Byron has been examined by Vincent in his Byron, Hobhouse and Foscolo: New Documents in the History of a Collaboration (1949). Lindon’s Studi sul Foscolo ‘inglese’ (1987) is a particularly rich and informative analysis of the writer’s journalistic collaborations which throws significant light on some aspects of Foscolo’s biography during the extremely complex and still little known English years. Although the critical analysis of specific aspects of Foscolo’s poetry and prose often touches upon his connections with late eighteenth- and early nineteenthcentury European culture, since the publication of Donadoni’s work on the rel­ationship between Foscolo and European writers and thinkers there has been no other comprehensive attempt in this direction.2 Nicoletti’s 1978 study of Foscolo’s Florentine library has provided a seminal contribution to the knowledge of his cultural formation and his ties with French and British culture, while Puppo’s essay on Foscolo and European culture well summarizes the European cultural inf luences on the young writer.3 What is missing is a comprehensive inquiry into the relations between Foscolo and English culture from the early Venetian years until the final exile that would help to unveil Foscolo’s English ‘vocation’ and, more specifically, his relation with Augustan and Romantic literature. As Eneas Balmas observes in his 1988 essay ‘La biblioteca francese di Ugo Foscolo’, the indications that surface throughout the Epistolario justify, sustain, and enrich the understanding of his cultural ties and are instrumental to a critical ref lection on Foscolo’s art and works. The most significant English works addressed in Foscolo’s private correspondence are therefore here evaluated both in view of his aesthetic and philosophical positions and in terms of the Foscolo-Sterne relation examined above. The result is a diachronic view of Foscolo’s approach to British literature,

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contributing directly to the detection of his motivations and timing of his aesthetic choices — from his predilection for Augustan classicism and didactic poetry, to a personal re-evaluation and re-use of the sentimental genre, and his rejection of the historical novel and Romantic literature (especially in its German manifestations). This ultimately proves how Foscolo can be legitimately located in that gap between Romantic sensitivity and theorization, characteristic of many of the representatives of the selfsame movement. In one of the very first letters addressed to Melchiorre Cesarotti by a seventeenyear-old Foscolo, on 28 September 1795, he expresses his profound admiration for Ossian and his translator, and confesses to ‘essersi fermato estatico pieno delle sensazioni più vive sul ritratto di Priamo e d’Achille’ [having stopped, ecstatic, full of the most vivid sensations on the portrait of Priam and Achilles] and to ‘aver irrigati di lagrime i lamenti di Dartula e d’Armino’ [having watered with tears the laments of Darthula and Arminius].4 A month later, he writes again to Cesarotti with a letter full of pride for his recent completion of the poem ‘Il Genio’, inspired by Mark Akenside’s didactic poem ‘The Pleasures of the Imagination’, including a sample of the work (now unfortunately lost). As the editors of the Edizione Nazionale observe, there is a contradiction between what Foscolo writes to Cesarotti and the ‘Piano di Studi’ that he compiles only one year later in which the poem is reported as unfinished.5 This is, however, not an uncommon occurrence, since throughout the Epistolario there are frequent discrepancies between Foscolo’s statements on his works and their effective stages of completion. Countless times the editors blame the writer for passing as finished works that in reality he had only drafted, especially in the instances of the novels that Foscolo repeatedly claims to have completed during the English years. The truth is that very little of this material has made its way to us. Given the unrelenting practice of revision characteristic of Foscolo’s writing process, it seems gratuitous to suppose, as Chiarini states in the case of the poem in question, that ‘[è] tutt’altro che strano, per chi conosce la natura dell’uomo, che dopo averne scritto con gran foga alcuni squarci, gli paresse d’averlo compiuto’ [[it is] anything but strange, for he who knows Foscolo’s temperament, that after having written a few passages with great impetus, it appeared to him that he had completed it].6 Whether the poem was ever written or not, what is relevant is Foscolo’s choice of Mark Akenside as a model of didactic poetry. ‘I piaceri dell’Immaginazione’ appears as one of the three didactic poems mentioned in the ‘Piano di Studi’, together with Virgil’s Georgics and Marco Girolamo Vida’s Scaccheide.7 Informed by an encyclopaedic taste, Foscolo selects three eminent representatives of the didactic genre from classical times, the Italian Renaissance, and contemporary England. Published in 1744, when Akenside was only twenty-three-years-old, and re-written after 1754 with the slightly altered title of ‘The Pleasures of the Imagination’ (published posthumously in 1772 among his collected works), it was his most renowned poem, widely read and admired by his contemporaries and throughout the following century. Angelo Mazza translated it into Italian in 1764 under the false place of publication of Paris and it is very likely that it was this edition that Foscolo read as a young man in Venice.8 The richness of Akenside’s poetic images and expressions, and the seemingly uninterrupted

British Culture in the Epistolario 105 narrative f low of the poem elicited a profound fascination in the future author of Le Grazie. In 1796 Foscolo sends his ‘Piano di Studi’ to his friend Tomaso Olivi. The ‘Piano’ — a list of readings deemed by the eighteen-year-old Foscolo as essential to his education and a series of planned literary works — constitutes one of the most scrutinized documents among Foscolo’s manuscripts. The English writers represent approximately 20% of the authors listed under the entry ‘poetry’, which also includes novels. This is a fairly high percentage if one considers that in his ‘Piano di Studi’ Foscolo draws at large from his beloved classics and from Italian and foreign authors. Among the British writers are Milton, Gray, Akenside, Thompson, Waller, Pope, Shakespeare, Swift, Young, and Richardson. It is therefore not surprising that in February of the same year the abbot Giuseppe Greatti writes him a letter in which he reproaches Foscolo for his excessive love of English poetry: Voi fate gli elogi ai Poeti inglesi, e sono ben giusti. L’Inghilterra è la sola nazione che siasi conservata il diritto di pensar liberamente. I suoi scrittori lo si fanno valere eminentemente: i loro scritti annunziano tutti gli atteggiamenti in cui suole collocarsi la libertà del Genio. Ma, permettete, cotesti vostri Inglesi hanno il gran difetto o d’imitar servilmente, o di essere più straordinari ancora che originali. Shakespaire [sic] è tuttora il modello delle loro tragedie, e il passionatissimo Young è un entusiasta profondo, ma strano qualche volta. Il solo Pope, il giudiziosissimo Pope, è il solo che segua severamente le leggi del gusto; e forse è il solo che abbia letto gli antichi più da filosofo che da erudito.9 [You praise the English poets, and rightly so. England is the only country to have preserved for itself the right of free thinking. Its writers emphasize it eminently: their writings herald all the attitudes in which the freedom of Genius is usually placed. But, if you will permit me [to say it], these Englishmen of yours have the great fault of either imitating slavishly or of being more extraordinary than original. Shakespeare is still the model of their tragedies, and the very passionate Young is an extreme enthusiast, but [he is] sometimes strange. Pope alone, the most judicious Pope, is the only one who strictly follows the laws of taste. And perhaps he is the only one who has read the ancients more as a philosopher than as a scholar.]

Greatti’s mention of ‘cotesti vostri Inglesi’ [these Englishmen of yours] eloquently suggests Foscolo’s fascination with a poetical realm that only in the last two decades of the eighteenth century was acquiring widespread recognition in Italy. The Epist­ olario also records a letter sent in July of the same year to Angelo Gaetano Vianelli, who in 1792 had translated (probably from a French version) Sterne’s Lettere di Yorick a Elisa e di Elisa a Yorick. The informal tone of the letter reveals a well established acquaintance and it leaves the reader with the impression that Foscolo might have read Vianelli’s translation, although there is no record to validate this assumption. A few indications of Foscolo’s first-hand knowledge of English writers can be deduced from a series of letters written during the years 1801–03, at the time of his tempestuous love affair with Antonietta Fagnani Arese. Towards the end of what Foscolo defines as the ‘lunga storia dei nostri brevi amori’ [the long history of our brief loves], he recalls how he read in Richardson’s Clarissa that ‘soffre solo chi sa soffrire’ [only he who knows how to suffer, suffers], observing, however, that ‘questo mestiere

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di soffrire, massime nell’avvilimento, non l’ho mai imparato’ [I have never learned this skill of suffering, especially in deception].10 Another mention of Clarissa appears shortly afterwards, after their relationship had come to an end, and Foscolo addresses a veritable literary threat to Antonietta. Not only does he warn her about his intention to re-use their correspondence as the basis for a new work of fiction (a practice he had already experimented with in Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis), but — with a complete shift in perspective from to Richarson’s novel — Foscolo says that he will cast Antonietta as a ruthless female Lovelace and himself as the seduced, betrayed, and abandoned lover: io farò uso delle vostre lettere con più profitto o con più vostro onore. Conoscete voi il Lovelace della Clarissa? Sappiate che voi sarete il Lovelace femminile, e le vostre lettere e le avventure de’ vostri amanti me ne danno argomenti, e mi risparmieranno fatica. [...] [Dicono (?) i letterati che l’[Ortis] è un bel romanzo italiano; io non voleva più delirare con queste frenesie giovanili; ma poiché voi mi stuzzicate, io [dopo] il romanzo del mio [cuore] scriverò il romanzo della mia ragione che voi avete illuminata.11 [I will make use of your letters with greater benefit or with greater honour on your part. Do you know Clarissa’s Lovelace? Know that you will be the female Lovelace, and that your letters and the adventures of your lovers provide me with the subject matter, and they will save me labour. [...] Men of letters say(?) that [Ortis] is a good Italian novel. I no longer wanted to rave in youthful frenzies, but since you provoke me, [after] the novel of my [heart], I will write the novel of my reason, which you have enlightened.]

It is quite certain that at the time Foscolo did not read English texts in the original language. A letter written during his military post with the Napoleonic army in France corroborates this assumption. It is a particularly relevant document, written to Amélie Bagien in September 1805 from Boulogne-sur-Mer, which at the same time provides the starting point for a series of observations about Foscolo’s outlook on Shakespeare. In it, Foscolo recalls how in one of Shakespeare’s tragedies he encountered the story of an unhappy love that he likens to that of Jacopo, quoting the following lines from Othello: She lov’d me for the dangers I had pass’d And I lov’d her that she did pity them.12

He then adds Delille’s French translation — which is quite free — and observes: Mon ami Iacopo Ortis qui quand écrivait ses lubiens n’entendait guère l’anglais, et qui aimait Shakespeare passionnément, aurait preféré ces vers traduits tout bonnement mot-à-mot: Elle aimait moi pour les malheurs que j’avais passés, Et moi j’aimais elle pour la pitié qu’elle en avait.13 [My friend Jacopo Ortis who, when he was writing his follies, did not under­ stand English and who passionately loved Shakespeare, would have preferred these verses simply translated word-for-word: She loved me for the misfortunes I had experienced, And I loved her for the pity she had for them.]

British Culture in the Epistolario 107 The mention of Ortis — in this case a veritable literary double — who at the time of his confessions loved Shakespeare but had no knowledge of the English language, legitimates the supposition that over the last decade of the eighteenth century and the very beginning of the nineteenth century Foscolo’s approach to English literature was still widely filtered through French translations. Foscolo’s passion for Shakespeare — who was one of the authors included in the ‘Piano di Studi’ — is elsewhere subject to a more critical evaluation, not very dissimilar from Voltaire’s reservations about Shakespeare’s theatre. His most famous opinion on the English playwright is found in the Notizia intorno a Didimo Chierico, where Didimo compares him to ‘una selva incendiata che faceva bel vedere di notte, e mandava fumo noioso di giorno’ [a forest on fire that shone by night, but sent irritating smoke by day].14 Donadoni explains that the Didimean opinion is justified by the fact that Foscolo considered Shakespeare a ‘poeta di età barbare e da non potersi imitare in tempi di gusto e di civiltà più avanzate’ [poet of a barbarian age who cannot be imitated in times of more advanced taste and culture],15 and probably had in mind Foscolo’s statement in La chioma di Berenice in which emerges a portrait of Shakespeare as a ‘Vichian’ poet, primitive and barbarous.16 One of Foscolo’s letters to Lord Holland, written in March 1818, clarifies — at least in part — Didimo’s words. What Shakespeare lacks, points out Foscolo, is moderation and the ability to weigh his words as Ariosto and Dante had done before him. They produced relatively little, but with the advantage of consistent poetic excellence: malgré que j’aie tute l’Angleterre contre mou, je soutiens que s’il avait ecrit plus sobremant, il aureait eté le Poete Tragique de toutes les Nations, et ses poems ne seroient pas confinés à l’adoration seule des Anglais.17 [despite having all of England against me, I maintain that if he had written more soberly, he would have been the Tragic Poet of all Nations, and his poems would not have been limited to the sole adoration of the English.]

It must be added that Donadoni did not know the article ‘On Hamlet’ that Foscolo wrote for the New Monthly Magazine,18 in which he reveals an unquestionable admiration for Shakespeare. In his observations on the aesthetic principles of veri­ similitude and the characters’ psychological unity Foscolo systematically defends Shakespeare’s artistic choices and, in the closing remarks, a carefully crafted evaluation balances the merits and limitations of the English playwright: per coloro che sono soddisfatti di una rappresentazione fedele della natura umana in una mente di elevata coltura e per molti rispetti altamente dotata, benché irresoluta, perseguitata in tutti i suoi meandri e rivestita di tutte le sue infermità, questa figurazione riuscirà in verità interessante.19 [in truth, this figuration will be interesting for those who are satisfied with a faithful representation of human nature in a mind of elevated culture [that is] in many respects highly gifted, however irresolute, tormented in all of its tortuous paths, and clothed with all of its infirmities.]

In the following years, Hamlet’s image reappears in two letters of the early 1820s, in which Foscolo contemplates the subject of suicide. He has by now moved on from Ortis’s musings on suicide as a heroic choice, informed by Tacitus’ teaching,

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and leans towards a more articulate evaluation of what a choice between life and death entails, supported by the notions of individual responsibility and social duty.20 The first letter, sent to Lord and Lady Dacre, is penned after a significant monetary loss caused by the unpleasant discovery that as a foreigner he was not entitled to capitalize on his British properties, given that he had no right of ownership or rent. Foscolo announces that he will be forced to become an itinerant teacher of Italian language (a dismal perspective indeed), and therefore lose the status of ‘gentilhomme’ [gentleman] which he had earned in London: Ma lettre à Milady vous informera du parti que j’ai pris; — car il s’agissait precisement du To be, or not to be; j’y ai pensé serieusement, et même tranquille­ ment pendant deux sesmaines; — tranquilement, car si le sommeil est long, je ne redoute points les Dreams de mon ami Hamlet — et je suis convencu que c’est un long sommeil, et que In aeternam clauduntur lumina noctem; mais je n’ai pas droit de m’endormir tant que mes creanciers ont droit que je ville et que je travaille pour eux — et le travail plus probable a me rendre quelque argent me semble celui d’enseigner l’Italien.21 [My letter to Milady informs you of the side I have taken; — because it speci­ fically concerned To be, or not to be; I seriously considered it, and even peacefully for two weeks; — peacefully, because if the sleep is long, I most certainly do not fear the Dreams of my friend Hamlet — and I am convinced that it is a long sleep, and that In aeternam clauduntur lumina noctem. But I do not have the right to sleep as long as my creditors reserve the right to have me live and work for them — and teaching Italian seems to me the most likely occupation to earn me some money.]

The reference to Hamlet is clearly self-serving and the expression ‘mon ami Hamlet’ [my friend Hamlet] is particularly relevant, since Foscolo uses it repeatedly in his correspondence to define his relationships with Ortis, Sterne, and Don Quixote. It has already been noted how that particular expression was connected to a process of identification and emulation and it is not coincidental that in the only other letter in which Foscolo again ref lects on Hamlet’s ‘to be or not to be,’ he ref lects upon the boundaries and limits of his own identity. With a tone quite similar to that adopted in the New Monthly Magazine article, Foscolo writes to Santorre Santa Rosa from the Digamma Cottage on 16 September 1824: ci osserviamo e giudichiamo fra noi su la scena della Vita, — e di rado possiamo vederci dietro la scena, — e la mente e l’anima nostra fa in secreto, appunto come il nostro corpo, mille cose, ed ha molte deformità, e patisce de’ guai, che nessun vede, che tutti dal più al meno riconoscono in sé, ma che nessuno vuole esporre agli occhi altrui, — nemmeno alle persone più domestiche e care.22 [we observe and judge ourselves on the stage of Life, — and rarely can we see ourselves behind the stage, — and our mind and soul do many things in secret, just like our body, and it has many deformities, and suffers from troubles that no one sees, that all more or less recognize in themselves, but no one wants to expose to the eyes of others, — not even to the most familiar and dear individuals.]

