12 Facts About Ugo Foscolo

Ugo Foscolo, born Niccolo Foscolo, was an Italian writer, revolutionary and a poet.

Ugo Foscolo is especially remembered for his 1807 long poem Dei Sepolcri.

Ugo Foscolo's father Andrea Foscolo was an impoverished Venetian nobleman, and his mother Diamantina Spathis was Greek.

Ugo Foscolo was a prominent member of the national committees, and addressed an ode to Napoleon, expecting Napoleon to overthrow the Venetian oligarchy and create a free republic.

The Austrians gave a rude shock to Ugo Foscolo, but did not quite destroy his hopes.

Ugo Foscolo had seen the ideal of a great national future rudely shattered; but he did not despair of his country, and sought relief in now turning to gaze on the ideal of a great national poet.

Ugo Foscolo took part in a failed memorandum intended to present a new model of unified Italian government to Napoleon.

In 1807, Ugo Foscolo wrote his Dei Sepolcri, which may be described as a sublime effort to seek refuge in the past from the misery of the present and the darkness of the future.

In Pavia Ugo Foscolo lived in Palazzo Cornazzani, in the same building, curiously, then Contardo Ferrini, Ada Negri and Albert Einstein lived.

Ugo Foscolo's version of Sterne is an important feature in his personal history.

Ugo Foscolo returned to Milan in 1813, until the entry of the Austrians; from there he passed into Switzerland, where he wrote a fierce satire in Latin on his political and literary opponents; and finally he sought the shores of England at the close of 1816.

Ugo Foscolo died at Turnham Green on 10 September 1827, and was buried at St Nicholas Church, Chiswick, where his restored tomb remains to this day; it refers to him as the "wearied citizen poet", and incorrectly states his age as 50.