Author: Sorelli, Guido
Biography:
SORELLI, Guido (1796-1847: bathabbeymemorials.org.uk)
Specialists are aware of Guido Sorelli’s 1827 translation of Milton into Italian; otherwise, Lord Byron’s prophecy about him failed: “who is he? I know him not; but ages will.” Born at Florence on 17 Aug. 1796 a son of Gaetano Sorelli, the poet was educated at the Scolopi convent and he obtained a scholarship to study law at the Collegio della Sapienza in Pisa. Law held no interest for him, so he returned home to become a professor of languages. From Florence, he moved in 1815 to Zurich where he fell in love with one of his students, Veronica Pestalozzi. Awkwardly, she was at the same time enamoured of Ugo Foscolo (q.v.) and of another, older, man. In Mar. 1816, Foscolo, in a jealous fit, told the woman’s husband of Sorelli’s interest in her. He escaped that situation by returning to Florence where he became involved in the Carbonari, a liberal secret society. Pursued by authorities, he resolved to flee to England. An English captain at Florence promised him financial support and a place to live in London, but really he had no such intention. When Sorelli arrived in England, in June 1821, he therefore found himself in dire straits, but he was immediately saved by a wealthy, philanthropic couple, John Collingridge of Bath, and his wife, Elizabeth Slarke Collingridge, who invited him to live at their Surrey residence, Sunbury Villa. From as early as 1825, he earned his living in London as a teacher of Continental languages (three lessons, one hour each, for One Guinea). In 1835, he converted to Protestantism. On 16 Jan. 1841, the RLF granted him £30. In the following year, because he had used £6 of the relief money to his pay his club, the Colonial Society, the Fund passed a resolution condemning him as an unworthy recipient. The poet died, unmarried, in Church Place, Picadilly, on 28 May 1847. Besides The Plague a Poem (1834), he published several books in English: his long-winded My Confessions to Silvio Pellico (1836); Answer to Mr. Lucas’s Reasons for Becoming a Roman Catholic (1839); A Sister’s Love (1840); The Nun of Florence. Melo-Drama (1840); and My Opinion of Her! (1841). (bathabbeymemorials.org.uk 12 Nov. 2023; RLF file 1020; Metropolitan 31 [1841], 5; Bell’s New Weekly Messenger, 30 May 1841; Age, 16 Oct. 1841; Atlas, 4 Sept. 1841; GM 28 [1847], 104) JC