British Culture in the Epistolario 109 Finally, the last token of Foscolo’s admiration for Shakespeare — one of the three ‘ingegni sovrumani’ [superhuman minds]23 who had replaced the young Ugo’s passion for Ossian — can be found in the eulogy published in the Monthly Repository on November 1827, shortly after Foscolo’s death. It was very likely written by Edgar Taylor, a lawyer and philanthropist who was quite close to him in his last years. The eulogy mentions the authors about whom Foscolo loved to talk, noting: ‘Non si potrebbe immaginare cosa più affascinante ed interessante della sua conversazione, soprattutto quando egli discuteva di argomenti letterari e dei suoi autori prerferiti, Omero, Dante e Shakespeare’ [one could not imagine anything more fascinating and interesting than his conversation, especially when he was discussing literary topics and his favourite authors, Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare].24 Despite his reservations toward a poet that in Vico’s philosophy of history was to be placed — as we have seen — in the age of the heroes, Foscolo felt a life-long attraction for Shakespeare, a writer whose perceived unruliness and excesses mixed with the highest poetical achievements and who resonated in his own life together with the voices other selected literary friends — Sterne’s Yorick and Cervantes’s hero. At the same time, Foscolo seems to discover (or to re-discover) later in life the forceful psychological dimension of Shakespeare’s theatre, as is demonstrated by his most intimate ref lections on Hamlet during the last years of his British exile. Following this Shakespearean digression, we return to the Epistolario of the early 1800s: in 1806 Foscolo had just finished the first translation of A Sentimental Journey and, as observed above, in his private correspondence he loves to measure himself against Sterne’s prose, adopting the light, ironic, and at times jovially mocking tone of the Viaggio. The Epistolario also provides sporadic information on Foscolo’s acquaintance with Greek and Latin texts edited by British authors. In November 1807, for example, he orders from Turin and then sends to his friend Pier Damiano Armandi a copy of a rare edition of De rerum natura edited by the English philologist Thomas Creech,25 and a few months later he translates an epigram from an edition of Anacreon’s Anacleti, edited in 1705 by the English Hellenist Joshua Barnes.26 Besides these references to classical editions, which have explicit ties with the British intellectual world, the pages of the Epistolario at this time reveal an increased interest in English poetry and prose. In the summer of 1807 Foscolo sends to his lover Marzia Martinengo Cesaresco a series of articles from the Spettatore Inglese that his friend Armandi had lent to him and that he brought to Brescia, while in May of the following year he asks Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi with some urgency to send him the following texts: an edition of The Letters of Abelard and Heloise in Italian, French, and English published by Carlo Palese and edited by Aglietti in 1791 or 1792; Grey’s Elegies translated into Italian by Cesarotti and into Latin by Costa; and Mazza’s free verse translation of Thompson’s ‘Inno a Dio’.27 One of the first Sternean letters examined in the Epistolario addresses Ugo and Isabella’s meeting with ‘il povero Scarsellini’ [poor Scarsellini]28 and the young Foscolo’s use of a line taken from Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard. This recollection, in which he quotes almost verbatim verse 51 of Gray’s poem from Michele Leoni’s translation (‘Chill penury repress’d their noble rage’), shortly precedes his request to Isabella for Gray’s poems. The years 1807–08 mark a phase

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of great interest, on Foscolo’s part, in Thomas Gray’s poetry, as demonstrated by an article on Berchet’s translation of Thomas Gray’s ode ‘The Bard’.29 Published in Milan in 1807, the article compares the young Berchet’s translation and Dalmistro’s version, with Foscolo conferring literary primacy on his old teacher, despite his appreciation for the attempt by the young Berchet, who was then a novice in the art of translation.30 In what appears as an act of display of his acquired familiarity with the English language, Foscolo confesses an act of plagiarism in the autobiographical note that opens the article. He claims to have read in Laurence Sterne’s letters an odd passage that attested Gray’s eccentricity during his years at Cambridge: ‘In the evening he wanders about the fantastical walks around conversing with the figures which the setting sun paints in the cloud’.31 Those words, he admits, were not penned by Sterne, but by him, and asks for forgiveness for this ‘imposturetta all’ombra sua e agl’Inglesi’ [little fraud to his shadow and to the English people].32 He wrote those words while in Flanders, explaining: ‘innamoratomi di una giovane inglese, l’amore mi sospinse a tornare alla grammatica, a scrivere letteratuccie inglesi e a conversar con le nuvole’ [having fallen in love with a young Englishwoman, love drove me to go back to grammar, to write short English letters and to converse with the clouds].33 Foscolo’s fondness for graveyard poetry, a ‘genere di sublime patetico’ [genre of sublime pathos] in which — as Count Martignoni, the great admirer of I Sepolcri, observed — Foscolo would have rendered ‘dubbia agli Inglesi la palma’ [the English doubtful of the palm] is attested by a series of letters in which Foscolo and Count Giovio dwell upon James Hervey’s Meditations among the Tombs.34 Oddly, that very book was used six years earlier by Foscolo and his lover Antonietta Fagnani Arese as a coded message whose successful delivery from Antonietta to Ugo was to signify her assent to their secret encounter in a room ‘affatto solitaria e secreta’ [entirely solitary and secret].35 In 1809 Count Giovio publishes his Pensieri d’Hervey sulle tombe coll’aggiunta di due poemetti (Como: Ostinelli), which is a compendium of Hervey’s Pensieri based on an Italian translation, to which Giovio adds as dedicatory letter an epistle that he wrote and sent to Foscolo in January of the same year. In another letter, of which only fragments remain, Giovio expresses to Foscolo the following evaluation of Hervey’s work: Io non so veramente, come abbia alzata sì gran fama l’Hervey con quelle sue Tombe: forse vi sarà nel di lui stile qualche maggiore attrattiva per gli Inglesi, che io non posso conoscere. — Del resto certo movimento di cuore e di religione trovailo pur io, generalmente grazie a Dio non sonomi incognite queste due sensazioni.36 [I do not really know how Hervey rose to such great fame with his Tombs. Perhaps there is something in his style that is of greater attraction to the English, and that I cannot know — On the other hand, I too found a certain sentimental and religious feelings [in it]. Thanks to God these two sensations are generally not unknown to me.]

Despite his appreciation of the religious subject and of the style of the Meditations, Count Giovio could hardly tolerate a certain poetic magniloquence and the predi­ lection for frightful images that permeates Hervey’s poetry. Foscolo seems to agree with Count Giovio, but he is in fact much more approving of those pages and their author:

British Culture in the Epistolario 111 sono eccellenti sermoni, e pieni di religione e di carità; e la loro fama in Inghilterra fu aiutata dal carattere delle famiglie inglesi tutte inclinate a una malinconica devozione, e molto più da’ costumi santissimi e liberali di quel pietoso pastore di Biddeford.37 [they are excellent sermons, and full of religion and compassion. Their fame in England was facilitated by the character of English families, which are all inclined to melancholic devotion, and even more by the most saintly and liberal habits of that pious pastor from Biddeford.]

Such praise does not appear quite in line with what Foscolo expressed in his letter to Guillon, in which he maintained that Young and Hervey wrote their meditations as Christians as an aid to endure ‘la rassegnazione alla morte e il conforto di un’altra vita’ [resignation to death and comfort in another life], while Gray wrote as a philosopher ‘[per] persuadere l’oscurità della vita e la tranquillità della morte’ [[to] persuade of life’s obscurity and death’s tranquility].38 On close scrutiny, however, this is not a contradiction because, if on the one hand Foscolo’s admiration for Gray the philosopher is apparent, on the other hand the piety and religious motivations of the other two British graveyard poets should not be considered as lesser virtues. They epitomize an attitude towards religion and the sacred that Foscolo cannot share, but whose function he fully understands. This is why the subject of Giovio’s work, the Count’s deep-rooted religious beliefs, and the dedicatory letter to the ‘egregio signor Ugo Foscolo’ [dear Mr Ugo Foscolo] are all instrumental factors in Foscolo’s decision to mail of a copy of the Pensieri di Hervey sulle tombe to his mother and sister to comfort them for the premature death of his nephew Nane in Venice. In line with his statement to the Abbé Saverio Bettinelli that he wants to study ‘più la vita che le opere degl’illustri letterati’ [more the life than the work of illustrious men of letters],39 Foscolo observes that, with regard to Hervey, più delle tombe sono da leggersi le sue lettere a una sua sorella, ed una ch’egli scrisse a due peccatori condannati al patibolo: questa lettera è un esemplare di candida e di morale eloquenza; ma non l’ho mai veduta tradotta in Italia.40 [more than the tombs, one should read his letters to one of his sisters, and another that he wrote to two sinners condemned to the gallows. This letter is an example of pure and moral eloquence, but I have never seen it translated into Italian.]

It is not clear where Foscolo gathered this information, but several eighteenthcentury editions of Hervey’s works, which included a biography of the writer, were available on the Italian market. A series of letters written in 1812–13, during his second translation of A Sentimental Journey, show Foscolo’s interest in some of the contemporary translators from English into Italian. A clear instance is a letter to Jacopo Morelli, in which Foscolo solicits information from the custodian of the Marciana library in Venice about Conti’s translation of Pope’s Epistola d’Eloisa ad Abelardo. Antonio Conti (1677–1748) was a celebrated poet and translator from classical and modern languages, but Foscolo doubts that he was the author of the translation, asserting that although he ‘fosse poeta di merito, non mi pare tuttavia che avesse tanto calore d’anima e tanta armonia di verso’ [were a poet of merit, I do not think that he had as much

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warmth in his heart and harmony in his verse].41 He is more inclined to believe that the author was a more eminent man of letters who decided to remain anonymous, and the pressing request for Morelli’s opinion reveals his great interest in this translation. We know that Foscolo owned an edition of Pope’s Saggio sopra l’uomo in English, French, and Italian printed in Naples by Domenico Terres in 1768.42 The translation by Anton-Filippo Adami was, according to Donald B. Clark, the most frequently reprinted Italian version of the Essay, and Foscolo very likely compared this version of Pope to Conti’s translation.43 Morelli assures him that Conti was indeed the translator of the Epistola and praises his work without reservation.44 It is difficult to ascertain whether Foscolo was, in the end, more concerned with the original or the translation. Donadoni observes that he admires Pope as the highest representative of that ‘scuola di poetica analisi’ [school of poetic analysis] characteristic of English literary taste, but his aversion for every form of poetical rhetoric, from Horace onwards, leads him to state to Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi that, out of consistency with such aversion, also ‘il magnifico Saggio sull’uomo del Pope andrebbe confinato tra’ libri di morale scritti elegantemente; nè più nè meno’ [Pope’s magnificent An Essay On Man must be restricted to elegantly written moral books: no more no less].45 Of particular interest is the relation between Foscolo and Michele Leoni, one of the most prolific Italian translators from the English language in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Their connection must have been much more established than the Epistolario betrays, considering also the fact that Leoni was co-editor, with Rasori, of the Milanese Annali di scienze e lettere in which Foscolo published the article ‘Sulla traduzione dell’Odissea’ and the abovementioned ‘Ragguaglio’ in 1810. In a letter of January 1813, Leoni entrusts his translation of Macbeth to Foscolo, who was well acquainted with Leoni’s Shakespearean translations and recognized their value. A letter written to his friend Giovan Battista Niccolini in July of the same year attests to such appreciation together with a close friendship: il signor Michele Leoni uomo di svegliato e coltivatissimo ingegno, traduttore felice del Cesare di Shakespeare [...] l’ho sperimentato inoltre d’animo affettuoso e leale, e l’ebbi amico anche nella disgrazia.46 [Mr Michele Leoni, a man of sharp and most cultivated mind, [and a] skilful translator of Shakespeare’s Caesar [...] I also experienced him as a man with an affectionate and loyal heart, and he was a friend even in misfortune.]

Less than a month earlier Foscolo sent back to Leoni his article on the translation of the Viaggio sentimentale, which appears in the Florentine Giornale Enciclopedico. It is upon Leoni’s request, it seems, that Foscolo adds to the article the translation of the chapter titled Il carcerato — which had appeared in the Milanese Italian translation of Sterne’s work published by de Stefanis in 1812 — with the aim of encouraging a comparison of that version with Foscolo’s translation. Together with the article, Foscolo sent to Leoni a brief marginal note on Didimo’s identity, written expressly for this venue.47 Leoni includes it in the article and it is legitimate to suppose that also the ideas there expressed on the nature and methods of literary translations were in fact also Foscolo’s suggestions. Leoni chose to print the review article in the Florentine Giornale Enciclopedico and

British Culture in the Epistolario 113 not the Milanese Annali di scienze e lettere for two reasons. First of all, there had been significant disagreements between Leoni and Rasori, originating in the publication of an article on Foscolo’s Aiace; and, secondly, one year earlier the Milanese journal had printed a disparaging article on Sterne’s sentimental style. The article criticized the author of Tristram Shandy and drew on Byron’s famously harsh observation that Sterne’s sentimental heart could shed tears on a dead ass but could not come to the aid of his own mother who was then suffering many privations.48 The literary debate on the reception of Sterne’s work in Italy represents the wider context in which the articles on the Giornale Enciclopedico and the Annali di scienze e lettere should be placed. The most favourable reception of Sterne’s books since the end of the eighteenth century is recorded in the Milanese, Venetian, and Florentine intellectual circles. When in 1784 the Lettere d’Elisa a Yorick, e di Yorick a Elisa, were translated in Lausanne, the Gazzetta letteraria in Florence promptly announced the book, pointing out that Sterne’s work represents a prototype of how modern novels should be written — ‘come devono adesso essere scritti i romanzi’.49 It also states that its epistolary form and sentimental genre, the ref lections and adventures of which it abounds, make this work an example to be imitated. Two years later the Lettere are reprinted in Lausanne and in February 1787 Alberto Fortis publishes in the Nuovo Giornale Enciclopedico (printed in Vicenza) a long article, perhaps translated from a foreign publication, which represents one of the most forthrightly positive appraisals of sentimental literature in the eighteenth-century Italian press. The conclusion well epitomizes the tone of the article: ‘Chi non gusta questa sorta di lettere, maledica il maestro che gli ha insegnato a compitare: egli era fatto per tutt’altro’ [Whoever does not appreciate this kind of letters, should curse the master who taught him how to spell: he was suited to quite another occupation].50 Only one year later Foscolo starts his brief period of instruction under the guidance of Angelo Dalmistro, translator and expert of English literature. There may be no evidence that Foscolo read Fortis’s pages, but that text however remains one of the possible inf luences of the sentimental genre on the future writer and is an indicator of the receptivness of the Venetian cultural milieu. Foscolo, however, is not always partial to the literary, cultural, and political manifestations of the English world. The Epistolario reveals his harsh criticism of British colonialism in the closing section of a long letter written in 1812 to Cornelia Martinetti (during the initial phase of A Sentimental Journey’s second translation), when the setting sun leads him to considerations on how that very same sun ‘ridesta già alle fatiche que’ disgraziati Indiani oppressi dall’avarizia e dalle catene della generosa Inghilterra’ [wakes up to their toils the miserable Indians [who are] oppressed by the avarice and the chains of generous England’].51 The accusatory tone of Ortis’s Letter from Ventimiglia re-emerges in these words which can be considered a momentary shift from the private confession to Cornelia of the rest of the letter to a self-referential literary narrative. Another cutting anti-British remark is expressed in a letter written in Milan to the Countess of Albany in 1814, shortly after his return from Florence where the two spent several pleasant hours conversing amid the Tuscan surroundings. Foscolo communicates to the Countess of Albany that he just handed over to the young Augusto Bozzi Grenville a letter

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addressed to her. Grenville, says Foscolo, ‘è giovine, colto a quanto mi pare; e solo mi rincresce che parli un po’ troppo di glorie Italiane. — glorie! — e di generosità inglesi: — mercanti, e ce ne avvedremo; tuttavia ci han liberato da quel Capanèo’ [is young, and cultured as far as I can tell. And I am only sorry that he speaks a bit too much about Italian glories — glories! — and of English generosity: — merchants, and we will realize this. Nevertheless, they freed us from that Capaneus].52 These are, however, passing clouds which seem to be dispelled when, one month later, Foscolo mentions for the first time in his correspondence William Stewart Rose, the Scottish friend who will play a primary role in his decision in favour of a British exile. Rose, who was on the editorial staff of the Quarterly Review, embodies for Foscolo the typical man and intellectual born and raised under the aegis of British freedom and learning, and he bustles about more than ever to ensure that all his Milanese and Tuscan friends warmly welcome him. While thinking about his own future that was rapidly and dramatically unfolding, Foscolo writes to Camillo Ugoni: Mr Rose ‘è un egregio valentuomo davvero, e non par letterato; guai, forse, se fosse nato ed educato in Italia!’ [is a distinguished fine fellow indeed, and he does not resemble a man of letters. Heaven help him if he were born and brought up in Italy!].53 Rose plans a trip to England with Foscolo in the winter of 1814, only a few months before his Swiss exile, but contradictory information and insufficient details within the Epistolario do not permit a clear understanding of Foscolo’s real intentions. The epistolary contacts between the two are extremely frequent during the fall of 1814 because Rose is travelling in Italy and many of his acquaintances and friends had been recommended to him by Foscolo. The Epistolario bears witness to the birth and strengthening of their friendship, and in September of the same year Rose is already able to draft a portrait of Foscolo, warning him about his recurring melancholy: alla fin fine la vostra malattia principale è cronica ed incurabile: Voi avete il corpo sopraffatto dall’anima, e badate bene che non si dirà di voi come del nostro Shaftesbury, che essa fretted to decay and o’er — informed its tenesment of clay che suo tormentator sino al disfarsi L’albergo suo di creta oltre accendea.54 [all things considered, your principle malady is chronic and incurable. Your body has been crushed by the soul, and mind that people do not end up saying of you as they do of our Shaftsbury, that his soul [...]]

In the original letter, Michele Leoni’s translation of the two English lines is added later on, it is not clear whether by Foscolo or by William Stewart Rose who just then — thanks to Foscolo — became acquainted with Leoni, and who shortly afterwards was to find hospitality in Leoni’s house during his Florentine stay. From that house Rose writes to Foscolo as the bearer of Leoni’s request to send him at once the English tragedy Venice Preserved, ‘la quale egli ansiosamente aspetta’ [which he anxiously awaits].55 Thomas Otway’s play, written in 1682, was extremely popular throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, thanks in particular to its pre-Romantic atmosphere; it was surpassed in fame only by Shakespeare’s tragedies.

British Culture in the Epistolario 115 Foscolo’s interest in such work with a strong historical connotation lasts well into his British exile, as he talks about it in one of the last articles he writes in June 1827 for the Edinburgh Review — ‘History of the Democratical Constitution of Venice’.56 The treatment reserved for Otway’s tragedy, with a critique of the historical truth there portrayed, confirms his uneasiness towards historical accounts in literary works. Lindon detects in this position Foscolo’s wish to shock the English readers and his attempt to change the romantic perception of Venice in favour of a more accurate and erudite historical reading.57 With the abrupt change brought about by the Swiss exile, Foscolo begins to consider the possibility of moving to England, although in February 1816 he still thinks of it as an unlikely choice, not suitable to his disposition: Sempre tendo col desiderio alle isole mie: il vostro consiglio ch’io cerchi fortuna in Inghilterra sarebbe eccellente per un uomo di più amabile carattere: ma io — farò io il ciurmatore di letteratura italiana, o il pedante dell’abbiccì? M’acconcierò per gentleman d’un Lord? O per compagnon de voyage d’un giovinastro scapestrato, o d’una ipocondriaca myladi? Scriverò articoli di gazzette? — Anderò a Londra, ma per imparare, e per non molto tempo; e imbarcarmi per la mia terra materna: che se non m’è più dato d’essere seppellito dove stanno le ceneri de’ miei maggiori, troverò almeno un sepolcro dove son nato. A cose quiete, e a vita sicura ed indipendente rivedrò forse Firenze; per Milano non la vedrò più.58 [I always long for my islands. Your advice that I seek fortune in England would be excellent for a man of more amiable character, but me — will I be a charlatan of Italian literature or a pedagogue? Will I be a Lord’s gentleman? Or the travel companion of a reckless hooligan, or of a hypochondriac milady? Will I write articles in the gazettes? — I will go to London, but to learn, and not for a long time. And [then] I will embark for my native land. If it is not possible for me to be buried with the ashes of my elders, I will at least find a tomb where I was born. Once things will have settled and I will lead a secure and independent life, I might see Florence again. As for Milan, I will never see it again.]

