Vittorio Alfieri

Born in Asti in 1749, Vittorio Alfieri grew up in a noble Piedmontese family and was educated at the military academy in Turin. As a young man he traveled widely across Europe, experiences that later fed both his strong dislike of tyranny and his determination to shape himself into a serious writer.

He is best known for his tragedies, which helped renew Italian drama with a severe, energetic style centered on freedom, will, and political conflict. Alongside his plays, he also wrote poems, satires, and an autobiography, and he is often remembered as one of the writers who gave powerful early literary expression to ideas of national feeling in Italy.

Alfieri spent important years in Florence and in his relationship with the Countess of Albany, to whom he remained closely attached. He died in Florence in 1803, but his reputation endured well beyond his lifetime, and he is still regarded as one of the major figures of Italian letters in the period before the Risorgimento.