Builders of United Italy

by Rupert Sargent Holland

His battle against what he considered a highly unworthy infatuation had restored Alfieri’s self-respect and health, and out of this curious struggle sprang his first real and lasting ambition. “A devouring fire took possession of my soul,” he says, “I thirsted one day to become a deserving candidate for theatrical fame.” The date of that first performance marked a turning point, not only for Alfieri, but for his country’s literature. It was, said the Italian critic, Paravia, “a day and a year of eternal memory not only for the Turinese, but for all Italians; because it was, so to speak, the dawn of the magnificent day which, thanks to Alfieri, was to rise upon Italian tragedy.”

The restless energy which had driven Alfieri across the various European countries now concentrated in an all-pervading determination to become a tragic poet. He launched into that effort with the same unbounded ardor with which he had so frequently before launched into love. He was twenty-seven years of age when he seriously set himself to work to acquire command of Italian so that he might think in the language of his native land rather than in that of France. He described his resources as “a resolute, obstinate, and ungovernable character, susceptible of the warmest affections, among which, by an odd kind of a combination, predominated the most ardent love, and hatred approaching to madness against every species of tyranny; an imperfect and vague recollection of several French tragedies which I had seen represented several years before, but which I had then neither read nor studied; a total ignorance of dramatic rules, and an incapability of expressing myself with elegance and precision in my own language.”

To accomplish his purpose Alfieri now began at the very beginning and took up the study of Italian grammar, and thence made a first-hand acquaintance with all the best of the early Italian writers. He would not allow himself any longer to read French, and tried to break himself of the habit of thinking in that tongue. He moved from town into a small country village in order that nothing might distract him. There he re-wrote for the third time his tragedy of “Cleopatra,” and practised turning into Italian verses the outlines of two tragedies which he had recently written in French. He pored over Tasso, Ariosto, Petrarch, and Dante until he felt that he at last really caught the full spirit of each author’s style, then he tried writing poetry of his own.

His ignorance of Latin continually vexed him, and now he employed a teacher to begin over those lessons he had so thoroughly disliked at school. It was very hard work at first, but he would learn what he now considered essential to his purpose, and after three months’ study of Horace he found that he could read Latin. He took up the other classics and translated some of them into modern Italian for practice in their varied styles.

Turin was too near France to satisfy his new passion for only the purest Italian and so he went to Pisa, and thence to Florence. In the latter city he found that his ideas were at last shaping themselves in the rich and clear Italian he was seeking, he wrote verses which critical friends pronounced at last worthy of the name of poetry, and planned several poetic tragedies. He had worked hard and felt that he needed a little rest. For this purpose he returned to Turin and had the pleasure of entertaining his old friend the Abbot of Caluso there. He, as well as other friends, urged Alfieri to make literature his field. He decided that it was best for him to live in Tuscany, and as he hated to have to ask royal permission each year to allow him to remain away from Piedmont—as was the custom with the nobility—he gave his estates at Asti to his sister, and contented himself with half his former income. Then he moved to Florence, which, except for intervals spent at Rome and Naples, was for a considerable time to be his home.

On his way to Florence Alfieri was obliged to stop at Sarzana, where he chanced upon a copy of Livy, and was so impressed with the story of Virginia and Icilius that he immediately planned a tragedy on the subject. Soon after he reached Pisa, but there he did not dare stay, fearful that he might be involved in a marriage with a young girl whom he had met there before and with whom he says that he had almost fallen in love. He himself contrasts his feelings at that time with those he had entertained when he had first thought of marriage. “Eight years afterwards, my travels through Europe, the love of glory, a passion for study, the necessity for preserving my freedom, in order to speak and write the truth without restraint—all these reasons powerfully warned me that under a despotic government it is sufficiently difficult even to live single, and that no one who reflects deeply will either become a husband or a father; thus I crossed the Arno and arrived at Siena.”

In Siena he met a company of strongly intellectual people, and from one of these, a friend who became a close confidant, he gained the idea of writing a tragedy founded upon the conspiracy of the Pazzi. Here he also wrote the first two books of an essay upon Tyranny, which was printed several years later. Thoroughly absorbed in his literary work Alfieri moved to Florence at the beginning of the winter, and took up his residence there.

At that time there were living in Florence, under the titles of Count and Countess of Albany, Charles Edward, “the Young Pretender” to the English throne, and his wife. The latter, who had been Louisa, Princess of Stolbergh, had been married when nineteen to the Stuart prince, who was considerably her elder. Charles Edward had an unsavory reputation and knew more drunk than sober moments. As a result the young Countess, who was very beautiful and extremely fond of the fine arts and of society, was the object of much romantic pity. When Alfieri came to Florence he found the entire city at the feet of the Countess. Every one condemned the Count’s quarrelsome, tyrannical, libertine nature, every one praised the Countess’s sweet and sunny disposition. Friends offered to introduce Alfieri to the star of Florence, but he declined on the ground that he always shunned women who were the most beautiful and most admired. He could not avoid, however, seeing her in the park and at the theater, and the first sight of her was destined never to be effaced. Thus he writes of her: “The first impression she made on me was infinitely agreeable. Large black eyes full of fire and gentleness, joined to a fair complexion and flaxen hair, gave to her beauty a brilliancy difficult to withstand. Twenty-five years of age, possessing a taste for letters and the fine arts, an amiable character, an immense fortune, and placed in domestic circumstances of a very painful nature, how was it possible to escape where so many reasons existed for loving?”

De Stendhal gives an account of their first meeting, which if inaccurate (it does not appear in Alfieri’s memoirs) is at least characteristic of the man. According to this story Alfieri was presented to the Countess in one of the galleries of Florence, and noticed at the time that the lady was much interested in a portrait on the walls of Charles XII. She told the poet that she admired the costume exceedingly. Two days later Alfieri appeared in Florence dressed exactly like the portrait of the Swedish King, and so presented himself before the Countess. The act was quite in keeping with the poet’s nature.

Alfieri made a determined effort to fight against the passion he had cause to fear, and made a hurried journey to Rome. He could not stay there, and returned to Florence, stopping at Siena to see his friend Gandellini, to whom he spoke of the Countess, and who did not counsel him against giving way to the fascination.