Once in England, however, Foscolo immediately immerses himself in the cultural life of the country where he will spend the next eleven years of his life. The Epistolario offers a variety of accounts of Foscolo’s readings during this time and, although one is left with the wish to gather less fragmentary evidence, nonetheless such primary information allows one to evaluate the impact of those readings on Foscolo’s literary criticism and to weigh their inf luence on matters of taste, style, and aesthetic principles. A document of primary relevance is the letter added to the twelve copies of the London edition of Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis, in which Foscolo thanks the poet, banker, and literary patron Samuel Rogers for his friendship and for the joy that he derived from reading Rogers’s The Pleasures of Memory, published in 1792. Rogers was one of the main literary figures in early nineteenth-century London and his fame as a poet, which did not last long after his death in 1855, was still very high at the time of Foscolo’s self-imposed exile. The Pleasures of Memory can be counted — alongside Akenside’s The Pleasures of Imagination, Thomas Campbell’s The Pleasures of Hope, Richardson’s Pamela, Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, Thompson’s The Seasons,

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and Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Curchyard — among the founding works of British pre-Romanticism. Foscolo identifies himself, on aesthetic, philosophical, and moral ground with this literary koiné but he at the same time transcends it and, as Praz perspicaciously observes, he can be placed, together with Keats and Hölderlin, ‘[at] the acme of the late eighteenth — and early nineteenth — century classicism reached within the general framework of Romantic sensitivity’.59 Hence the reason for the dedication to Rogers of the London edition of Ortis, in which Foscolo reassesses the novel, labelling it an error of youth that he is nonetheless unwilling to disavow. The person who wrote those pages, says Foscolo, was a quite different man, moulded more by nature than by the world, but Rogers’s poem, ‘che con gli allettamenti della poesia ammaestra i mortali a rivivere nella vita perduta’ [that with the charms of poetry instructs mortals to live again in the bygone life], warrants harmony and continuity to the writer’s judging eye.60 Foscolo greatly values this harmonizing of the past and the present and he seems in fact to aim at a constant recuperation of his life through memory: ‘io vivo di reminiscenza’ [I live on reminiscence] he wrote in 1810 to Sabrina Orozsco.61 At the same time, he is fully aware of the recurring ruptures with the past in his life, by choice or chance, and observes how each of them redefines him as a man and a writer, setting his expectations and hopes within an ever-changing realm of possibilities. The close of the letter to Sabrina Orozsco, written at a time when Foscolo is fully aware of having reached a divide in his life which foreshadows his own exile, states with clearness of mind a passionate and intimate confession: ‘io ho distrutto il tempo: ed ora il tempo comincia a distruggere anche la speranza de’ miei piaceri’ [I destroyed time, and now time begins to destroy even the hope of my pleasures].62 In The Pleasure of Memory, which, says Foscolo, ‘ridonda di dolcissimi affetti, e d’eleganza squisita e di grazie modeste, e però onnipotenti’ [overf lows with the most sweet affections, and exquisite elegance and modest, yet omnipotent, graces’],63 Rogers put into verse the aesthetic theory of associationism, fully accounted for by Archibald Alison in his Essay on the Nature and Principles of Taste (1790). Alison’s associationism builds upon the theories of Locke, Hume, and Alexander Gerard, and claims that aesthetic emotions cannot be derived by metaphysical or moral principles but rather originate in the association of sensorial experience with the qualities connected to them. If, on the one hand, Alison’s associationism denies any aesthetic metaphysics, on the other, it makes a claim for a universal aesthetic experience. In the light of Foscolo’s affinity with the principles of philosophical empiricism, it is legitimate to state that Rogers’s work appealed for this very reason to Foscolo’s poetic taste and to his aesthetic principles. His first-hand contact with England, a ‘virtuosissima, religiosissima, e un po’ ipo­cri­tissima fra le nazioni’ [most virtuous, most religious, and somewhat most hypo­critical among the nations],64 causes him to observe that it is ‘la men metafisica di quante vissero, vivono e vivranno sotto la luna’ [the least metaphysical of those who lived, live, and will live under the moon].65 The opinion is expressed in a letter to Silvio Pellico, in which Foscolo defends himself from di Breme’s (well founded) accusations of his being the author of the Essay on the Present Literature of Italy, which formed part of Hobhouse’s Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold:

British Culture in the Epistolario 117 containing dissertations on the Ruins of Rome, and an Essay on Italian Literature. In the letter to Pellico, Foscolo paints the character of a nation in which: tutto è commercio, dove la generosa liberalità non s’ingerisce mai; gli editori pagano molto quegli scrittori che procacciano molti lettori; e poveri e ricchi e nobili, ed anche i Principi della casa reale se sanno scrivere, scrivono, e si fanno pagare.66 [everything is business, where generous liberality never interferes. Editors pay a lot to those writers who procure many readers. Rich men, poor men, noble men, and even Princes of the royal house write, if they know how, and are paid for it.]

England is a nation that conducts itself according to a utilitarian and anti-metaphysical code which, far from degenerating into the unbridled individualism that presides over Hobbes’ social contract or into Bentham’s philosophical utilitarianism, makes the English tutti quanti attentissimi esploratori, e difficili ad arrendersi ad altro che a’ fatti [...]. La loro libertà derivò da’ fatti progressivi, senza teorie; e sto per dire non ne professano veruna di quelle de’ Liberali Europei; — bensì hanno dall’esperienza de’ loro annali e dalla storia delle loro rivoluzioni ricavato alcuni pochi assiomi, quasi in via di dogmi, e s’appoggiano a quelli.67 [all of them [are] very attentive explorers, and unwilling to submit to anything other than facts [...] Their freedom derives from progressive facts, without theories, and I am about to say that they do not profess any of those [theories] of the European Liberals ones — they have rather drawn a few axioms from the experience of their annals and the history of their revolutions, and they rely on these, almost as [if they were] dogmas.]

Foscolo notes that, although there are some metaphysical writers, nessuno li stima; taluni li leggono per curiosità e i giornalisti per censurarli e deriderli — ed oggimai il povero Bentham è fatto il pulcinella di tutti; — e nota ch’esso parteggiava tempo fa col Ministero al quale esibiva progetti di mari e mondi; e perché non gli fu dato retta, si diede a predicare metafisicamente Democrazia, e con vocaboli tutti suoi; sì che nessuno gli crede, perché muta bandiera; — nessuno lo intende, e tutti ne’ mesi addietro se ne divertivano; oggi nessuno lo nomina.68 [no one respects them. Some read them out of curiosity and the journalists [read them] to censure and deride them — and by now poor Bentham has been made everyone’s fool — and note that a while ago he supported the Ministry to whom he showed extravagant projects, and because nobody paid attention to him, he gave himself over to metaphysically preaching Democracy, and with a vocabulary all his own, such that no one believes him, because he changes opinion — no one understands him, and in previous months everyone was making fun of him. Today, no one even mentions him.]

In a society so constructed the press has a good name and is far more dignified than its Italian counterpart. It is difficult not to read in this statement an attempt to justify Foscolo’s choice of earning a living through collaborations with English magazines, especially if one considers that from the time of his articles written for

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the Annali di scienze e lettere he had in fact resolved never to work again for any periodical press: Amori di parte, Silvio mio, e rancori, e gelosie, e cabale sono anche ne’ Giornali d’Inghilterra; ma il loro scopo è maggiore; però sono assai meno risibili — trattasi di chi avrà il governo ed il ministero, se i Whig, o se i Tory — trattasi di libri massicci, liberi, e liberamente giudicati — Però gl’inconvenienti naturali a sì fatta impresa letteraria sono più tollerabili — Ma in Italia di che si tratta? di lodare il sonetto proprio, e degli amici, e malignare a ogni modo, e calunniare se a Dio piace i nemici.69 [Party spirit aside, my dear Silvio, grudges, jealousies, and intrigues are to be found also in the English newspapers, but their goal is greater and they are much less laughable — they discuss who will hold the government and the ministry, whether Whig or Tory — they discuss weighty, free and freely judged books — Therefore the natural inconveniences of such a literary enterprise are more tolerable — But in Italy what is discussed? Praising one’s own sonnets and those of friends, and maligning and slandering — God’s willing — one’s enemies.]

There is, however, a price to pay. On several occasions Foscolo points out that in order to write for the English periodical press he had to learn, with great effort, to adapt his prose to the taste of the host nation. He who in Italy had recently become a model of style and an example to be imitated is now forced to re-learn his trade. What Foscolo writes to Hobhouse in October 1818 already conveys the sense of dismay — which at times will turn into discouragement — at his situation: En attandant il me tarde de savoir en peu de mots votre avis — c’est—à-dire si par cet article sur Dante il vous semble que je reussirai d’or en avant à ecrire des articles selon le goût des Anglais — puisque Dieu a ordonné que ma vie doive dependre en grand partie de mon skill à faire des articles pour les Anglais.70 [In the meantime, I wish to know, in a few words, your opinion — that is, if with this article on Dante it seems to you that I would succeed from here onwards in writing articles according to English taste — since God has ordered that my life should depend in large part on my skill in writing articles for the English.]

More explicit are the words that he addresses to Gino Capponi two years later when, worn out by his literary endeavours, he contemplates a return to Italy, declaring: [l’essere] diventato la bestia da soma di Murray, di Gifford e di Jeffrey, — e l’essermi obbligato a dilettare il mondo Inglese del quale in parte ignoro, ed in parte disamo il gusto letterario, — e il dovere tradurre, o per parlare più veramente, stemperare il miei pensieri in Francioso, sì che poi siano annacquati venalmente in Inglese, sono sciagure e fatiche e vergogne alle quali non posso omai reggere più; — ma se non le tollero, la mia poca entrata non basterebbe a farmi vivere; — e se pur le tollero, uccido forse la vita mia, e certamente il mio ingegno: e la mente e lo stile che talvolta volavano com’aquila, stramazzeranno come asini stanchi, e diventeranno carogne.71 [[having] become the beast of burden of Murray, Gifford, and Jeffrey, — and being obliged to entertain the English world whose literary taste I am in part ignorant of, and in part I dislilke, — and needing to translate, or to speak more

British Culture in the Epistolario 119 frankly, to water down my thoughts in French so that they will be venally diluted in English, [these] are disasters, exertions, and embarrassments that I can by now no longer bear; — but if I do not endure them, my small income will not be enough for me to live; — and if I do endure them, I possibly kill my life, and [I] certainly [kill] my mind. And my intellect and my style that sometimes soared like an eagle, will collapse like tired asses, and will turn into carcasses.]

An unf lattering confirmation of this linguistic challenge is found in the diary of the Irish writer Thomas Moore who, in an entry dated 26 November 1821, reports a dialogue with one of Foscolo’s translators who ‘says he writes a farrago of Italian, French, and English’.72 Foscolo, who in 1805 wrote to Amélie Bagien that he had embraced only one language — Italian — and that he wanted to devote his entire life to it, eighteen years later in England harbours the dream (although for a very short time) to make English his literary language of choice and to translate by himself the novels that he was then allegedly composing in Italian (and of which very few traces remain). In one of Byron’s literary verdicts, which Foscolo reproduces in a letter to Lady Dacre, he finds confirmation of his impatience with those translators who distort his own words and too often render his creative effort fruitless: ‘je me connais assez en ces matieres pour ne point espérer un grand success par l’entremise des traducteurs [I know quite a bit these matters to have no hope of great success through translators]. — Lord Byron vient de s’ecrier [Lord Byron recently exclaimed]: ‘This is a cruel practice! If the merit of a work is supposed to be comprehended in a thousand particulars, nine hundred and ninety nine and three quarters of these will always consist in the peculiar manner of the writer which cannot be translated.’ 73 Very likely because of his literary obligations, carried out at an often frenetic pace and with unsatisfying results, among Foscolo’s critical writings of the London period there is not a systematic treatment of English literature evaluated by him — this Italian intellectual of refined culture, reader of English authors since his youth, and writer of distinctively European formation. It is particularly regrettable that shortly after his arrival in England Foscolo did not carry out his project to include in the Gazzettino del bel mondo an essay on contemporary British authors. Among his notes there remains only a list of names: Moore, Campbell, Walter Scott, Rogers, Crabbe, Southey, Gifford, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shell[ey], Hogg, and Byron.74 In one of the appendixes to the Gazzettino, entitled ‘Della poesia moderna’, a revealing passage sheds light on this absence of contemporary literary criticism. Foscolo explains that he feels unprepared for such a task: ‘S’io avessi telescopio vorrei, Donna gentile, esplorare quanti giri e quali perturbazioni patiscano oggi gli asterismi poetici d’Albione. Ma io non ho potere alcuno né diritto di dirne sillaba’ [If I had a telescope, kind Lady, I would explore how many turns and which disturbances suffer today Albion’s poetic asterisms. But I have no power nor right to utter a syllable about them].75 Again, an entry in Thomas Moore’s diary under the date of 28 March 1919 corroborates that Foscolo ‘had a design of publishing a parallel between Italian and English poetry in four letters addressed to Crabbe, Campbell, Rogers, and myself, of which, however, I have heard nothing more since’.76 If, as Viglione maintains, the essay on contemporary English writers was

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meant to coincide (in part or completely) with the letters that Moore refers to, Foscolo’s choice of addressees is quite revealing. His selection was in part determined by personal acquaintance, but at the same time it demonstrates a predilection for didactic poetry and for pre-Romantic authors still deeply rooted in classicism. A close scrutiny of Foscolo’s relationship with some of the English authors mentioned in his notes for the Gazzettino sheds light on his partiality. Wordsworth is one of the poets who should have been included in the essay on contemporary British authors and we know that a dramatic confrontation took place between the old poet and the middle-aged Foscolo in 1824. The Italian writer came out of it with a badly bruised image but, rather than indulging here in the collection of anecdotes on Foscolo’s eccentricities that some of the scholarship has too often privileged, it is far more relevant to look at the reasons for his apparently uncontrollable rage at the author of the Lyrical Ballads. According to the account of the event by the eyewittness William Bewick, the quarrel followed Wordsworth’s professed faith in a universal good, which he defined as natural, pure, and self less human goodness.77 Vincent attributes Foscolo’s vehement reaction to his personal difficulties; after all, only a few months earlier he lost his house, was recently arrested because of his debts, and was about to face the most desperate years of his life in England which would culminate in his death in 1827. All this may have played a role in and exacerbated his response, but — practical circumstances aside — the main reason for the dispute can be located in Foscolo’s antithetical notion of man. Informed by Machiavelli’s philosophy of history and Bacon and Locke’s empiricism, his view of man rejects the religious and philosophical principle of a supreme good and opposes to it the disillusioned realism of a utilitarian drive. At the same time, it also rejects the possibility of a Rousseauvian man who lives in an unspoiled state of nature, claiming instead the primacy of man’s social condition. It is, once more, an anti-metaphysical and anti-idealist position which separates Foscolo from the first and second generation of British Romantic writers (in particular Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge) and brings him closer to both British pre-Romantic poets, philosophically associated with rationalist and pragmatic classicism, and the poetry of Byron and Shelley. Foscolo could not claim a much better relation with the father of the English historical novel. In Walter Scott’s diary, in the entry for 24 November 1825, the following unf lattering description can be found: Talking of strangers, London held, some four or five years since, one of those animals who are lions at first, but by transmutation of two seasons become in regular course Boars — Ugo Foscolo by name, a haunter of Murray’s shop and of literary parties. Ugly as a baboon, and intolerably conceited, he spluttered, blustered, and disputed, without even knowing the principles upon which men of sense render a reason, and screamed all the while like a pig when they cut his throat.78

It is not clear to what degree the dislike was mutual, but it is certain that there was no interest on either side for the other’s respective body of work. Foscolo is not fond of historical novels and when John Murray lends him a Walter Scott novel — the first one that, by his own admission, he was about to read — he thanks him

British Culture in the Epistolario 121 sincerely, but reserves an ironic jibe for the author: ‘Accept my thanks for the loan of M.r — I beg your pardon — of Sir Walter’s novel; and I will read it, being the first of his novels which I open: I am ashamed of it; but I never did read one’.79 In the Gazzettino del bel mondo Foscolo had criticized the modern type of writing that ‘ha tanta fiducia in sé e nella credulità del genere umano d’oggi che sforza noi tutti a leggere come accaduti a’ dì nostri dinanzi a noi certi avvenimenti storici de’ quali nessun de’ viventi avrebbe potuto mai essere testimonio’ [has so much trust in itself and in the credulousness of today’s humankind, that forces us all to read certain historical events as if they happened during our time and in front of our eyes, while no living soul could have ever witnessed them].80 In a letter to Murray he dwells upon this aversion in a more explicit and personal manner. In August 1822 Murray, who often resorts to Foscolo’s opinion when planning the publication of works related to Italian culture and history, asks him to evaluate the manuscript of Mary Shelley Wollstonecraft’s novel Valperga: or, the Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca which is to be published in 1823. As in the case of Foscolo’s evaluation of Byron’s tragedy Marino Faliero (which is discussed below), Foscolo’s assessment is quite detailed and full of information on his own literary inclinations. Although Murray does not reveal the name of the author of Valperga, Foscolo asserts that in his opinion the writer is ‘far from being either a common or an extraordinary one; and were I to guess and wage I would say that the Author is a she-Author’.81 Foscolo reads only the first of Valperga’s three volumes and remarks that the extreme complexity of plot together with the reworking of historical facts are stylistic elements that he does not find congenial to his literary taste, and therefore has never been able to appreciate fully. With regard to the first criticism, Foscolo distinguishes in his response between novels of events and introspective novels that analyze the human heart, and although he admits that there are surely many readers whose taste greatly differ from his and can therefore appreciate such narratives, he asserts: ‘whilst I cannot go with patience through a long series of events, others cannot like me wander with attention in the labyrinths of the human heart’.82 As per the historical aspect of the novel, his opinion is based on a personal dislike of a genre that he considers a hybrid between history and narra­ tive and that either betrays the principle of verisimilitude or deceives the reader: Perhaps too even on this account I am an hypercritic as I have a strong avversion [sic] to novels founded on characters and facts which having become the property of history are already to be known as not to admit any fiction. Either the reader of the novel is acquainted or unacquainted with the real history; if acquainted, the inventions of the novellist [sic] do not carry any illusions with them; — and if unacquainted, the unlearned reader is deceived by fictions on a subject with which he could be more usefully amused with historical truth. But what is a fault in my eyes, has been lately made by the Author of Kenilworth, a very popular merit; and in this respect also my criticism should not be depended upon.83

