On the marriage of his mother, Vittorio and his sister went to live in their father-in-law's house, who proved himself a kind parent to the orphans. Although his health was not robust, Alfieri's childhood was little interrupted by sickness; and his first grief was experienced at the age of seven, when his sister Julia was sent to a convent for her education. Although he was, at first, permitted to see her every day, yet he felt, on her removal from the parental roof, that violence of emotion and boiling of the blood which was apt to seize on him, in after life, when forced to separate from any one to whom he was warmly attached. Thus his sensibility developed itself early; and sensibility and pride, both exalted into passions rather than feelings, were always the prominent traits of his disposition, and which at last, from the excessive influence they exercised over him, generated that gloomy melancholy to which he was a victim.
Alfieri remained at home, under the tutelage of a worthy priest, named Don Ivaldi, with whose assistance he began to learn the rudiments of Latin. His disposition was, for the most part, taciturn and placid: now and then he became loquacious and gay in the extreme, and, at other times, the melancholy already nascent in his heart, filled him with strange and passionate thoughts. He was obstinate when treated unkindly, but readily yielded to affection; and, above all, he was susceptible, to a painful degree, of the sense of shame. When, as a punishment for childish faults, any sort of public penance was imposed on him, he endured such transports of agony as affected his health for weeks.
At the age of nine, his uncle, the cavaliere Pellegrino Alfieri, who was his guardian, returned from a tour in France and England, and visited Asti, on his way to Turin. He found his nephew happy under the domestic roof, but learning little or nothing; accordingly, he thought this a very bad state of things, and insisted that he should be placed at the public school at Turin, where ignorance, rather than knowledge, was taught, but where, as he would be neglected and enslaved, it was to be supposed that his education would prosper better than under the indulgent care of a fond mother. She was obliged to consent, and parted from her son with reluctance and tears. The boy's grief at the moment of separation was vehement; but it was quickly dissipated by the delight of travelling post, and the pleasure he took in bribing the postilions to go at their utmost speed. He was accompanied by a servant only; and, while the old man slept, the little fellow sat proud and gay in the carriage, as it whirled past village and town in quick succession. When arrived at Turin, his uncle received him kindly. He was at first depressed by the change of scene, and missed the caresses of his loving mother; but soon he became so joyous, and even riotous, that the cavaliere Pellegrino hastened to place him at the academy: and here he was, at the age of nine, torn from the domestic circle to which he was accustomed, at a distance from all his friends, isolated and abandoned. The only species of education, such as it was, entered upon at the academy, regarded their literary studies: the feelings were left to form themselves; lessons of morality and the duties of life making no part of the instruction afforded the pupils.
"The academy," Alfieri tells us, "was a large, handsome quadrangular building, with a large court in the middle; two sides of the square were occupied by the students, the other two by the king's theatre and royal archives. The side occupied by us, who were called of the second and third apartment, was opposite the latter; that occupied by the students of the first apartment being opposite to the king's theatre. The upper gallery on our side was called the third apartment, and was devoted to the younger boys and lower schools. The gallery on the ground floor was called the second, and occupied by the pupils rather more advanced in age: a portion of these studied at the university, another edifice adjoining to the academy; the rest received their education in the military college. Every gallery contained at least four chambers, each occupied by eleven youths, over which an assistant, or usher, presided,—a poor fellow, whose only payment consisted in being boarded and lodged free of expense, while he studied theology or law, at the university; or, if he were not a poor student, he was an old and ignorant priest. A third portion of the side destined to the first apartment was occupied by the king's pages, to the number of twenty or twenty-five, who were totally separated from us of the second, at the opposite angle of the court, and close to the galleries of the archives. We, the younger pupils, could not have been worse placed. On one side, was a theatre which we were only permitted to visit about five or six times during the carnival; on the other, the pages who attended on the court, and who, continually hunting and riding, appeared to enjoy much freer and happier lives than the poor imprisoned boys; besides these, we overlooked the proceedings of the first class, which was composed almost entirely of foreigners, Russian and German, with a large proportion of English;—this class was restrained by no rule except that of being in by midnight; and their apartment was a mere lodging house to them, instead of being a place of education."
Alfieri was placed in the third apartment: he had the luxury of a servant to attend on him; but the fellow, unchecked by superior authority, became a sort of petty tyrant over his young master: in all other respects, he was on an equality with the rest of his comrades.
The basis of the system of education consisted in strict imprisonment, little sleep, and unwholesome food. To this was added a certain degree of parrot knowledge of the Latin language: the boys were taught to construe Cornelius Nepos; but so little pains were taken, or, rather, so little power was there in their instructors to enlarge their stores of real knowledge, that Alfieri tells us, that not one of them knew who the men were whose lives they read; nor what the country, government, or times were in which they lived, nor even what thing government was. The boy made progress, however, in what he was taught: his emulation was excited, and his memory was cultivated; but, on the other hand, he grew sickly and stunted in growth, the effects of bad food and too little sleep. He had only his drunken, his dissipated servant to attend on him when he was ill; who often, on such occasions, left him half the day alone, which increased the constitutional melancholy of his disposition. His pleasures were few; and the want of all affectionate treatment blighted his life. It seems strange to us that his mother did not visit him, and that he never went home for a vacation: but such were the customs of the country, and he was brought up in conformity with them.
