author
Ugo Foscolo
1778–1827
A passionate poet, novelist, and patriot, his writing helped give shape to modern Italian literature. Best known for The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis and Dei Sepolcri, he brought together personal feeling, classical learning, and the pain of exile.
2 Audiobooks
Jacques Ortis; Les fous du docteur Miraglia
by Ugo Foscolo
Jacopo Ortisin Viimeiset Kirjeet
by Ugo Foscolo
About the author
Born on Zakynthos in 1778 to an Italian father and a Greek mother, he was born Niccolò Foscolo and later became known as Ugo Foscolo. After his father's death, he moved to Venice, where he immersed himself in literature and politics during the upheavals of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic era.
His work is remembered for its intensity and elegance. The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis is often described as the first modern Italian novel, while Dei Sepolcri and the unfinished poem The Graces helped secure his reputation as one of the great voices of Italian literature. Again and again, his writing returned to themes of memory, homeland, honor, and loss.
Political disappointment shaped much of his life. Once hopeful about Napoleon, he was deeply disillusioned by the fate of Venice and eventually lived in exile, spending his final years in England. He died in 1827, but his standing only grew, and he came to be seen not just as a major writer, but as a symbol of literary and national feeling in Italy.