The long letter to Murray turns into a mini-treatise on the historical novel. Never before in his private correspondence had Foscolo gone so deeply into the subjet of contemporary British literature. In line with his rejection of historical narrative, Foscolo laments the lack of a precise characterization of the historical time in

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which Shelley’s novel takes place, although he recognizes that ‘the general outline of the history of the fourteenth century appears to be correctly drawn’.84 In a very similar tone to that used in the Gazzettino, he pronounces his main criticism of the novel: ‘The personages act in the scenes that really passed, or in all probability might had [sic] passed at that period; but they think and express themselves as our contemporaries’.85 The reason for such imbalance is that the author used modern texts to outline the historical circumstances in which the novel is set (in fact, in her preface Mary Shelley explains that she drew extensively from Sismondi’s Histoire des républiques italiennes du moyen âge, 1809–18), and thus ended up using that ‘metaphysical Telescope’ that Foscolo abhorred.86 In this letter Foscolo appears reluctant to give openly his opinion on those representatives of the new romantic literature who were then gaining ground among both readers and critics. He finds his own views progressively at odds with the public: this is the case with Mme de Staël’s Corinna (a novel that in the Letterre scritte dall’Inghilterra he finds fault with on account of several factual errors and much more serious metaphysical f laws), with Walter Scott’s novels, and with this text by Mary Shelley, of which an extremely positive critical evaluation was already included in the manuscript sent to him by Murray. Foscolo resorts again to the excuse of the language barrier which allegedly makes him an ‘incompetent judge’ of British novels, but this seems a feeble excuse indeed and his puzzlement has rather to do with his newly articulated questioning of the objective limit of his own judgment: I am writing every word of this letter under the double anxiety of endangering the interest either of the publisher or of the Author; and I am the more perplex [sic] in my judgement in as much as many novels of which I could not get through half a volume — as for instance the Corinne of Madame de Stael [sic] — have been read — throughout even by M.r Hallam!87

Things are very different when we look at Foscolo’s relationship with Byron. It is well known that the two writers never met, and that the paths of their respective voluntary exiles did not cross: despite both being in Switzerland in 1816, by the end of the year Foscolo was in London and Byron had established himself in Venice. For some British literati, first and foremost John Cam Hobhouse, Foscolo’s presence in London came to fill the void left by Byron in terms of erudition, poetic skills, philhellenism, national aspirations, and — last but not least — eccentricity. Not much remains of Byron’s evaluation of Foscolo’s works, but the few opinions that he expresses in his letters are quite at variance. In a letter to Murray from Venice on 6 April 1819, he is ready to acknowledge Foscolo’s contribution to Italian literature, but at the same time is quite critical of his achievements: Why does he not do something more than the Letters of Ortis and a tragedy and pamphlets? He has good fifteen years more at his command than I have: what has he done all that time?— proved his genius, doubtless, but not fixed its fame, nor done his utmost.88

One year later, however, he readily acknowledges to Murray that: he is a man of genius [...] he is more of the ancient Greek than of the modern Italian. Though ‘somewhat’, as Dugald Dalgetty says, ‘too wild and salvage’

British Culture in the Epistolario 123 (like Ronald of the Mist’) ’tis a wonderful man, and my friends Hobhouse and Rose both swear by him; and they are good judges of men and of Italian humanity.89

To Foscolo he assigns also the role of one of the representative of contemporary Italian national literature: I omitted Foscolo in my list of living Venetian worthies in the notes considering him as an Italian in general and not a mere provincial like the rest and as an Italian I have spoken of him in the preface to Canto 4th of Childe Harold.90

Not only in the preface does he place Foscolo among the great Italians who ‘will secure to the present generation an honourable place in most of the departments of Art, Science, and Belles Lettres’,91 but stanzas 54 and 55 of the poem, with their tribute to the great men laid to rest in Santa Croce, pay indirect homage to Foscolo’s ‘On Tombs’.92 When the Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold were published, however, Byron and Hobhouse became the recipients of di Breme’s harsh criticism. Di Breme rightly saw in the utter dismissal of the young Italian Romantics the hand of Foscolo, and Byron was not pleased with such a reception. In a letter to Hobhouse, Byron accuses Foscolo of being a fraud, but his anger seems directed more towards his friend and it is perhaps even a way to fuel the mounting controversy, rather than a definitive judgment on the Italian writer. In his Lettera Apologetica Foscolo mentions a ‘alquanto lunga e acerbissima’ [quite long and most bitter] missive that Byron wrote and left for him in Italy.93 In it, the British poet provocatively asked Foscolo why, after becoming estranged from the poets laureate of Italy, he was now associating with the poets laureate of England, and — what really mattered to him — why he took the trouble to advise the British publishers against compromising themselves with the works of an author who was a professed atheist. This last accusation alludes to the advice that Foscolo gave Murray in private on Byron’s Cain. Byron concluded this letter, according to Foscolo’s account, by warning him against his British fellow citizens, whom he considered utterly untrustworthy. Foscolo says that, because of such critical remarks, he read the letter, ‘temprata d’ironia signorile e di cortesia letteraria’ [tempered by gentlemanly irony and literary politeness], as a sign of consideration and esteem: ‘parevami meraviglia ch’ei ponesse in me tanta fede da spassionarsi intorno a persone che gli erano famigliari — anzi alcune parevano sue divote — e ch’ei si dolesse di me per riprendermi con severità d’amico antichissimo’ [it seemed wondrous to me that he placed so much faith in me as to express to me his impartial judgement on people who were familiar to him — in fact, some seemed his devotees — and that he complained about me and reprimanded me with the severity of a very old friend].94 Unfortunately, Byron’s letter arrived after a delay of one year, and Foscolo’s reply, in which he addressed each one of Byron’s observations, must have reached its recipient (if it ever did) close to, or after, his death. Although the draft of the letter is not among Foscolo’s published correspondence, and Byron’s letter, too, is nowhere to be found, nonetheless there is little ground to disprove the truth of Foscolo’s account. Some doubt is cast by a letter that he sends (very likely) to Marc-Antoine Jullien, founder of the Revue Encyclopédique, who, after Byron’s death, asked Foscolo to write an article and to let him know of any letter exchange

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between the two of them. Foscolo cannot meet Jullien’s wishes. He claims to have already written an article on Byron for the European Review (which does not appear among Foscolo’s collected journalisic writings) and on the issue of their private correspondence observes: je n’ai jamais été en directe correspondence avec Lord Byron; tout ce qu’il ecrivait à mon egard il le inserait dans ses lettres à ses amis, et particulierment dans celles à Mr Murray, — qui lui communiquait tout ce que j’avais a lui repondre.95 [I have never been in direct correspondence with Lord Byron. All that he wrote in regards to me he inserted in letters to his friends, and in particular, in those [he sent] to Mr Murray, — to whom he communicated everything that I had to say to him in response.]

As he admits in the Lettera Apologetica, he had no intention of entering the mob of opinions and controversies that followed Byron’s death and denying the existence of one exchange of letters that occurred between them — this might have been a way to distance himself from the current debate. Only a few months earlier, when he was planning to leave England for Greece, he expressed to Hobhouse his wish to immediately join Byron in Missolonghi, and on 23 February Hobhouse passed on the news: Ugo Foscolo thinks of coming out to Greece immediately in order to collect materials for an account of the war, and if possible, to be of service — I suppose in the Tyrteian line, for I never heard that he was very ‘cunning at fence’, though an ex-colonel of Napoleon’s school. If he does come out, he will repair to your head-quarters. You will find him, if you become acquainted, a very extraordinary person, not over agreeable, but full of colloquy of the highest kind. I never heard him make a common-place remark in my life. He has made many enemies and few friends here, being a true poet in that particular, and rather impracticable.96

While Byron’s name is often mentioned in passing in Foscolo’s letters to emphasize, among friends and acquaintances, how he mingles in the same cultural and social circles in London, only on a very few occasions does he dwell upon the subject, and it is in these few instances that the reader gathers relevant information on his position towards one of the most controversial literary figures of the time, whom he unfailingly defends even when in disagreement with his artistic choices.97 At the end of the summer of 1820, Murray receives from Byron the tragedy Marino Faliero, based on the doge Faliero’s 1335 conspiracy against the corrupted Venetian government which ended with his beheading. Murray sends the manuscript to Foscolo, who returns it, a month later, with his assessment of the work. Murray in his turn communicates this to Byron.98 Like the pages on Mary Shelley’s Valperga, this letter provides one of the few detailed evaluations of contemporary British literature by Foscolo. Since Murray invests Foscolo with the role of literary expert on works involving Italian matters, his assessments are well articulated and full of observations and comparisons with his own stylistic inclinations. The letter masterfully balances praise and criticism, but in the end the latter is constantly redeemed and this contributes to reinforcing the overall positive evaluation of Byron’s

British Culture in the Epistolario 125 tragedy. The potential faults that Foscolo identifies in Marin Faliero are: the length of the tragedy, its wordiness and repetitions to the detriment of action (especially in the Doge’s speeches), and an excess of realism in the portrayal of violent passions.99 Foscolo, however, finds a justification for each one of these potential f laws within the framework of the tragedy, so that in the end they all contribute to the creation of a well balanced work of extreme eloquence and spontaneity which, he says, kept him deep in the text until the very last line. The author succeeds, he says, in the creation of ‘at last a true Venitian [sic] tragedy’,100 the characters are generally well designed and, in a cutting remark against Mme de Staël, Foscolo points out that the character of Angiolina is a model of female perfection, quite far from the idealisme that characterizes writers ‘who by their little knowledge of nature endevour to copy the visionary one which, I believe, was first born in Germany’.101 In this evaluation of Byron’s tragedy, Foscolo appears considerably receptive and compliant towards a tragic model that greatly differs from those on which he moulded his taste and his dramatic writing. As an Alfierian neoclassicist he could have never conformed to the criteria of a tragedy like Marin Faliero, but the critic can instead thoroughly appreciate the inverse proportion of dialogue and dramatic action that characterizes so many works of contemporary British writers. He writes to Gino Capponi, ti farò ricapitare la mia lettera da uno de’ poeti rinomatissimi in Inghilterra, autore di Tragedie piene di vera poesia — Tragedie scritte a lettori più che a spettatori; e non forse secondo le leggi nostre; ma agli scrittori non corre obbligo di obbedire se non le leggi della loro contrada — anzi i poeti d’ogni contrada hanno diritto di fare le proprie leggi da sé, e di lasciar dire.102 [I will have my letter delivered to you by one of the most renowned poets in England, an author of Tragedies full of real poetry — Tragedies written more for readers than for spectators, and perhaps not according to our [dramatic] laws. But writers are not obliged to obey any laws except those of their own country — in fact, poets of every country have the right to make their own laws, and to let [things] be said.]

In 1821 John Murray publishes Byron’s Cain, a drama that is immediately accused of blasphemy. Foscolo advised the publisher against such an enterprise, because ‘en homme prudent, en commerçant independent, et surtout en pere de famille, il ne devait jamais publier le Cain, et d’autant plus qu’ayant deja etabli sa fortune, il ne devait pas hazarder des moyens dangereux’ [as a prudent man, and independent businessman, and above all a father, he should never publish Cain, and all the more so as having already established his fortune, he should not venture dangerous means].103 His view corresponds to that of Hobhouse who wrote to Byron warning him against the consequences of such publication. Foscolo, though, is reluctant to criticize Murray because, after all — as he points out to Lady Dacre — Murray’s fortune was connected to Byron’s name and this man ‘genereux et faible’ [generous and weak] did not want to be accused of ungratefulness. Lady Dacre and Foscolo exchanged a number of letters on the subject of literature and religion, and Byron’s tragedy is one of their objects of dispute: her regret at Murray’s decision to go ahead with Cain (‘Je Vous avoue que ce ‘Cain’ me fait horreur, et que j’y trouve

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même très peu de poesie’ [I confess to You that this ‘Cain’ horrifies me, and that I find little poetry in it])104 prompts Foscolo’s long and articulate reply — which unfortunately does not reach us in its entirety — in which he dwells upon his own situation, his secluded life in the countryside, the books he owns, and the ones he would like to write, and then by association he comes to talk of Lord Byron. It is a very meaningful letter, not only because of his considerations about Byron, but rather for the connections that he establishes between himself and the British exile. Foscolo remembers how, during a long conversation at the Dacres’ house in Hampton Court, Lady Dacre told him that ‘l’on parle de vous comme d’un homme qui n’a pas de Religion’ [you are spoken of as a man who has no Religion].105 This is a topic that on principle he does not address, and even the letters to Count Giovio, which often focus on religious considerations, reveal only in a fragmentary way and with great caution his religious creed. The unusually long ref lexion that Foscolo sends to Lady Dacre is therefore an exception in his private correspondence and is admittedly solicited by her observations on Lord Byron’s religion and on his own atheism.106 The letter proceeds on a double track allowing Foscolo to establish an analogy between the allegations against him and those addressed to Byron’s Cain. As far as he is concerned, his silence on the topic of religion is not a symptom of irreligiousness, despite it being too often interpreted as such. Foscolo accuses the English of speaking too much ‘de leur propre religion, et de la irreligione du prochain’ [of their own religion, and of the irreligiousness of their neighbour] and to think that ‘la meilleure prouve de pieté qu’ils puissent fournir, consiste à accuser les autres de Atheisme’ [the best proof of piety that they can furnish consists of accusing others of Atheism].107 What follows is not as much a defence of Byron’s recent works but rather a justification of the man and of his literary choices: his irreligious writings are nothing but an extreme — and comprehensible — answer to violent and unfounded accusations: Mais lorsque l’on est accusé et pire que l’on ne le merite, alors l’on se venge; la colére donne de l’audace; et des que l’opinion publique s’acharne injustement contre un individu, l’individu brave impudemment l’opinion publique; et les hommes du plus grand esprit agissent en cela comme les femmes le plus sottes; [...] Au reste je ne le crois pas incredule; il parlerait moins de la Bible; car l’on ne parle pas de choses dont l’on ne se soucie pas.108 [But once someone is accused and worse than he deserves, then he gets his revenge. Anger gives way to audacity, and once public opinion hammers unjustly against an individual, the individual shamelessly challenges public opinion, and the brightest men behave like the silliest women [...] besides, I do not believe him incredulous: he would speak less of the Bible, for man does not talk about things that do not worry him.]

The Lettera Apologetica confirms this view: [...] nè io aveva creduto mai nè voluto ascoltare — e di ciò posso addurre testimoni infiniti — i mille peccati ch’erano raccontati di lui. [...] Il cuore veemente del Genio era in lui rinfierito dalla codarda maldicenza degli uomini; ed ei vendicavasi affaccendandoli di maraviglia e di paura, ma non pareva creato per disprezzarli.109

British Culture in the Epistolario 127 [[...] nor have I ever believed nor wanted to listen to — and I can adduce infinite proofs of this — the thousand sins that people reported about him. [...] the vehement heart of the Genius was made stronger in him by the cowardly gossip of men. And he avenged himself by busying them with wonder and with fear, but he did not seem to scorn them.]

Foscolo does not believe that writers can in the least damage religion, and Byron echoes this opinion when he replies to Murray’s request to tone down some of Satan’s speeches in Cain with the sarcastic remark: ‘who was ever altered by a poem?’.110 In his long letter to Lady Dacre, Foscolo, who opposes the persuasive power of sentiment to the indemonstrability of religion, observes that religion is a mystery and not a doctrine: La Religion me remplit toujours des idées qui me son eccitées par le spectacle d’une belle nuit sans lune; ces sont pur mieux dire plustôt de grandes et fortes sensations que des idées; — mais si l’on veut traverser les tenebres de cette nuit avec des f lambeaux, l’on verrait, à la verité, plus distinctement tous les objets autour de nos pieds, mais les sensations magnifiques et inexplicables du spectacle de la nuit disparaitroient sudainement de nôtre imagination.111 [Religion always fills me with ideas that are stimulated in me by the spectacle of a moonless night. These are, better said, rather big and strong sensations than ideas — but if we want to make our way through the darkness of that night with torches, we see, to tell the truth, all the objects around our feet more distinctly, but the magnificent and inexplicable sensations of the spectacle of the night would suddenly disappear from our imagination.]