The spirit of emulation, caused him, in some degree, to distinguish himself, and he advanced to higher classes and attended lectures on philosophy, humanity, and mathematics; but such was the style in which they were taught, that, when he had gone through six books of Euclid, he was unable to demonstrate the fourth proposition; and, though he studied a whole year under the famous Beccaria, he did not comprehend a word of what he was taught. This is the less extraordinary, since, speaking the patois of Piedmont, Italian was as a foreign language; and, though he contrived to obtain a copy of Ariosto, he was unable to understand a word of it. His teachers were, for the most part, equally ignorant; so that while his time was devoted to Latin, his native language was a sealed book to him. He had a few relations at Turin, and when he became really ill, they interfered that he should have more sleep and better food; but he continued a puny and ailing boy.
Some few pleasures diversified his life. His uncle found that the education of his sister Julia was entirely neglected at Asti, and she was removed to a convent at Turin. She was fifteen—in love—and divided from the object of her affections. Her brother became her confidant: he visited her twice a week, and tried to inspire her with constancy and resolution; but youthful spirits were of more avail than the lessons of romance, and, in short time, she was consoled. Another pleasure he enjoyed was, when a relation took him, on one occasion, to the opera buffa, sung by the best comic singers of Italy. The opera was the "Mercante di Malmantile." The spirit and vivacity of the music made a profound impression on him, leaving, as it were, a trail of harmony in his ears and heart, so that for many weeks after he remained immersed in an excessive, but not painful, melancholy. During this time he abhorred and nauseated his usual studies, while a world of fantastic images crowded his mind; and had he known how, he would have composed verses, and have expressed the most lively emotions, had not all language in which to express them been denied to him, through the ignorance of his teachers. This was the first time that music exercised so great an influence over him, and it remained long impressed upon his memory. At all times he was excessively susceptible to the impressions made by harmony, and he found that vocal music, especially female voices, possessed a peculiar power to disturb and agitate his mind. Nothing, he tells us, awakened in him more violent or various emotions; and almost all his tragedies were conceived while in the act of listening to music, or a few hours after. One other pleasure that he enjoyed during this period, was spending a fortnight with his uncle at Cuneo. This little journey did his health good, and occasioned him infinite delight. It was here that he wrote his first sonnet, addressed to a lady admired by his uncle, and who pleased him. As he knew nothing of Italian, or, as it is called, Tuscan, this sonnet must have been very bad. It pleased the lady; but his uncle, who was a soldier, and of an austere disposition, and who, though imbued with sufficient knowledge of history and government, despised poetry, ridiculed the boyish effusion, and put all thought of writing another out of his head.
At the age of fourteen, the circumstances of his life were considerably altered. His guardian uncle died. By the Piedmontese laws, children of fourteen are considered, to a certain degree, of age, and are allowed the entire disposal of their incomes; while a trustee is appointed to prevent their alienating any part of the principal or real property. Alfieri was thus raised at once to independence; and, to add to his comfort, his servant, who had tyrannised over him, and who, unwatched, and unchecked, had fallen into the worst vices, was dismissed. Alfieri parted from him with regret, despite his ill-treatment, and showed the kindliness of his heart by visiting him twice a week, and giving him what money he could spare. He tells us that he can ill account for his attachment to one who had shown so little kindness to him: he could not attribute it to generosity on his part; but partly to habit, and partly to the talents of the man, who, besides being singularly sagacious, was accustomed to tell him long adventures and tales full of imagination and interest.
The first fruit he reaped from the death of his uncle was being permitted to attend the riding school, which had been before denied. He was then of diminutive stature and weak of frame, and little able to control his horse; but perseverance, and a great desire of success, supplied every other defect. To this noble exercise he owed the good health, robustness, and increase of stature, that he soon acquired. The next great event that followed was, his being removed from the second to the first apartment of his college. In the second, the students were mere boys, and they were kept in strict discipline; in the first, entire freedom and idleness was the order of the day. He made his entrance on the 8th of May, 1763. His comrades were almost all foreigners, many were French, a still greater number were English. An excellent table was served in the best style, and all breathed luxury, comfort, and freedom. Much amusement, a great deal of sleep and of riding, gave Alfieri renewed health and spirits. He spent his money on horses or dress. His trustee quarrelled with him for his extravagance, but that did not alter the state of things. With liberty and money he acquired friends and companions in every amusement and enterprise. "Yet," he says, "in the midst of this busy vortex, being little more than fourteen, I was not nearly so unreasonable as I might have been. From time to time, I felt a silent impulse within me to apply to study, and a good deal of shame for my ignorance, concerning the extent of which I never deceived myself, nor others. But, grounded in no one study, undirected by any, not really acquainted with a single language, I knew not how nor to what to apply myself. I read French romances, and conversed with foreigners, and forgot the little Italian I had before contrived to pick up from my Ariosto. At one time I took it into my head to immerse myself in the thirty-six volumes of Fleury's Ecclesiastical History, making extracts in French; but soon I threw it aside, and took to romances and the 'Arabian Nights.'"