Author: ALFIERI, Vittorio
Biography:
ALFIERI, Vittorio (1749-1803: Dictionary of Art Historians)
The tragic poet and dramatist Count Vittorio Alfieri is celebrated in Italy as the literary precursor of the Risorgimento. Robert Southey (q.v.) called him “the most successful and, in many respects, the most extraordinary of the late Italian poets … no man, since Voltaire, has established so extensive a reputation.” Born at Asti, Piedmont, on 16 Jan. 1749 to a wealthy family, he was the son of Count Antonio Alfieri and his wife, Monica Maillard de Tournonthe marquis di Cacherano of Savoy. From 1758, he was educated at a military academy at Turin, he studied civil and canon law in 1762, and he obtained a degree in law in 1766. For two years, he then travelled about the Continent. He was commissioned ensign, but he was uninterested in soldiering and following a scandal in 1772 he resigned his commission. The scandal involved his relationship with Lady Penelope Pitt Ligonier, with whose husband he fought and survived a duel. Five years later at Florence he met and befriended another married woman, Louise Stolberg, countess of Albany, the wife of Edward Stuart the Pretender. Following her separation in 1784, she became Alfieri’s constant companion. Alfieri staged his first drama, Cleopatra, in 1775 at Turin. By 1787, his plays numbered nineteen. He died on 8 Oct. 1803 at Florence where he had lived since 1793 and was buried there, near Michelangelo and beside Machiavelli, in the church of Santa Croce. His English translators were Charles Lloyd, Walter Rodwell Wright, and Lionel Thomas Berguer (qq.v.) (Dictionary of Art Historians website 11 Feb. 2025; The Life of Vittorio Alfieri, Written by Himself [1953]) JC
Other Names:
- Alfieri