Doctrine distorts and kills religion, and he seems to suggest that Byron is the bard of this great mystery, although too often a wounded and hostile one. This is the reason why, according to Foscolo, after so many disputes Cain will not cause any great damage, and why ‘un sober livre, et un sober article du Quarterly sur la Trinité exciteront plus de doutes que les declamations d’un poete en colere contre les prêtres, les femmes, les ministres, et le gossip de son pays’ [a sober book, and a sober article in the Quarterly on the Trinity will give rise to more doubts than the declam­ations of a poet angry with priests, women, ministers, and the gossip of his country].112 The article on Byron that Foscolo planned for the European Review was probably never written, but his intention was genuine, as can be inferred by the letter that he sends on October 1824 to Alexander Walker, the editor of the Review, who was then publishing Foscolo’s Epoche della lingua Italiana.113Around the same time, William Pickering asks Foscolo to provide him with an inscription for a commemorative medal in Byron’s honour and it seems that he complied with the request. If we add to these requests Jullien’s already-mentioned call for an article on Byron, it is quite clear that Foscolo’s collaboration was quite sought after. It is regrettable that more material is not available, and the lack of a series of documents related to Byron (such as the alleged letter that he sent to Foscolo and the letter in which the Countess of Albany describes him as a ‘demonio divino e infernale’ [a divine and infernal demon])114 allows one to suppose that perhaps Foscolo kept the documentation of his relationship with the British poet separate from the rest of his correspondence and journalistic writings. We are left only with a few hints and suppositions, and

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the hope that future archival discoveries will help to reconstruct in full the actual relationship between two extraordinary and, to a certain extent, parallel destinies. Despite these serious gaps, Foscolo’s evaluation of Byron’s works is among the most detailed and explicit writing on a British author to emerge from the 3,000 and more letters of the Epistolario. Other British authors are mentioned in his correspondence, but these remarks are mostly anecdotal — like the re-reading of Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield, the gift of Samuel Johnson’s Rasseles, and Samuel Rogers’s poems to Lady Flint, or that to Maria Graham of Collin’s ode ‘How sleep the brave, who sink to rest’, with its aspiration for the peace of the grave that so often appears among Foscolo’s private pleas. One of the most vivid and fascinating literary portraits of Foscolo is the one in the diary of John Cam Hobhouse, in which there is a description of an evening the two spent together immersed in a discussion on British poetry. The prose is fresh, unassumingly direct, and not geared to the expectations of a particular addressee. After two years, during which Foscolo and Hobhouse had no contact, they met again in society and Hobhouse’s diary provides a detailed record of this encounter. It was 23 August 1823. Hobhouse, who confesses to often having been dumbfounded by Foscolo’s atypical behaviour, had nonetheless never changed his opinion of the writer. He relates in his diary some of the opinions that Foscolo formulates in that occasion and elaborates on them: we learn then of Foscolo’s misunderstanding of Shakespeare, of his lack of feeling for Dryden, and his impatience towards Pope. It would be quite hazardous to de-contextualize Hobhouse’s pages and to read Foscolo’s views of British poets as unalterable judgments. Some observations, like those on Pope or on religion, are in line with similar ones expressed in his letters, but this time the tone is very different and does not seem to leave room for objections. Foscolo emerges from this diary entry as a man who claims the right to his own judgment in an independent and often provocative manner. On the other hand, the kind-hearted words that Hobhouse has in store for him — despite his conviction that Foscolo does not understand the English language — offset the occasional harshness and confirm the reader in his belief that Foscolo’s language, even though in private and in a foreign idiom, is drawn to a metaphorically poetic universe: Foscolo said religion was a sentiment like love — man had want of it. We had a great discussion at night about poetry. He denied Pope to be a poet except here and there, as at the end of the Elegy to the memory of an unfortunate Lady. He could not feel Dryden. He did not understand Shakespeare, but admired some passages. I quoted the moonlight sleeping at the bank. Foscolo said sleep was too strong for Italians; repose they might say. He said poetry was images. I quoted Pope’s description of Caesar’s triumph, in his Prologue to Cato. ‘Pooh!’ said he, ‘it was not so’. Now, what had that to do with it? I think I had the best of it; but, to be sure, Foscolo does not understand English. Foscolo is an extraordinary man; he talks poetry. He said Napoleon’s dominion was like a July day in Egypt — all clear brilliant and blazing; but all silent, not a voice heard, the stillness of the grave.115

This unusual and intimate portrait of Foscolo, painted through the attentive and indulgent eye of Byron’s devoted friend (the last one to see him sail away at Dover

British Culture in the Epistolario 129 and the first one to welcome his body back to England), can also ultimately be read as a token of Hobhouse’s perception of an unbridgeable gap between Foscolo’s mere reception of the English language and a more thorough understanding of its nature. Notes to Chapter 4 1. In a letter dated 2 October 1816, written shortly after his arrival in England, Foscolo quotes line 67 from Virgil’s first Eclogue: ‘et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos’. He substitutes ‘toto’ with ‘fato’ which resonates as a personal allusion to his own fate of political exile. See EN, XX , p. 26. 2. See in particular Donadoni, pp. 219–332. 3. Nicoletti, La biblioteca fiorentina del Foscolo; Puppo. See also di Benedetto’s ‘Lo scrittoio di Ugo Foscolo’, in Foscolo, Il Sesto Tomo dell’Io, pp. i-lxviii. 4. EN, XV, p. 18 (28 September 1795). 5. The ‘Piano di Studi’ states: ‘Il Genio — Poema in tre canti sciolti incominciato ma da compirsi dopo dieci anni. Il piano di quest’opera è tale: Canto primo — Il Genio Universale. Canto secondo — Il Genio nelle Scienze. Canto terzo — Il Genio nelle Arti’ [The Genius — Poem in three free cantos already begun but to be completed in ten years. The plan of this work is as follows: First Canto — The Universal Genius; Second Canto — Genius in the Sciences. Third Canto — Genius in the Arts]. See EN, VI, p. 8. 6. EN, XIV, p. 19. Chiarini’s observation is reported in note 3 of Foscolo’s letter to Cesarotti, 30 October 1795. 7. The Latin title is Scacchia ludus. Marco Girolamo Vida (1470–1566) was bishop of Cremona. The poem had been widely read in the sixteenth century, at which time at least eighteen Italian and European editions were printed. The number of editions and translations drops drastically in the following century, but in the Italian libraries there are six editions published in the eighteenth century, starting with the Clarendon Press (Oxford) edition in 1722–23 and ending with the Soliani edition printed in Modena in 1791. Three eighteenth-century Italian translations come from the Venetian area. 8. I piaceri dell’immaginazione poema inglese del dr Akenside trasportato in verso sciolto italiano dall’abate Angelo Mazza con varie annotazioni (Paris, 1764). A volume with the title of Piaceri dell’immaginazione appears in the list of books left with Silvio Pellico: see Nicoletti, La biblioteca fiorentina del Foscolo, p. 103, who unfortunately does not indicate the date and place of publication. Foscolo was also familiar with another translation by Mazza — Thompson’s ‘Inno a Dio’ — and he asks Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi to send him a copy of it in the spring of 1808 (EN, XV, pp. 442–43 (25[?] May 1808)). On Mazza see Foscolo’s Saggio sulla letteratura contemporanea in Italia in EN, XI, 2, pp. 498–500. 9. EN, XIV, p. 23 (13 February 1796). Giuseppe Greatti was one of Cesarotti’s pupils and himself a translator of French and English poetry. A lifelong admirer of Foscolo’s poetry, he published a letter on ‘Dei Sepolcri’. See Plinio Carli’s observations on Greatti in the footnote to the aforementioned letter. 10. EN, XIV, p. 367. Prévost’s French translation of Clarissa was published in Venice in 1751. Two decades later the novel was also available in Italian translation: in 1784 the Venetian printer Valvasense published a Collezione delle Opere di Richardson starting with Clarissa; the Gazzetta letteraria di Firenze observed on 28 February 1775 that for the first time the novel was offered to the readers ‘decentemente vestito all’Italiana’ [decently dressed Italian-style]. Valvasense adds as a preface to Clarissa Diderot’s Elogio di Richardson (which he also published separately in a slim volume): written in 1761, shortly after the novelist’s death, and published in the Journal étranger the following year, the Elogio represents one of the most articulated and passionate analyses of Richardson’s work. In April 1787 the Nuovo Giornale Enciclopedico, issued by Elisabetta Caminer and Alberto Fortis in Vicenza, advertises a French translation of the novel by Le Tourner, based on the original text. 11. EN, XIV, pp. 411–12 (n.d.). 12. EN, XV, p. 75 (September 1805). Othello, I. iii. 167–68. Among the books that Foscolo left with Silvio Pellico there are copies of Otello, an Amleto translated by Michele Leoni, and a volume

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titled English Theatre (without any other bibliographical information). Among the early literary references to Shakespeare there is, then, as Praz notes, the episode of Lauretta in the Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis with its Shakespearean intertext: ‘l’episodio di Lauretta demente che reca in un canestro un cranio in mezzo a un nembo di rose [...] è frutto di una duplice reminescenza dell’Amleto, Ofelia demente che distribuisce erbe e fiori, e il cranio di Yorick’ [the episode of insane Lauretta who, out of her mind, carries in a basket a skull in a cloud of roses [...] is the product of a twofold echo to Hamlet: insane Ophelia who distributes herbs and f lowers, and Yorick’s skull]. See Praz, ‘Foscolo tra romanticismo e neoclassicismo’, p. 17. As soon as he arrives in London in September 1816 Foscolo attends a production of Othello at Drury Lane as a guest of Lord Holland. See Vincent, Ugo Foscolo, p. 34. 13. EN, XV, p. 75. In an undated letter, probably written shortly before the one to Amélie Bagien, Foscolo asks Maurice Guibourg to send him those very same lines from Shakespeare and their French translation (see EN, XV, p. 72 ([1805])). Foscolo’s assessment needs to be contextualized within the wider debate between the defenders and detractors of Shakespeare’s theatre, which in eighteenth-century Italy culminated in Giuseppe Baretti’s 1753 Discours sur Shakespeare et sur Monsieur de Voltaire. See Petrone Fresco, pp. 65–108. 14. EN, V, p. 177. 15. Donadoni, pp. 326–27. 16. See Puppo, p. 37. 17. EN, XX, p. 308 (March 1818). 18. New Monthly Magazine, 1.4 (April 1821), pp. 462–67. The article is included in EN, X, pp. 583–89. 19. EN, X, p. 589. Hamlet was the best known among Shakespeare’s plays in eighteenth-century Italy. As Petrone Fresco, p. 61, observes: ‘Apart from Domenico Valentini’s translation of Julius Caesar in 1756 (the first complete translation of a Shakespearean play in Italian), all the other 18th century landmarks in Shakespeare’s Italian reception are connected with Hamlet’. In the preface to the tenth volume of the Edizione Nazionale, which includes Foscolo’s essays and works of literary criticism, Cesare Foligno considers the article on Hamlet as having been written in haste and lacking appropriate critical ref lection. If compared to other discussions on Shakespeare’s works, however, it acquires a definite relevance, because while it reiterates Foscolo’s aesthetic principles it also helps to contextualize the Didimean critique of the English playwright. 20. Ref lections on suicide fill several pages of the Epistolario. For the years that precede Foscolo’s exile, see in particular EN, XIV, pp. 333–34 (n.d.), EN, XIV, p. 242 (n.d.), EN, XV, p. 667 (29 September 1808), and EN XV, p. 1419 (December 1813). 21. EN, XXII, p. 182 ([14 January 1823]). 22. EN, XII, p. 436 (16 September 1824). With a tone similar to that used in the letter to Lord Dacre, Foscolo shortly afterwards states: ‘Ed io ho pur ponderato con esatte bilance il To be and not to be di Amleto, e potrei forse aggiungere molti versi men belli, ma insieme molte più idee egualmente vere e calzanti; e la questione si riduce per me a conoscere quali sono le facoltà intellettuali che uno possiede — e quanto e come può usarne; e se pur ne possiede alcune non ordinarie, — e se può giovarsene utilmente e altamente, — ei deve stare al To be; ma quand’ei le avesse smarrite, o non sapesse né perché, né a che impegnarle, allora — Denique Democritum postquam matura vetustas Admonuit memores motus languescere mentis Sponte sua leto caput obvius obtulit ipse. e da che vedete ch’io pur mi giovo delle mie facoltà potrete felicemente congetturare che io non mi sento ancor nell’intelletto l’imbecillità per la quale Democrito ha fatto da savio a gittarsi dentro un torrente’. [I too have weighed Hamlet’s To be and not to be with exact scales, and I might add to it many less beautiful verses, but also many more equally true and fitting ideas. And for me the question amounts to knowing which intellectual faculties one possesses — and how and how much one can use them. And if a man possesses some that are not ordinary — and he can profit from them usefully and nobly, — he must choose To be. But if he had lost them, or did not know why or to what end to employ them, then — Even Democritus, when creeping age Warned him that mind and memory were growing dim, Of his own will met death, gave up his life.

British Culture in the Epistolario 131 and since you see that I still make use of my faculties you will be able to happily conjecture that I do not yet feel in my intellect the idiocy because of which Democritus was wise to throw himself into a river] (p. 438). Lucretius, p. 134. Foscolo had also planned to write about Shakespeare in one of his Lettere dall’Inghilterra devoted to the theatre, but — as Viglione points out — there remains only a very short draft of it. See Viglione, p. 263. 23. EN, IV, p. 361. 24. Lindon, Studi sul Foscolo ‘inglese’, p. 110. 25. EN, XV, pp. 289–90 (13 November 1807). Thomas Creech (1659–1700) entered Oxford in 1675 and became a fellow of All Souls College; from 1694 to 1699 he was Headmaster of Sherborne School; in 1700 he took his own life, probably because of financial difficulties. His most renowned work was the translation of De rerum natura, which he concluded in 1682. He also published works on Horace, Theocritus, Juvenal, Plutarch, Virgil, and Ovid. In 1695, T. Lucretii Cari De rerum natura libri sex: quibus interpretationem et notas addidit T. Creech was published by the Theatro Sheldoniano editions in Oxford. The work was reprinted several times during the eighteenth century and it is this book that Foscolo sent to Armandi, although from the Epistolario it is not possible to infer which edition he obtained from Turin. 26. EN, XV, p. 338 (12 January 1808). Joshua Barnes (1654–1712), was professor of Greek at Cambidge and in 1675 published Gerania: A New Discovery of a Little sort of People Anciently Discoursed of, called Pygmies. With a lively Description Of their Stature, Habit, Manners, Buildings, Knowledge, and Government, being very delightful and profitable (London: Printed by W. G. for Obadia Blagrave). It is a utopic text that might have been a source of inspiration for Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Barnes edited texts by Homer, Anacreon, and Euripides, and himself wrote poetry in Greek. In 1736 Francesco Piacentini published in Venice Anacreonte tradotto in versi italiani da vari, con la giunta del Testo Greco, e della versione Latina di Giosue Barnes. Among the books that Foscolo left in Italy before his exile, there is also the Istoria della vita di M. Tullio Cicerone scritta in lingua inglese dal Sig. Conyers Middleton, published in five volumes by Giambattista Pasquali in Venice, 1744. See Nicoletti, La biblioteca fiorentina del Foscolo, p. 59. 27. The Marucelliana Library has a copy of Le Spectateur, ou le Socrate moderne, ou l’on voit un portrait naïf des moeurs de ce siecle, traduit de l’anglois, 6 vols (Amsterdam and Leipzig: Arkstèe and Merkus, 1746), and Nicoletti indicates it as the edition that Foscolo used to draft the notes to the translation of the Viaggio sentimentale. See Nicoletti, La biblioteca fiorentina del Foscolo, p. 50. The edition of Abelard and Heloise’s letters that Foscolo requests with some uncertainty as to the date of publication cannot be located. He might have had in mind an edition of Vita e Lettere di Abelardo e di Eloisa translated from the French by Andrea Metrà and published in Trieste in two volumes in 1794 by Wage, Fleis, e Comp. The frontispiece specifies that this edition includes ‘la lettera di Alessandro Pope, in versi inglesi; la traduzione del sig. Colardeau, in versi francesi; quella del sig. Abate Antonio Conti, in versi italiani’ [the letter of Alexander Pope, in English verse, the translation of Mr. Colardeau, in French verse, and that of Abbot Antonio Conti, in Italian verse]. The Elegia inglese di Tommaso Gray sopra un cimitero campestre trasportata in verso italiano da Giuseppe Torelli veronese, printed in Parma in 1793, presents the Italian translation by Cesarotti (in part two) and the Latin version by Costa (in part three). This is very likely the edition that Foscolo asks Isabella to procure for him. An edition in Italian and Latin by Costa was published by Giuseppe Comino in Padova in 1772, and in 1775 the volume Poema Alexandri Pope De homine, Jacobi Thomson, & Thomae Gray selecta carmina, ex Britanna in Latinam linguam translata a Joanne Costa in Seminario Patavino academiae praeceptore, cum nonnullis ejusdem poeticis scriptoribus was published in the same city. Since Foscolo asks also for a copy of Thomson’s ‘Inno a Dio’, he could have in mind this volume, which included Costa’s translation and a selection of Thomson’s poems. Among Foscolo’s books in the Marucelliana Library there are two copies of Thomson’s The Seasons, his most renowned work, published respectively in Paris by F. Louis in 1800 and in Florence by Piatti in 1805. Nicoletti also lists among Foscolo’s books an edition of Gray’s poems in English and French, but does not specify the edition or the place of publication. See Nicoletti, La biblioteca fiorentina del Foscolo, p. 98. 28. EN, XV, p. 382 (March 1808). 29. See EN, VI, pp. 707–15. 30. In 1788 Dalmistro was, for a short time, Foscolo’s teacher. He was a valued translator from

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the English language and among his works there are two versions of Gray’s ‘The Bard’, both published in Venice: the first by Valvasense in 1792, and the second by Carlo Palese in 1795. 31. EN, VI, p. 709. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. In the article on ‘The Bard’, Foscolo mentions the copy of Gray’s poem that he owns: it is the English text with William Mason’s notes, first published in a collection titled The Poems of Mr Gray (York: Ward, 1775). 34. EN, XV, p. 458 (26 August 1808). 35. EN, XIV, p. 226 (n.d.). 36. EN, XVI, p. 57 (17 February 1809), n. 10. The letter relates fragments of Giovio’s lost letter to Foscolo of 12 February 1809. The first English edition of Hervey’s Meditations among the Tombs was published in 1745. It was an immediate success and there were seventeen editions during the second half of the eighteenth century. An Italian translation was published in Fermo in 1805 by Pallade and another edition by Guglielmo Piatti in Florence in 1807. 37. EN, XVI, p. 57. 38. EN, VI, p. 518. 39. EN, XIV, p. 144 (24 August 1802). 40. EN, XVI, p. 57. 41. EN, XVII, p. 27 (April 1812). On Conti’s career as translator, see Petrone Fresco, pp. 65–71. 42. See Nicoletti, La biblioteca fiorentina del Foscolo, p. 76. 43. Clark, p. 360. 44. EN, XVII, p. 28 (April 1812). 45. EN, XVI, p. 164 (3 May 1809). 46. EN, XVII, p. 304 (24 July 1813). For Leoni’s translation of Macbeth see Macbetto tragedia di G. Shakspeare recata in versi italiani da Michele Leoni di Parma, (Pisa: Capurro, 1815). 47. EN, XVII, pp. 321–22 (11 August 1813). 48. ‘Quello stile, che si chiama sentimentale, parrebbe dover appartenere ad un cuore delicato; eppure il fatto mostra che può anche appartenere ad un cuore durissimo. Chi non direbbe che Sterne avesse dovuto possedere un cuore di tempra delicatissima? Non sappiamo per altro che sua madre, essendosi caricata di debiti pei capricci d’una figlia stravagante, avrebbe finiti i suoi giorni in prigione, se non fossero stati i parenti delle fanciulle ch’essa teneva in educazione, i quali, mediante una soscrizione, raccolsero la somma occorrente a liberarcela. Egli sentiva troppo finemente, per sentirci ciò che sentono gli altri, e per lui un asino morto aveva onde commuoverlo più assai d’una madre viva’ [It would appear that the so-called sentimental style should befit a delicate heart, yet experience shows that it can also befit a very hard heart. Who would not say that Sterne had to possess a heart of most delicate constitution? We do know, moreover, that his mother, being laden with debts for the whims of an extravagant daughter would have finished her days in prison if it were not for the relatives of the young girls, whom she instructed, and who, through a subscription, gathered the requisite amount to free her. His feelings were too refined for him to to feel that which others feel, and a dead donkey touched him much more than a living mother] (Annali di scienze e lettere, 17 (1812), p. 284). 49. Gazzetta Letteraria, 30 (24 July 1784). 50. Nuovo Giornale Enciclopedico, February 1786, pp. 17–31 (p. 31). On Sterne’s reception in the Italian periodical press see Parmegiani, ‘Il romanzo inglese nella stampa periodica italiana del Settecento e del primo Ottocento’. 51. EN, XVII, p. 146 ([13]-14 September 1812). 52. EN, XVIII, p. 149 (11 June 1814). Grenville shortly afterwards became the owner and editor of L’Italico, an Italian journal published in London in which he would publish a passionate defense of Foscolo’s novel. 53. EN, XVIII, p. 199 (4 August 1814). 54. EN, XVIII, p. 235 ([September 1814]) and n. 1. 55. EN, XVIII, p. 254 (30 September 1814). For an analysis of Leoni’s translation see Fellheimer. 56. On the composition of this article see EN, XII, pp. 135–37. The article is reprinted in EN, XII, pp. 471–561. 57. Lindon, Studi sul Foscolo ‘inglese’, p. 36.

