Vittorio Alfieri

Vittorio Alfieri (1749-1803), Italian dramatist and poet, who was one of the leading literary and patriotic figures of modern Italian history.

Vittorio, Conte Alfieri was born in Asti, Piedmont, on January 16, 1749, and educated at a military academy in Turin. He inherited a fortune and at the age of 17 set out on travels throughout Europe where he discovered his ideal of political liberty (in England), and was deeply influenced by the French writers Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In 1772 he returned to Turin, and in 1775 he wrote a tragic drama, Cleopatra, which was enthusiastically received. He then devoted himself to writing tragic dramas and patriotic poems. Alfieri moved to Florence in 1776 to study the purer Italian spoken in the province of Tuscany, since he himself spoke French, the language of the ruling classes in Turin. While living in Florence he fell in love with Louise de Stolberg, the Countess of Albany, who became his mistress. She encouraged his writing and became a stabilizing influence in his hitherto erratic life.

During the next 13 years he produced 19 tragic dramas; Saul (1783), the most notable, is based on the biblical account of the destruction of Saul because of his jealousy of David. His other tragic dramas of this period include Agamemnon (1783), Philip the Second (1781), Antigone (1786), and Sophonisba (1788). In his most important prose writings of these years, On Tyranny (1789) and The Prince and Literature (1801), he argued that honest literature could be created only in a free society. In five odes, published from 1776 to 1783, he celebrated American independence. He died in Florence on October 8, 1803.

The whole body of Alfieri's writings, inspired by his own love of freedom, awakened the national pride of Italians and helped promote the Italian independence movement known as the Risorgimento.