Ugo Foscolo

The Italian poet Ugo Foscolo was born in Zakynthos on February 6^th 1778. He was the son of the doctor Andrea Foscolo, of Venetian descent, and Diamandia Spathi. His Christian name was Nicolo, but in 1795, Foscolo desides that he prefers to be called Ugo.

The reputable scholar of the time, Antonios Martelaos was his teacher in Zakynthos. His mother and his teacher care for his education, and make sure that he is infused with love for Greece. In 1788, after his father’s sudden death, and due to financial difficulties, he moves to Venice with his mother and brothers, where he studies ancient Greek and Latin classics, as well as the greatest Italian writers. He shows great interest for the ideas of the Enlightenment, and decides to fight for the predominance of the democratic ideals of the French Revolution.

Thus, he enrolled in the democratic army of Naples; he fought in many battles and reached the rank of a major. Later on he went to Milan and Padua, where he became professor at the well-known university of the latter. In 1812, he meets Andreas Kalvos in Florence, who becomes his secretary and accompanied him to Switzerland (1815), and London later on, where Foscolo is forced to resort to due to the persecution of liberal ideas in Italy by the Austrians after the defeat of Napoleon. They remain good friends up until 1817, when they argue and break off.

In 1821, after the outburst of the Greek Revolution for Independence from the Turkish Yoke, Ugo Foscolo longed to fight for the independence of Greece, as his letter to Mavrokordatos (written in 1824) reveals. However, his poor health does not allow him to do so.

His work was of great importance: he wrote sonnets, odes, tragedies, and critical dissertations, as well as the novel I teleftees epistoles tou Yiakomo Ortis (The last letters of Jacomo Ortis). He also translated Homer’s Iliad into Italian. He passed away in Britain on September 10^th 1827, lonely, poor and disregarded. His remains were moved to Florence in 1871.