British Culture in the Epistolario 133 58. EN, XIX, p. 243 (3 February 1816). 59. Praz, ‘Byron and Foscolo’, p. 101. 60. EN, XX, p. 145 (20 April 1817). 61. EN, XVI, p. 451 (September 1810). 62. EN, XVI, pp. 451–52 (September 1810). The divide that he mentions in this letter and that separates his past existence ‘dagli anni che forse ancora mi restano’ [from the years that perhaps still remain to me] occurs — in the private sphere — at the end of August 1810 and is caused by the end of his hope to settle down with Francesca Giovio, daughter of Count Giambattista Giovio. In an Ortis-like scenario, the girl returned his love but had already been promised to a French general. In the literary realm there was then the recent break in his relationship with Monti. To this must be added the pressure of growing financial needs that brought Foscolo to the disconsolate thought of leaving Italy to teach Italian and Greek in Paris. 63. EN, XX, p. 196 (4 July 1817). 64. EN, XXI, p. 142 (8 [February] 1820). 65. EN, XX, p. 390 (30 September 1818). 66. EN, XX, p. 387 (30 September 1818). 67. EN, XX, pp. 387 and 390 (30 September 1818). 68. EN, XX, p. 390 (30 September 1818). 69. EN, XX, p. 394 (30 September 1818). Another bitter comparison between the importance and impact of the law in England and in Italy is expressed in a letter to Gino Capponi. Here Foscolo observes that in England laws are more powerful than political factions and the king himself, but ‘l’Italia è cadavere senza speranza di resurrezione’ [Italy is a corpse without hope of resurrection] (EN, XXI, p. 170 (29 March 1820)). 70. EN, XXI, p. 418 (26 October 1818). When Hobhouse and Foscolo later on plan the History of Recent Events in Italy (a project that will never materialize) and Hobhouse wants to acknowledge publicly the contribution of the Italian writer, Foscolo suggests not doing so for a strategic reason. Given the mishaps they had to face after the publication, under Hobhouse’s name, of the Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, Foscolo is worried that the work would be compromised and considered to be sectarian by the presence of his name. Also, he wants the historian to be a single name, and English: ‘Car l’histoire serait-elle ecrite à votre maniere Anglaise, ou à ma maniere italienne? — en la faisant des deux manieres elle n’aura pas de physionomie — d’ailleur le monde supçonnera une espece de coalition plus politique que litterarire entre nous deux’ [And should the history be written in your English fashion, or my Italian one? — because by adopting both fashions, it would have no physiognomy — moreover, the world would suspect a kind of coalition between us that was more political than literary] (EN, XXI, p. 475 (31 December 1818)). 71. EN, XXI, p. 185 (23 May 1820). 72. Moore, Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence, p. 306. 73. Original italics. EN, XXII, p. 178 ([14 January 1823]). 74. Viglione, p. 258. 75. EN, V, p. 361. In another version of the same passage Foscolo wrote: ‘Non so neppure quanti giri e quante perturbazioni patiscano oggi le costellazioni poetiche d’Inghilterra. Non ho telescopio da poterle esplorare. Forse quando saprò meglio l’inglese ed avrò interrogato molti lettori non letterati e molte donne dirò in via di parere se questi poeti viventi son (?) seguitati da’ nostri’ [Nor do I know how many turns and disturbances the poetic constellations of England suffer today. I do not have a telescope to explore them. Perhaps when I will better master the English language and I will have questioned many readers who are not men of letters and more women I will say, by way of opinion, whether these living poets are (?) followed by our own] (EN, V, p. 361). There is a remarkable resemblance between these words and the introduction to the fourth canto of Byron’s Childe Harold where Italian literature is critically evaluated: ‘It is also a delicate, and not very grateful task, to dissert upon the literature and manners of a nation so dissimilar; and requires an attention and impartiality which would induce us — though perhaps no inattentive observers, nor ignorant of the language or customs of the people amongs whome we have recently abode — to distrust, or at least defer our judgment, and more narrowly examine our information’ (Byron, The Complete Poetical Works, II, pp. 122–23).

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76. Moore, Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence, II, p. 284. In a letter to Lord Holland written during the early drafting of Gazzettino del bel mondo, Foscolo thanks his friend for the poems by Cowper and says that in the planned letters will quote ‘versi di Crabb [sic], e di Cowper, et de notre ami Rogers, et omnium Heliconiarum Comitum’ [verses by Crabb [sic], and by Cowper, by our friend Rogers and by all the company of the Muses] (EN, XX, p. 273 (n.d.; end of 1817-early 1818)). 77. Bewick, I, pp. 78–86. The episode is reported in Vincent, Ugo Foscolo, pp. 14–18. 78. Scott, p. 12. 79. EN, XXI, p. 209 (n.d. [September 1820]). Scott had been conferred the rank of baronet in March 1820, hence Foscolo’s self-correction. A detailed treatment of his critical positions towards the historical novel and his relationship with Manzoni and the Italian romantics can be found in Lindon’s essay ‘Foscolo as a Literary Critic’. Drawing on René Wellek’s work, Lindon clearly outlines the diverging critical premises and the converging trajectories that make Foscolo (together with Leopardi) representative, despite himself, of the Italian association with ‘doctrines which were the basis of European romanticism’ (p. 159). 80. EN, V, p. 373. 81. EN, XXII, pp. 82–83 (11 August 1822). Mary Shelley’s novel was not very well received and the first reprints only appeared in the 1990s. From a narrative perspective, it is a hybrid assemblage that combines aspects of historical novel, sentimental prose, and several feminist elements which were absent in the far more successful Frankenstein. 82. EN, XXII, p. 81 (11 August 1822). 83. EN, XXII, p. 82 (11 August 1822). 84. Ibid. 85. Ibid. 86. Ibid. 87. Ibid. Henry Hallam (1777–1859) was a British historian and literary critic. For an analysis of Foscolo’s criticism of Corinne in the Lettere scritte dall’Inghilterra, see Luzzi, pp. 79–82. 88. Byron, Letters and Journals, p. 296. 89. Ibid., pp. 346–47. Byron writes to Murray from Ravenna on 8 October 1820. 90. Ibid., p. 348. Letter from Ravenna, 12 October 1820. 91. Byron, The Complete Poetical Works, II, p. 123. 92. See Murray and McGann, p. 297. 93. EN, XIII, part 2, p. 226. The complete text of Agli editori padovani della Divina Commedia [Lettera Apologetica] is printed in EN, XIII, part 2, pp. 79–241. 94. EN, XIII, part 2, pp. 226–27. 95. EN, XXII, p. 445 (19 September 1824). 96. Byron, Lord Byron’s Correspondence, II, pp. 295–96. 97. Donadoni states that Foscolo does not reserve great praise for Byron in those rare instances when he speaks of him. It seems, however, a hasty judgement, because Foscolo shows considerable respect and admiration for the man and the artist. See Donadoni, p. 330. 98. In the Lettera Apologetica, Foscolo states: ‘io aveva risaputo come una lettera mia (richiestami da chi mi diede da leggere un suo dramma innanzi che uscisse, ed era il Faliero) gli era stata mandata. Poi come lo intesi, non me ne dolsi, da che dalle sue risposte m’accorsi ch’ei senza adirarsi né compiacersi, assentiva ad alcuni miei pareri, e scostavasi in altri’ [I found out how one of my letters ([that had been] requested to me by he who gave me to read one of his dramas — the Faliero — before it was published) was sent to him. When I heard it I was not sorry, because from his answers I realized that, without either getting angry or being pleased, he approved of some of my opinions, and moved away from others] (EN, XIII, part 2, p. 227). Byron was by then accustomed to Foscolo’s presence behind the scenes in his relationship with Murray, as the aforementioned letter written from Venice on 6 April 1819 proves. In it, Byron half polemically and half teasingly asks: ‘So you and Mr Foscolo, etc. want me to undertake what you call a “great work?” an Epic Poem, I suppose or some such pyramid. I’ll try no such thing; I hate tasks. And works, too! Is Childe Harold nothing? You have so many ‘divine’ poems, is it nothing to have written a human one?’ (Byron, Letters and Journals, p. 296). 99. ‘I dislike the act of Calendaro when he spits on the face of Bertram; it is very natural, but it is not

British Culture in the Epistolario 135 necessary to mark the utter contempt: besides a real contempt does not show itself by injurious acts’ (EN, XXI, p. 209 (September 1820)). A measured expression of emotions on the page was a neoclassical principle that Foscolo would never renounce in poetry as well as in prose. A letter to Lady Dacre in which he tells her how he had challenged William Graham to a duel sheds light on this aspect of Foscolo’s neoclassicism. The duel had been widely discussed in the press and Foscolo sets an ideal comparison between himself and Fielding: ‘The perusal however of my statement will give you an insight of the soul of certain characters quite unknown to you, and were I a Fielding, I easealy [sic] might find enough in the whole of the two years wilanies to make a second Jonathan Wild; — but without Fielding’s genious I have more taste, and the despicable wretchedness of the human heart ought to be left in its dark recesses’ (EN, XXII, p. 316 (9 December 1823)). Byron replies to Foscolo’s observations in a letter to Murray dated 20 October 1820 in which he acknowledges some of the reservations that had been pointed out and defends his choice of a stark representation of passions on the stage. In doing so, he invokes the notion of Italian otherness, a cultural and behavioural distance that repeatedly surface in his letters and here aptly allows him to reframe the neoclassical principles that he too feels do apply to his tragedy: ‘I know what Foscolo means about Calendaro’s spitting at Bertram that’s national — the objection, I mean. The Italians and French, with those ‘f lags of abomination’, their pocket handkerchiefs, spit there, and here, and every where else — in your face almost, and therefore object to it on the stage as too familiar. But we who spit nowhere — but in a man’s face when we grow savage — are not likely to feel this. [...] Besides, Calendaro does not spit in Bertram’s face; he spits at him as I have seen the Mussulmans do upon the ground when they are in a rage. Again, he does not in fact despise Bertram, though he affects it, — as we all do, when angry with one we think our inferior. He is angry at not being allowed to die in his own way (although not afraid of death) and recollect that he suspected and hated Bertram from the first’ (Byron, Letters and Journals, p. 347). 100. EN, XXI, p. 209 (September 1820). 101. Ibid. 102. EN, XXII, pp. 29–30 ([early 1822]). The bearer of the letter is Henry Hart Milman, who in 1821 became professor of poetry at Oxford. Edmondo Angelini provocatively notes that Foscolo himself had been inf luenced by the British dramatic style, since his Ricciarda is a tragedy that ends ‘alla foggia delle Inglesi con macello della scena’ (EN, XXII, p. 52 (12 April 1822)). 103. EN, XXII, p. 40 ([early March 1822]). In his Lettera Apologetica Foscolo confirms this: ‘Ben è vero che quando dopo più mesi mi fu lasciato vedere un altro dramma, io dissi a Giovanni Murray in casa mia — “Ch’erano opere da lasciarsi stampare a’ librai impazienti di farsi strada, e che non avevano proprietà nè famiglia” ’ [It is true that, when after many months I was left to see another drama, I said to John Murray in my house — ‘That those were works to let be printed by booksellers impatient to do well for themselves, who had neither property nor family’] (EN, XIII, part 2, p. 227). The same opinion, whose legitimacy he reiterates, can be found — according to Foscolo — in his reply to Byron’s letter who accused him (correctly) of trying to dissuade Murray from publishing Cain. 104. EN, XX, p. 35 (1 March 1822). 105. EN, XXII, p. 38 ([early March 1822]). 106. Foscolo knows that in Italy too there are people who think in the same way and he complains about it with Gino Capponi, pointing out that Niccolini avoids him because he considers him to be a heathen worthy of excommunication. He adds: ‘Così fece pure Ippolito Pindemonte; e così il Manzoni di Milano e così tal’altro che era o faceva l’ateo quando io gli parlava di Dio, e che mi fuggì per ateo quand’io non voleva lasciarmi convertire dalle sue leggende della vita di San Francesco e di Sant’Ignazio. Io ringrazio il cielo e la madre natura che in assai cose, e specialmente in questa, mi rimasi sempre tal quale, ed ho finem animo certum, che mi consola della incertezza della mia fortuna’ [This is the very thing Ippolito Pindemonte did, and so did Manzoni from Milan, and so did others who were athiest, or acted as such when I spoke to them of God, and who avoided me as an atheist when I did not want to let myself be converted by their legends of the life of Saint Francis or Saint Ignatius. I thank heaven and mother nature that in many things, and especially in this one, I never changed, and that I have finem animo certum, which comforts me of the uncertainty of my fate] (EN, XXII, pp. 257–58 ([ June-July 1823])).

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107. EN, XXII, p. 39 ([early March 1822]). 108. Ibid. 109. EN, XIII, part 2, p. 232. 110. Byron, Letters and Journals, p. 418. 111. EN, XXII, p. 41 ([early March 1822]). 112. EN, XXII, p. 42 ([early March 1822]). 113. EN, XXII, p. 459 ([October 1822]). 114. EN, XIII, part 2, p. 232. 115. Broughton, III, pp. 23–24. Vincent quotes this passage in Byron, Hobhouse and Foscolo, pp. 112–13.

Conclusions v

The analysis of Foscolo’s life-long relationship with English culture newly articulates the pivotal function that Laurence Sterne’s narrative exerted on Foscolo’s selfrepresentation. It is a fact that Sterne’s work was instrumental in the definition of the approach and form of his Didimean humour, that his A Sentimental Journey was the object of a continually revisited translation, but beyond the traceable contours of Foscolo’s engagement with Sterne’s texts this study unveils the continuous dialogue, in his private correspondence, with the father of eighteenth-century sentimental humour. The Epistolario reveals how Sterne’s prose represents a frame of reference within which Foscolo refracts and recomposes his own self-image. His creation of Didimo’s voice, and even his departure from Yorick’s functional ‘alter ego’ in the choice of Don Quixote as his ultimate double in the Epistolario of the London years, can only be explained within the underlying dialogical exchange with Sterne. The investigation of the contribution of Locke and Hume’s philosophy to Foscolo’s epistemology is here conducted for the most part on the corpus of Foscolo’s letters. What emerges is the demonstration and a more forceful confirmation of the profound ties between English empiricism and his theory of knowledge, with fundamental ramifications for the ethical, aesthetic, and political realms. Where the present analysis breaks new ground is, first, in the scrutiny of the impact that the reading of Locke’s works exerts on the Florentine translation of A Sentimental Journey, to the extent that the ref lection upon Sterne’s text and its interpretation are achieved — in line with Sterne’s own procedure — via Locke. Secondly, this study outlines the consonance between Hume’s epistemological approach to passion and Foscolo’s philosophical beliefs. It also reveals their shared preoccupation with radical skepticism and its possible outcomes, and suggests that Foscolo dares to provide an interpretative solution, from within the realm of literature, to the most minute aspects of the struggle of passion and reason that — according to Hume — may represent a limit of philosophical speculation. Finally, this book charts and interprets Foscolo’s ‘anglomania’. When considered within and without his fascination with Sterne’s narrative, it manifests itself as a precocious and prolific interest that predates his 1816 self-imposed exile and develops according to specific lines that will remain almost unchanged during his London years. Once in England, Foscolo interprets authors and works of his adopted cultural milieu in a never-ending effort to explain them to himself and to explain himself through them. While doing so he strives to remain faithful to his philosophical, aesthetic, and moral principles, and he also allows for the continuous adjustments of perspective that the English world solicits of him. This is one of the great interpretative keys that the Epistolario offers for Foscolo’s English years. Once

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in London, Foscolo’s main and enduring task is, in fact, that of revisiting his life and his work in light of the cultural, literary, and political practices of a country that will always, to a certain extent, remain foreign to him. At the same time, he asks — and, at times, demands — an impossible legitimization: the acknowledgment of a literary status that, in his view, Italy had not yet granted to him and that England will never be able to offer to the brilliant critic and journalist, whose poetry and novels were esteemed more on the basis of their fame than upon any direct appreciation by the British public. As the years go by, the Epistolario shows that a quiet resignation prevails and Foscolo begins to realize that the longed for work that should have marked his literary emancipation as an Italian author in England, will never materialize. The many lucid ref lections that clearly express awareness of the difficult path he imposed upon himself are often voiced, in the Epistolario of the mid-1820s, by resorting to the works and words of British authors. These are instances in which autobiography and poetry refract each other, the poetic word strengthens and at the same time redefines the identity of he who utters it, it breaks linguistic and cultural boundaries, and, as soon as it is articulated, it seals a compromise. This is why the lines from Milton’s Samson Agonistes that Foscolo sends — after one of his repeated illnesses — to Lady Dacre in September 1823, acquire the lucid and bitter taste of a prematurely disclosed destiny: [...] I feel my genial spirits droop My hopes all f lat; nature within me seems I[n] all her functions weary of herself; My race of glory run and race of shame And I shall shortly be with them at rest.1

Note 1. EN, XXII, p. 273 (22–23 September 1823). Foscolo quotes from John Milton’s Samson Agonistes, 594–98. While still in Italy, Foscolo owned a copy of Milton’s Paradiso Perduto, translated by Lazzaro Papi and published in Lucca in 1811.

