Niccolò Ugo Foscolo was born in Zakynthos, an island in the Ionian Sea then belonging to the Venetian Republic. After the death of his father, due to economic difficulties, the young man, the eldest of four siblings, had to move with his mother to Venice, where his father's relatives provided him with modest accommodation.
Ugo wrote his first acerbic poems, in which the theme of his father's death recurs, and became fascinated by the revolutionary ideas, spread at that time by Napoleon's army, engaged in the Italian campaigns.
Foscolo arrived in Venice at the age of fourteen. He attended the San Cipriano school in Murano and the Marciana Bible Library with little profit. During this period,he got to know some famous intellectuals,including Ippolito Pidemonte. Also during these years,Ugo fell in love with Isabella Albrizzi.
In the last year of Fsocolo's stay in Venice, he staged Tregdia Tieste, performed for fourteen nights in a row at the Sant'Angelo theatre.
Foscolo died in poverty in 1827, and since 1871 his remains have been buried in the Florentine church of Santa Croce,next to the tombs of other illustrious men.
"...My Isabella, I sigh for Venice... and I often see with my imagination walking up the foundations, stopping from bridge to bridge to contemplate those painful relics of such a marvellous city and I travel by boat with those two boys, and I travel from Venice to Treviso to Padua..."
