by Vittorio Alfieri

Born in Asti, Piedmont, in 1749, Vittorio Alfieri was the son of Count Antonio Amedeo Alfieri di Cortemilia and Monica Maillard di Tournon. Educated at the Royal Military Academy in Turin, Alfieri graduated with a Master of Arts degree in 1766. During most of the following decade, Alfieri traveled widely throughout Europe, visiting France, England, Holland, and Russia. At this time, he developed his longstanding political ideals, which included a hatred of absolutism and tyranny. He also improved upon his early education, reading the works of Dante, Petrarch, Machiavelli, Ariosto, and Tasso, and embarked upon a career as a playwright and poet. His first tragedy, Cleopatra, was produced in Turin in 1775 and, though he discounted the work, enjoyed immediate success. After a trip to Florence to absorb the dialect, which by then had become the basis for an Italian literary language, he painstakingly switched from writing in...