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Index ❖ actions: apologies for 33 consequences of 58–59 n. 175 forces ruling 24 and morality 101–02 n. 50 motivation of future glory 62 and passion 88, 94, 96–98 pragmatism of 73 principles informing 35, 38 and pyrrhonism’s principles 89, 92 use of language to judge actions 80–81 and will 67–70, 82–83 n. 44, 86 aesthetic choices: described 104 historical novels 120–22 and imitation 11 new romantic literature 122 on tragedy 124–25 see also poetry Aglietti, Francesco 43 Ajace (Foscolo) x, 2 Akenside, Mark 104 Albany, Countess of: correspondence with 27, 28, 32, 34–35, 72, 89, 93, 100 n. 24, 113–14, 127 and Don Quixote 56–57 n. 120 on Foscolo 81 n. 16 salon of xi, 2 Alcini, Laura 16, 54 n. 76 Alderani, Lorenzo 31, 56 n. 117 Alison, Archibald 116 Allen, John 45 Ambrosino, Paola 4 Angelini, Edmondo 135 n. 102 Arese, Antonietta Fagnani: correspondence with Foscolo 4, 14, 16, 53 n. 49, 105–06, 110 and Epistolario 11 relationship with Foscolo x, 53 n. 49, 100 Arici, Cesare 54 n. 74 Ariosto, Ludovico, Orlando Furioso 55–56 n. 99 Armandi, Pier Damiano 109, 131 n. 25 Arrivabene, Ferdinando 16 art: portraits 32, 35 and purpose 95 sculpture 25, 55 n. 86 associationism 116 atheism 91–92 Bacon, Francis 47, 65, 120 Bagien, Amélie 9, 18, 106, 119, 130 n. 13 Balmas, Eneas 103

Barbarisi, Gennaro 10 Baring, Matilda 49 Barthélemy, Jean-Jacques 54 n. 68 Bartholdy, Jakob Salomo 52 n. 16, 85 Bayle, Pierre 89–90 beliefs: education 97 future glory 62 Hume 5, 89–93, 100 n. 33, 137 imperfect nature of man 58–59 n. 175 relativism in 73 religious beliefs 75–76, 111 Bettoni, Nicolò 19 biblical references 31–32, 56 n. 115 La biblioteca fiorentina del Foscolo (Nicoletti) 10 ‘La biblioteca francese di Ugo Foscolo’ (Balmas) 103 Biblioteca Italiana (journal) 3 Binda, Giuseppe 45 Binni, Walter 78, 84 n. 89 British colonialism 113–14 Broughton, John Cam Hobhouse (baron), see Hobhouse, John Cam Brunetti, Ugo 65 Brunori, Camillo, Il poeta medico ovvero la medicina esposta in versi 59 n. 187 Bulzo, Dionisio 46 Byron, George Gordon: Cain 123, 125–27 Childe Harold xi, 3, 48, 116–17, 123, 133 n. 75 correspondence with 123, 127 and Foscolo 122–23, 134 nn. 97–98 on Italian otherness 134–35 n. 99 Marino Faliero 121, 124–25 on translators 119 Byron, Hobhouse and Foscolo (Vincent) 103 Cain (Byron) 123, 125, 126–27 Canova, Antonio 25, 55 n. 86 Capodistria, Giovanni 33–34 Capponi, Gino 118, 125, 133 n. 69, 135 n. 106 Carli, Plinio 14 Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de 36.15* 59 n. 191*, 109* see also Don Quixote Cesaresco, Marzia Martinengo x, 109 Cesarotti, Melchiorre 1, 104 Chiarini , Guiseppe 104 Childe Harold (Byron) 133 n. 75 La Chioma di Berenice (Foscolo) x, 15, 107 Cicognara, Leopoldo 26, 40 Clarissa (Richardson) 105–06, 129 n. 10 Clark, Donald B. 112

146

Index

Collins, William 48–49, 59–60 n. 193 Comitato Foscoliano 51 n. 6 compassion 21–22 Concioni, Isabella Bartolomei 27 conscience 54 n. 74, 70, 76, 77 consistency, see faithfulness Conti, Antonio 111–12 Cookman, Nathaniel 19 Corinna (de Staël) 122 Corte, Girolamo Murari della 54 n. 74 Cowper, William 134 n. 76 ’A Poetical Epistle to Lady Austen’ 99–100 n. 16 Crassous, Paulin 10 ‘Il credo filosofico di Ugo Foscolo’ (Donadoni) 72 Creech, Thomas 131 n. 25 Dacre, Lady (Barbarina Brand [Wilmot]) 3, 83 n. 63, 108, 119, 125–26, 134–35 n. 99, 138 Dacre, Lord (Brand Thomas) 3, 108 Dalmistro, Angelo 1, 39, 113, 131–32 n. 30 de Staël, Germaine (Madame) 72–73, 125 Corinna 122 ‘Dei Sepolcri’ (Foscolo) x, 2 see also ‘On Tombs’ (Foscolo) Della morale letteraria (Foscolo) 64, 93, 98–99 Dell’origine e dell’ufficio della letteratura (Foscolo) x, 2 Descartes, René 89–90 desire: for domination over other men 21 Dulcinea as object of 39, 41 for the forbidden 94 and the inevitability of war 101 n. 47 Locke’s concept of 69–70 and love 24 of the mind 86 and pyrrhonism 92 and sensation 88 variability of 73 for what cannot be obtained 42, 67 and will 69–70, 82 n. 38 see also passion Didimi clerici prophetae minimi Hypercalypseos liber singu­ laris (Foscolo) xi, 3, 7, 32, 51 n. 3 Didimo Chierico: as alter ego 13 character of 7, 27–28 creation of 10, 71 and detachment from reality 18 and Don Quixote 37–38 and faithfulness 64 and Hypercalypseos 7 marginal note on 112 on opinions 75 and religion 73–74 and sentimental prose 31 on Shakespeare 107 and Sterne 14, 53 n. 42 see also Foscolo, Ugo (self-representation) digressions 35

Discorsi sulla servitù d’Italia (Foscolo) 34, 57 n. 121 Discorso sul testo della Divina Commedia (Foscolo) xi Discorso sull’indole del piacere e del dolore (Verri) 69 Dissertazione su di un antico inno delle Grazie (Foscolo) 88 ‘Don Chisciotti e Sanciu Panza’ (Meli) 41 Don Quixote (book): and exile 56–57 n. 120 Gonnella’s horse 48 Don Quixote (literary double): as alter ego 13, 36–37, 41, 45–46, 50, 59 n. 183 and Didimo 32, 37–38 and Dulcinea 39–41, 58 n. 165 and madness 46 and perceptions 48 and philosophical conflict 42–43 see also Foscolo, Ugo (self-representation) Donadoni, Eugenio 3–4, 72, 81 n. 1, 86, 103, 107, 112, 134 n. 97 ‘A Dream’ (Holland) 47 dueling 134–35 n. 99 Dulcinea 39–41, 43, 58 n. 165 Edinburgh Review xi, 3, 47, 48 education: in A Dream 47 Foscolo’s praise of 94–95 Hume on 97 and Locke 83 n. 58 and vice 96–97 ‘Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard’ (Gray) 20–21, 109–10 empiricism 62–63, 65, 72 England: arrival in 43–45 English poetry 105, 109 Foscolo on 117 Foscolo’s time in 3, 114–15 English: ability with 35–36, 119, 128, 133 n. 75 use in Epistolario (Foscolo) 52 n. 17 An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Hume) 92 Epistola d’Eloisa ad Abelardo (Pope) 111–12 Epistolario (Foscolo): about 11 and British colonialism 113–14 English poetry 109 and Greek and Latin texts 109 and Locke 61 publication of 4 use of English 52 n. 17 and William Stewart Rose 114 see also Foscolo, Ugo (correspondence) epochē 89, 90 Epoche della lingua Italiana (Foscolo) 127 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Locke): and free will 67–68, 69–70 influence on Foscolo 61, 62, 63 on language 80, 84 n. 87 on opinions 75–76 publications of 81 n. 3 see also Locke, John

Index Essay on the Nature and Principles of Taste (Alison) 116 ‘Essay on the Present Literature of Italy’ (Foscolo) xi, 3, 48, 116–17 Essays on Petrarch (Foscolo) xi ethics 67, 72, 96 European Review xi, 3 evil 68, 69 exile: and Don Quixote 56–57 n. 120 in England 3, 43–45, 114–15, 117 Foscolo on 129 n. 1 and personal seal 54–55 n. 79 as role 45 in Switzerland 115 and writings 32–35, 56 n. 117 Fabre, François-Xavier 89, 100 n. 24 faithfulness 38, 41, 64, 74–75 fame 62–64, 81 n. 16 fanaticism 96–97 Fasano, Pino 22 Stratigrafie foscoliane 5 financial problems 3, 46–48, 49, 108, 133 n. 62 Flint, Lady A.M. 59 n. 182 Florence 2–3, 26 Foligno, Cesare 130 n. 19 forgiveness 11 ‘Foscolo as a Literary Critic’ (Lindon) 134 n. 79 ‘Foscolo di fronte all’‘Ortis’ (Palumbo) 86 Foscolo, Ugo: approach to humour 14–15, 137 chronology of x–xi daughter Floriana 2 eulogy 109 personal library of 85, 99 n. 4, 131 n. 27 Foscolo, Ugo (correspondence): guidelines for addressing 11–12 influence of Sterne 10–15, 20 process of writing 26, 55 n. 93 seal used with 54–55 n. 79 with Aimé Guillon 111 with Alexander Walker 127 with Amélie Bagien 9, 18, 106, 119, 130 n. 13 with Angelo Dalmistro 39 with Angelo Gaetano Vianelli 105 with Antonietta Fagnani Arese 4, 16, 53 n. 49, 105–06, 110 with Antonio Veneri 38–39, 77 with Camillo Ugoni 29, 67, 80, 114 with Cesare Arici 54 n. 74 with Cornelia Martinetti 8, 22, 23–25, 26, 42, 54–55 n. 79, 67, 80, 113 with Count Petrettin 22, 23 with Countess of Albany 27, 28, 32, 34–35, 72, 89, 93, 100 n. 24, 113–14, 127 with Dionisio Bulzo 46 with Ferdinando Arrivabene 16 with Francesco Aglietti 43

147

with François-Xavier Fabre 89, 100 n. 24 with George Gordon Byron 123, 127 with Giambattista Giovio 20, 30, 31, 34, 64, 67, 68–69, 72, 73–74, 76–77, 82 n. 31, 88, 92, 96, 110, 126 with Gino Capponi 118, 125, 133 n. 69, 135 n. 106 with Giovan Battista Niccolini 112 with Giovan Paolo Shulthesius 79, 80 with Giovanni Capodistria 33–34 with Giuseppe Binda 45 with Giuseppe Grassi 27 with Giuseppe Greatti 105 with Giuseppe Molini 50 with Giuseppe Pulieri 75 with Giustina Renier Michiel 20 with Henry Edward Fox Holland 51 n. 6 with Henry Richard Vassall-Fox Holland 45, 47, 107 with Ippolito Pindemonte 15, 20 with Isabella Bartolomei Concioni 27 with Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi 4, 15, 20–21, 26, 27, 37, 55 n. 86, 65–66, 100 n. 24, 109, 112 with Jacopo Morelli 111 with Jakob Salomo Bartholdy 52 n. 16, 85 with Jane Harley 50 with Jeremiah Holme Wiffen 99–100 n. 16 with John Allen 45 with John Cam Hobhouse 48, 118, 124 with John Murray 35, 121–22 with Lady A.M. Flint 59 n. 182 with Lady Dacre 83 n. 63, 108, 119, 125–26, 134– 35 n. 99, 138 with Leopoldo Cicognara 26, 40 with Lord Dacre 108 with Marc-Antoine Jullien 123–24 with Marzia Martinengo Cesaresco 109 with Matilda Baring 49 with Maurice Guibourg 130 n. 13 with Melchiorre Cesarotti 104 with Michele Leoni 112 with Nicolò Bettoni 19 with Paolo Giovio 15, 16 with Pier Damiano Armandi 109 with Quirina Mocenni Magiotti 31–32, 33–34, 41, 43, 46, 47, 58–59 n. 175, 71 with Roger Wilbraham 59 n. 183 with Sabrina Orozsco 116 with Samuel Rogers 119 with Santorre Santa Rosa 55 n. 93, 108 with Sigismondo Trechi 26, 40, 41, 54–55 n. 79, 55–56 n. 99, 67 with Silvio Pellico 49, 116–17 with Tomaso Olivi 105 with Ugo Brunetti 65 with unidentified woman 14 with Vincenzo Monti 21 with William Stewart Rose 114 see also Epistolario (Foscolo)

148

Index

Foscolo, Ugo (relationships): with Antonietta Fagnani Arese x, 53 n. 49, 105–06, 110 with Cornelia Martinetti 23–25 with Eleonora Nencini 41 with Fanny Hamilton x, 2, 19–20 with Francesca Giovio 133 n. 62 with Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi 1, 53 n. 43 with Marzia Martinengo Cesaresco x, 109 Foscolo, Ugo (self-representation): evolution of 13 as exile 45 old pyrrhonist 94 shifts in 42 see also literary doubles Foscolo, Ugo (works of): Ajace x, 2 article on Dante 47–48 article on translation of Odyssey 78, 79 autobiographical writing 32–33, 38 and Byron 127–28 Chioma di Berenice x ‘Dei Sepolcri’ x, 2, 123 Della morale letteraria 64, 93, 98–99 Dell’origine e dell’ufficio della letteratura x, 2 Didimi clerici prophetae minimi Hypercalypseos liber singularis xi, 3, 7, 32, 51 n. 3 Discorsi sulla servitù d’Italia 34, 57 n. 121 Discorso sul testo della Divina Commedia xi Dissertazione su di un antico inno delle Grazie 88 epitaph of Locke 66 Epoche della lingua Italiana 127 ‘Essay on the Present Literature of Italy’ xi, 3, 48, 116–17 Essays on Petrarch xi Gazzettino del bel mondo 51, 85, 119, 121 ‘Il Genio’ 104 Le Grazie xi, 3 historical projects 48, 78 History of the Democratic Constitution of Venice xi Hume’s autobiography 85–86 Italian history project 48 Italian projects 47–49, 78 La Chioma di Berenice 15, 107 Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis 129–30 n. 12 Lauretta (character) 9–10 Lettera Apologetica 123, 126–27, 134 n. 98, 135 n. 103 ‘La letteratura rivolta all’esercizio delle facoltà intellettuali’ 62 ‘La letteratura rivolta unicamente alla gloria’ 62, 64 Lettere scritte dall’Inghilterra xi, 3, 46, 48, 51, 85 London lectures on ‘Epoche della lingua Italiana’ 78 Narrative and Romantic Poems of the Italians xi Notizia bibliografica intorno alle Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis 32, 57 n. 121 Notizia intorno a Didimo Chierico xi, 3, 11–12, 37–38, 41, 51 n. 3, 107 Olimpia Morata 21–22, 54 n. 68, 94 ‘On Hamlet’ 107 ‘On Tombs’ 123

Opere di Raimondo Montecuccoli illustrate da Ugo Foscolo 76, 101 n. 47 Orazione a Bonaparte pel congresso di Lione x, 1–2 Orazione sull’origine e i limiti della giustizia 101 n. 47 ‘Piano di Studi’ x, 1, 61, 105, 129 n. 5 Poesie di Ugo Foscolo x ‘Ragguaglio d’un’adunanza dell’Accademia de’ Pitagorici’ x, 2, 39, 54 n. 74, 64, 65 as revenge 106 Ricciarda xi, 3 Sesto Tomo dell’Io 8, 22, 94 study of Machiavelli 65, 66–67, 78, 101 n. 47 Sull’origine e i limiti della giustizia 83 n. 63, 87, 91, 95 Tieste x, 1 Vera storia di due amani infelici ossia ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis x, 2 Vestigi della storia del sonetto italiano 31 vocabulary of Italian language 79 see also translations Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis Viaggio Sentimentale Foscolo (Varese) 5 ‘Frammento della storia di Lauretta’ 9 France 2, 18–20 Franzero, Carlo Maria 103 free will 67–68, 82 n. 38 freedom 71 Fresco, Petrone 130 n. 19 Fubini, Mario 7, 11, 14, 19, 21, 32, 51 n. 6, 53 n. 47 Gazzettino del bel mondo (Foscolo) 51, 85, 119, 121 ‘Il Genio’ (Foscolo) 104 George III (king) 47 Giovio, Francesca 133 n. 62 Giovio, Giambattista: correspondence with 20, 30, 31, 34, 64, 67, 68–69, 72, 73–74, 76–77, 82 n. 31, 88, 92, 96, 110, 126 and Didimo 38 Il Manuale Cristiano 69 Pensieri d’Hervey sulle tombe 110 Giovio, Paolo 15, 16, 97 good 68, 69 Graham, Maria 54–55 n. 79 Graham, William 134–35 n. 99 Grassi, Giuseppe 27 Gray, Thomas 110, 111, 132 n. 33 ‘Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard’ 20–21, 109–10 Le Grazie (Foscolo) xi, 3 Greatti, Giuseppe 105, 129 n. 9 Greece 45, 59 n. 182 Grenville, Augusto Bozzi 113–14, 132 n. 52 Grimaldi, Cesare 48 Guibourg, Maurice 130 n. 13 Guillon, Aimé 111 habits 96–97

