Vittorio Alfieri Biography

Dromo's Den

ALFIERI, Vittorio, Count (1749-1803). The most important of the Italian dramatic poets, a younger contemporary of Metastasio and Goldoni, a man as unique in his personality as in his writings, and held in honor to-day by his countrymen less for the tragedies which first made him famous than as the reviver of a national spirit in modern Italy. The salient facts of his life are known mainly through his Autobiography, a work exceptional in its class for its frank sincerity and keen personal interest. He was born Jan. 17, 1749, at Asti, in Piedmont, which in those days was looked upon by the mass of Italians almost as alien territory. Of the misspent youth which be afterward so keenly regretted, eight years were passed in the Academy of Turin--years of "uneducation," he calls them. Eight years more were equally wasted in roving through France, England, and Holland, and in an idle and dissolute life in Turin. It was not until his twenty-sixth year and his fourth serious infatuation--this time for a certain Marchesa Turinetti di Prie--that he felt himself inspired with lofty aims, and especially with a desire to make a name for himself in the field of dramatic poetry. Under this inspiration he made his first dramatic essay, some scenes of a Cleopatra, resumed his serious studies, and removed to Florence in order to perfect himself in the correct Tuscan idiom, for his Italian at this time was scarcely better than his French. In Florence he first met the Countess of Albany, the unhappy wife of Charles Edward Stuart, and formed for her that life-long attachment which he defined as a "degno amore" and which has become historic. After her separation from her husband in 1780, Alfieri joined her for a time in Rome, and after the Pretender's death was seldom separated from her during the remainder of his own life. There is, however, no ground for believing that they were secretly married. For several years they lived in Paris, but narrowly escaped in the Reign of Terror and, being forced to flee, took refuge once more in Florence. Here Alfieri died, Oct. 8, 1803, and here in the church of Santa Croce, the Countess caused a monument to be erected by Canova to his memory.

Besides his tragedies and autobiography, Alfieri's literary activity produced numerous sonnets and odes, his Misogallo, a fierce denunciation of France, in mingled prose and verse, some unimportant prose writings, and six comedies, four of which, L'Uno, I Pochi, I Troppi, L'Antidoto, form a political tetralogy intended to show that the best government is that founded upon the will of the people. The series of tragedies began with Cleopatra, first produced at Turin in 1775 and continued until 1789. The most important are Virginia, Agamennone, Oreste, Timoleone, Maria Stuarda, and Saul, which is still regarded as his masterpiece. They are all obviously cast in one and the same mold, and that a narrow one; all classically correct, yet full of dignity and lofty sentiments. The principles which he laid down he rigidly followed. He did not permit himself to imitate or even to read Shakespeare; but adhered to the model of Greek and French tragedy, and followed to a large extent the classic unities. A tragic subject, in his opinion, was one which permitted a powerful excitation of good or evil passions; his own themes were regularly drawn from some stirring event of history or mythology. His highest aim was to unite "artistic truth with moral truth, beauty with morality." He wished the theatre to be "a school in which men might learn to be free, brave, and generous, inspired by true virtue, intolerant of violence, full of love for their country, with a true knowledge of their personal rights, and in all their passions enthusiastic, upright, and magnanimous." It was Matthew Arnold who summed up Alfieri as "a noble-minded, deeply interesting man, but a monotonous poet"; but his poetry was not found monotonous by his own or the following generation. What he did for tragedy was carried on by Monti, by Foscolo, by Pellico, and others. What he did for Italian unity is harder to measure. An entire generation of patriots was inspired by his Virginia and Brutus and Timoleone, and drew freely upon them for passages with which to inflame their hearers. His persistence in regarding himself primarily a native of Italy, and in speaking and writing in classic Tuscan, bore special fruit in his native Piedmont. In the words of his fellow-countryman, Gioberti, "the revival of civil order throughout the peninsula, the creation of a laic Italy, is due to Vittorio Alfieri, who, like a new Dante, was the true secularizer of the spirit of the Italian people and gave to it that strong impulse which still lives and bears fruit."

The complete edition of Alfieri's works is that published at Pisa (1805-15), in 22 volumes. The first edition of the tragedies is that of Siena (1783), containing only 10 tragedies. Good editions of selected tragedies are those edited by G. Falorsi (Florence, Barbera), Pisanesehi (Turin, Paravia), and Trevisan (Verona).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. I (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 394-395.