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Biography of Vittoria Alfieri, Conte
Name: Vittoria Alfieri, Conte
Birth Date: January 16, 1749
Death Date: October 8, 1803
Place of Birth: Italy
Nationality: Italian
Gender: Male
Occupations: poet, playwright
Vittoria Alfieri, Conte
The Italian playwright and poet Conte Vittorio Alfieri (1749-1803) was a fervent adversary of political tyranny. His vigorous defense of freedom, the keystone of all his works, made him the idol of Italian patriots during the Risorgimento.Born into a noble Piedmontese family on Jan. 16, 1749, Vittorio Alfieri received his early education at the Military Academy of Turin. Later, in characterizing his squandered adolescence, he especially criticized this school, where he was "a donkey amongst asses, a fool being taught by the foolish."Travels in EuropeAlfieri spent most of the decade following 1766 in travel throughout Europe. He frequently had the opportunity to meet European sovereigns, but he generally declined because of his deep aversion to autocratic power. He was particularly repelled by the despotic and militaristic regimes of Prussia and Russia. Only in England was Alfieri pleased with the form of government and the freedom of the citizens.During his travels Alfieri …showed first 150 words…
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…showed last 150 words…of monarchy, oligarchy, and popular government. During these Florentine years Alfieri also wrote his autobiography, an important but sometimes imperfect source of personal history, which he completed only months before his death.Alfieri died on Oct. 8, 1803. The sculptor Antonio Canova executed a marble monument which marks his tomb in the Church of Sta Croce in Florence, the burial place of innumerable illustrious Italians. Further Reading The Life of Vittorio Alfieri Written by Himself was translated by Sir Henry McNally in 1953. An 1810 anonymous translation of this work, entitled Memoirs, was revised by E. R. Vincent in 1961. An excellent translation of Alfieri's Of Tyranny, with notes and introduction, is by Julius A. Molinare and Beatrice Corrigan (1961). Gaudence Megaro, Vittorio Alfieri: Forerunner of Italian Nationalism (1930; reprinted, 1975), affords a wide view of Alfieri's role. See also Charles R. D. Miller, Alfieri (1936). There is an essay on Alfieri in William Dean Howells, Modern Italian Poets (1887).
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