Index Hamilton, Fanny x, 2, 19–20 Hamilton, Sophia, see Hamilton, Fanny Hamlet (Shakespeare) 107–08, 129–30 n. 12, 130– 31 n. 22, 131 n. 26 Harley, Jane 50 Hervey, James 111 Meditations among the Tombs 110, 132 n. 36 The High Road to Pyrrhonism (Popkin) 90 Hinves, David 44 The Historical and Critical Dictionary (Bayle) 90 Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold (Hobhouse) xi, 3, 48, 116–17, 123 historical novels 120–22 History of Recent Events in Italy (Hobhouse) 133 n. 70 History of the Democratic Constitution of Venice (Foscolo) xi Hobbes, Thomas 95, 101 n. 47 Hobhouse, John Cam: correspondence with 48, 118, 124 and Foscolo 122, 128 Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold xi, 3, 12, 48, 116–17, 133 n. 75 History of Recent Events in Italy 133 n. 70 Holland, Henry Richard Vassall-Fox, ‘A Dream’ 47 correspondence with 45, 47, 107 Holland, Henry Edward Fox 51 n. 6 Hume, David: A Treatise of Human Nature 95, 99–100 n. 33, 101–02 n. 50 An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 92 autobiography of 85–86 on education 97 on morality 101–02 n. 50 on nature 95 on passion 86–87, 98 on pleasure and pain 88 on pyrrhonism 89, 90–91, 92 on reason 99–100 n. 33 translations of 99 n. 4 humour: Foscolo’s use of 14–15, 137 and Sterne 5, 15, 18 inspiration 20 Iser, Wolfgang 70 Laurence Sterne 81 n. 11 The Italian Exiles in London (Wicks) 103 Italy 30, 34, 41–42, 43, 45, 118 Johnson, Samuel 48–49, 59–60 n. 193 judgments 89, 90–91 Jullien, Marc-Antoine 123–24 language 70, 78–80, 84 nn. 87, 89 Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis (Foscolo) 129–30 n. 12 Laurence Sterne (Iser) 81 n. 11 Leoni, Michele 79, 112–13, 114 A Letter Concerning Toleration (Locke) 76 Lettera Apologetica (Foscolo) 123, 126–27, 134 n. 98, 135 n. 103

149

‘La letteratura rivolta all’esercizio delle facoltà intellettuali’ (Foscolo) 62 ‘La letteratura rivolta unicamente alla gloria’ (Foscolo) 62, 64 Lettere di Yorick a Elisa e di Elisa a Yorick (Sterne) 105 Lettere scritte dall’Inghilterra (Foscolo) xi, 3, 46, 48, 51, 85 Letters of Abelard and Heloise 54 n. 68 The Letters of the Younger (Pliny) 55 nn. 82, 84 Lettres de Sterne à ses amis (Sterne) 10 The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Sterne) 8–10, 33, 66, 70–72, 77 A Life in Exile (Franzero) 103 Lindon, John 59 n. 186 ‘Foscolo as a Literary Critic’ 134 n. 79 Studi sul Foscolo ‘inglese’ 103 literary criticism: in England 3, 43 Foscolo’s plans for 119 as main activity 46–47 reproaches for 54 n. 74 role of critic 59 nn. 186–87 literary doubles: diachronic analysis of 13 in Epistolario 32–33 of Foscolo 7 Nathaniel Cookman as 19 and politics 30–32 of Sterne 7 see also Didimo Chierico Locke, John: in ‘A Dream’ 47 controversial reception of 63–64, 82 n. 32 and education 83 n. 58 epitaph of 65–66 and fame 62, 64 and free will 67–68, 69–70, 82 n. 38 influence on Foscolo 61, 120 and language 70, 79–80, 84 nn. 87, 89 A Letter Concerning Toleration 76 and religion 75–78 Some Thoughts Concerning Education 83 n. 58 ‘Sul modo d’intendere e interpretare l’Epistole di S. Paolo’ 38–39, 58 n. 155 theory of cognition 81 n. 11 and Tristam Shandy 70–71 see also An Essay Concerning Human Understanding philosophy London Magazine xi, 3 Loré, Michele 81 n. 1 Louise (princess of Stolberg-Gedern), see Albany, Countess of love 23–24, 39–41, 55 nn. 82, 84 see also passion Machiavelli, Nicolò 65, 66–67, 78, 101 n. 47 The Prince 65 madness 43–45, 46, 47–48, 59 n. 187 Magiotti, Quirina Mocenni: correspondence with 31–32, 33–34, 41, 43, 46, 47, 58–59 n. 175, 71

150

Index

and Don Quixote 56–57 n. 120 relationship with Foscolo 3 man (conception of) 120 Il Manuale Cristiano (Giovio) 69 Manzoni, Alessandro x Maria (character of) 8–10, 36–37, 52 n. 16 Marino Faliero (Byron) 121, 124–25 Martignoni, Ignazio 110 Martinetti, Cornelia: correspondence with 8, 22, 23–25, 26, 42, 54–55 n. 79, 67, 80, 113 and love 23–24, 55 nn. 82, 84 relationship with Ugo Foscolo 23–25 Mazza, Angelo 104 Meditations among the Tombs (Hervey) 110, 132 n. 36 melancholy 45–46, 49–50 Meli, Giovanni, ‘Don Chisciotti e Sanciu Panza’ 41 metaphysical writers 117 Michiel, Giustina Renier 20 Milan 2, 3, 31 military service x–xi, 2, 19, 31 Milman, Henry Hart 135 n. 102 Milton, John, Samson Agonistes 138 Molini, Giuseppe 50 Monthly Repository 109 Monti, Vincenzo 2, 21, 94 Moore, Thomas 119 morality 96, 101–02 n. 50 More, Thomas 47 Morelli, Jacopo 111 mother (death of) 45 Murray, John: and Byron 125, 127, 134 n. 98, 134– 35 n. 99 correspondence with 35, 121–22 and Foscolo 118, 120–24 publications by 48 Narrative and Romantic Poems of the Italians (Foscolo) xi nature: Foscolo on 101 n. 47 Hume on 90, 92 and passions 93–94 and society 95–96 state of 95, 101 n. 47 necessity 42, 58–59 n. 172, 67–68, 71 Nencini, Eleonora 41 New, Melvyn 9, 70, 82 n. 29 New Monthly Magazine 3, 107 Niccolini, Giovan Battista 112, 135 n. 106 Nicoletti, Giuseppe 4, 56 n. 117, 99 n. 4, 103 La biblioteca fiorentina del Foscolo 10 Notizia bibliografica intorno alle Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (Foscolo) 32, 57 n. 121 Notizia intorno a Didimo Chierico (Foscolo) xi, 3, 11–12, 37–38, 41, 51 n. 3, 107 Nouveau Voyage de Sterne en France (Sterne) 8 Nuovo, Victor 78

Odyssey 78, 79 Olimpia Morata (Foscolo) 21–22, 54 n. 68, 94 Olivi, Tomaso 105 ‘On Hamlet’ (Foscolo) 107 ‘On Tombs’ (Foscolo) 123 see also ‘Dei Sepolcri’ (Foscolo) Opere di Raimondo Montecuccoli illustrate da Ugo Foscolo (Foscolo) 76, 101 n. 47 opinions 75–76 Orazione a Bonaparte pel congresso di Lione (Foscolo) x, 1–2 Orazione sull’origine e i limiti della giustizia (Foscolo) 101 n. 47 Orlando Furioso (Ariosto) 55–56 n. 99 Orozsco, Sabrina 116 Ortis, Jacopo: on compassion 21–22 decline of 27, 55–56 n. 99 and exile 32, 56 n. 117 letter from Ventimiglia 102 n. 52 outlook of 13 on passions 87 and Shakespeare 106–07 and Sterne 14 see also Foscolo, Ugo (self-representation) Othello (Shakespeare) 106 Otway, Thomas, Venice Preserved 114–15 pain 69, 87–88 Palumbo, Matteo 54 n. 68, 88 ‘Foscolo di fronte all’ ‘Ortis’ 86 Parini, Giuseppe 2 Paris 34, 57 n. 127 particles 80 Pascal, Blaise, Pensées 91 passion: contrary passions 94–95 and Cornelia Martinetti 23–24, 55 nn. 82, 84 in correspondence 67 and education 96–97 Foscolo on 101 n. 47 indulging in 99–100 n. 24 and Italian culture 134–35 n. 99 and Locke 67 mastery of 88–89 and philosophy 93–94, 97–98, 102 n. 57 and plants 99–100 n. 16 and reason 86–87 and writing 21–22 see also desire Pavia, University of x, 2, 61, 62, 64, 65, 86–87, 98 Pellico, Silvio 49, 85, 116–17 Pensées (Pascal) 91 Pensieri d’Hervey sulle tombe (Giovio) 110 Pensieri intorno allo scopo di Nicolò Machiavelli nel libro del Principe (Ridolfi) 65 periodicals xi, 117–19 Petrettin, Count 22, 23 Pfister, Manfred 70

Index Philoctetes 45, 59 n. 182 philosophy: associationism 116 as confirmation of ideas 85 empiricism 62–63, 65, 72 Foscolo on 89 Foscolo’s personal convictions 74–75 influence of 61, 81 n. 1 and natural inclinations 93–94, 97–98, 102 n. 57 pragmatism 73 relativism 73 and religion 73–74 stoicism 88–89, 99–100 n. 24 tools of 98–99 see also Locke, John pyrrhonism ‘Piano di Studi’ (Foscolo) x, 1, 61, 105, 129 n. 5 Pindemonte, Ippolito 15, 20 plants 99–100 n. 16 Plato 65 pleasure 69, 87–88 The Pleasures of Memory (Rogers) 115–16 ‘The Pleasures of the Imagination’ (Akenside) 104 Pliny, The Letters of Pliny the Younger 55 nn. 82, 84 Poesie di Ugo Foscolo (Foscolo) x Il poeta medico ovvero la medicina esposta in versi, (Brunori) 59 n. 187 ‘A Poetical Epistle to Lady Austen’ (Cowper) 99–100 n. 16 poetry: didactic poetry 104 English poetry 105, 109 graveyard poetry 21, 110–11 Shakespeare as poet 107 see also aesthetic choices politics 102 n. 57 Pope, Alexander: Epistola d’Eloisa ad Abelardo 111–12 Saggio sopra l’uomo 112 Popkin, Richard 92 The High Road to Pyrrhonism 90 portraits 32, 35 pragmatism 73 Praz, Mario 116, 129–30 n. 12 pre-Romanticism 116–17 The Prince (Machiavelli) 65 progress 72, 83 n. 63 La prosa epistolare del Foscolo (Ambrosino) 4 Pulieri, Giuseppe 75 Puppo, Mario 4, 103 pyrrhonism: and Bayle 90 in Foscolo’s writings 94 Hume on 89, 90–91, 92 and passions 93 see also philosophy Quarterly Review xi, 3, 47 Rabizzani, Giovanni 10, 25–26, 37 Sterne in Italia 5

151

‘Ragguaglio d’un’adunanza dell’Accademia de’ Pitagorici’ (Foscolo) x, 2, 39, 54 n. 74, 64, 65 Rambelli, Paolo 19, 51, 51 n. 3 reason 86–87, 99–100 n. 33 relativism 73 religion: and biblical references 31–32, 56 n. 115 and Byron’s Cain 123, 125–27 and language 84 n. 87 and opinion 75–78 and philosophy 73–74, 128 religious fanaticism 96–97 Ricciarda (Foscolo) xi, 3 Richardson, Samuel, Clarissa 105–06, 129 n. 10 riding accident 45–46 Ridolfi, Angelo, Pensieri intorno allo scopo di Nicolò Machiavelli nel libro del Principe 65 Rogers, Samuel 119, 134 n. 76 The Pleasures of Memory 115–16 Rose, William Stewart 3, 44, 114 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 54 n. 68, 95, 120 Saggio sopra l’uomo (Pope) 112 Samson Agonistes (Milton) 138 Santa Rosa, Santorre 55 n. 93, 108 Santovetti, Olivia 5, 8, 29 Sassoli, Angelo 2 Vera storia di due amani infelici ossia ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis x scepticism. See pyrrhonism Scott, Walter 120–21, 122, 134 n. 79 Scotti, Mario 43, 48, 65 sculpture 25, 55 n. 86 A Sentimental Journey (Sterne): and Didimo 51 n. 3, 71 and Don Quixote 36 and Locke 65 see also Sterne, Laurence Viaggio Sentimentale di Yorick lungo la Francia e l’Italia (Foscolo) sentimental prose 9–10, 16–18, 23–26, 50, 53 n. 47, 132 n. 48 Sesto Tomo dell’Io (Foscolo) 8, 22, 94 Shakespeare, William 106, 107–09, 129–30 n. 12, 130– 31 n. 22, 130 nn. 13, 19, 22, 131 n. 26 Shulthesius, Giovan Paolo 79, 80 Some Thoughts Concerning Education (Locke) 83 n. 58 St. Paul’s Epistles 77–78 Sterne in Italia (Rabizzani) 5 Sterne, Laurence: influence of 7–8, 10–15, 20, 39, 50 Italian reception of 113 Lettere di Yorick a Elisa e di Elisa a Yorick 105 The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman 8–10, 33, 66, 70–72, 77 literary double of 7 and Locke 70–72 Nouveau Voyage de Sterne en France 8 quotations of 15, 53 n. 42 and Thomas Gray 110

152

Index

writing style of 22, 32–33, 35 see also A Sentimental Journey Viaggio Sentimentale di Yorick lungo la Francia e l’Italia stoicism 88–89, 99–100 n. 24 Stratigrafie foscoliane (Fasano) 5 Studi sul Foscolo ‘inglese’ (Lindon) 103 suicide 107–08 ‘Sul modo d’intendere e interpretare l’Epistole di S. Paolo’ (Locke) 38–39, 58 n. 155 Sull’origine e i limiti della giustizia (Foscolo) 83 n. 63, 87, 91, 95 Switzerland 3, 33, 58–59 n. 175 Taylor, Edgar 109 Teotochi Albrizzi, Isabella: correspondence with 4, 15, 20–21, 26, 27, 37, 55 n. 86, 65–66, 100 n. 24, 109, 112 relationship with Foscolo 1, 53 n. 43 Testa, Francesca 13 Tieste (Foscolo) x, 1 tolerance 75–76 Toschi, Luca 37 tragedy 124–25 translations: Byron on 119 of Foscolo 119 of Macbeth 112 Michele Leoni 112 of Odyssey 78, 79 of Pope 111–12 of Shakespeare 106–07 see also Foscolo, Ugo (works of) Viaggio Sentimentale di Yorick lungo la Francia e l’Italia (Foscolo) A Treatise of Human Nature (Hume) 95, 99–100 n. 33, 101–02 n. 50 Trechi, Sigismondo 26, 40, 41, 54–55 n. 79, 55–56 n. 99, 67 Tuscany 2–3 Ugo Foscolo in Inghilterra (Viglione) 103 Ugo Foscolo (Vincent) 103 Ugoni, Camillo 29, 54 n. 74, 67, 80, 114 Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (Foscolo): Bryon on 122 and correspondence 106 dedication of 115–16 and Didimo 51 n. 3 publication of x, xi, 2, 3, 57 n. 121 story of Lauretta 9, 129–30 n. 12 timeline of 14, 31, 86 and Viaggio sentimentale 8, 35, 50, 53 n. 47 Zurich additions to 32, 54 n. 68, 57 n. 121 Valperga (Wollstonecraft) 121–22, 134 n. 81 Varese, Claudio 11, 12, 22, 26, 28 Foscolo 5 Veneri, Antonio 38–39, 77 Venice 1–2

Venice Preserved (Otway) 114–15 Venus (Canova) 25, 55 n. 86 Vera storia di due amani infelici ossia ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (Foscolo and Sassoli) x, 2 Verri, Pietro, Discorso sull’indole del piacere e del dolore 69 Vestigi della storia del sonetto italiano (Foscolo) 31 Viaggio Sentimentale di Yorick lungo la Francia e l’Italia (Foscolo): article on translation of 112 completion of 18–19, 27 Cookman character 19 and Didimo 28, 38, 82 n. 27 discovery of 1813 edition, 51 n. 6 evaluation of 29 notes to 10, 36, 39, 131 n. 27 publication of xi, 1, 3, 50 revisions to 8 and self-reflection 33 sentimental prose in 53 n. 47 timing of work on 7–8, 23, 35, 65, 80, 109, 111 Varese on 12 see also A Sentimental Journey (Sterne) Vianelli, Angelo Gaetano 105 vices 66–67, 96–97, 101–02 n. 50 Vida, Marco Girolamo 129 n. 7 Viglione, Francesco 119 Ugo Foscolo in Inghilterra 103 Vincent, Eric Reginald Pearce 120 Byron, Hobhouse and Foscolo 103 Ugo Foscolo 103 virtue 66–67, 96–97, 101–02 n. 50 volition 67–68 see also will Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce (Barthélemy) 54 n. 68 Wainwright, Arthur 77, 78 Walker, Alexander 127 Wellek, René 134 n. 79 Westminster Review 3 Wicks, Margaret, The Italian Exiles in London 103 Wiffen, Jeremiah Holme 99–100 n. 16 Wilbraham, Roger 3, 59 n. 183 will 42, 58–59 n. 172, 69, 82 n. 38 see also volition Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, Valperga 121–22, 134 n. 81 Wordsworth, William 120 Yolton, Jean 82 n. 32, 83 n. 58 Yolton, John 82 n. 32, 83 n. 58 Yorick: and Don Quixote 37, 42 as literary double 5, 13, 17–18, 29, 32–34 Sterne’s character 7–9, 17–18, 22, 36, 37, 57 n. 127 see also literary doubles Young, Edward 111