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Lord Byron and Count Alborghetti

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Leslie A. Marchand
Leslie A. Marchand*
Affiliation:
Rutgers University New Brunswick, N. J.
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Extract

When Byron entered Ravenna for the first time on June 10, 1819, roiling up to the Porta Sisi in his heavy Napoleonic carriage, he was weary from the long journey across the flat Romagna plain and distraught by conflicting emotions concerning his liaison with the young Countess Teresa Guiccioli.1 Only a short while out of a convent and married to a man three times her age, she was highly impressionable and her emotions had been quickly engaged by the handsome and diffident English poet whom she had met at a conversazione in Venice in April. Indeed Byron and the Countess had arranged their affair so well that not only was the sixty-year-old husband cuckolded, but, much more surprising to Byron, he and Teresa had formed a sincere mutual attachment. Now that Count Guiccioli, reputed to be the wealthiest man in the Romagna, had carried his wife back to his palace in Ravenna, Byron, reflecting on this new love that had come so suddenly, found it a little disconcerting. Having had his emotions involved so often where his mind could not give full assent, he could not at first adjust himself to the idea—though he felt it deeply enough—that this affair was different. So that when Teresa wrote that she was ill and urgently requested him to come, he hesitated and delayed, not so much from fear of a stiletto in his back (though he dramatized that possibility in his letters to his friends—-and it was a real one so far as he knew) as from reluctance to subside into a regular cavalier servente. Writing to Hob-house on May 17, 1819, he said:

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 64 , Issue 5: Issue 1 part 1 , December 1949 , pp. 976 - 1007
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1949

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References

1 The Byron^Alborghetti letters, here published for the first time, form the basis of this article, but I have tried to give them their proper setting against the general background of Byron's life at Ravenna, a period of remarkable productivity and greatest maturity in his literary career, and of significant developments in his emotional and intellectual life. The eight unpublished letters of Byron to Alborghetti and the nineteen of the Count to Byron give illuminating sidelights on Byron's closeness to the people and the political events of the country and furnish further evidence of that capacity to inspire loyal devotion which was one of his most striking characteristics. And they help to fill in, like a few missing pieces in a jig-saw puzzle, the incomplete picture of those two most interesting years (1819–21), giving a lively new meaning to many obscure passages in the printed letters.

The Byron letters I have taken from various sources indicated in the notes. The ones from Alborghetti to Byron are in the possession of Sir John Murray, with whose generous permission I am able to reproduce them, and also a few unpublished passages from Byron letters in his collection. I am much indebted to the Marchesa Iris Origo for helpful suggestions and information and for permission to quote certain passages from her forthcoming book, The Last Attachment, which is based on the unpublished Byron-Guiccioli correspondence and the Countess Guiccioli's MS “Vie de Lord Byron.” Sources of other new material are indicated in the notes. Except where otherwise noted, quotations from Byron's letters are from the Letters and Journals, ed. R. E. Prothero (London, 1898–1901). (Supplementary note: While this article was in proof the Marchesa Origo's book was published.)

2 Murray MSS—from an unpublished paragraph.

3 Murray MSS—second sentence unpublished.

4 Murray MSS—from an unpublished passage in a letter of May 17,1819.

5 This ending, differing considerably from that published first by Medwin and followed with slight variations by Moore, is from the MS, neatly copied in Byron's hand, now in the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library. So much dust has been thrown in the eyes of truth with respect to this poem that it is difficult to do more than make a shrewd guess as to its origin and history. The Countess Guiccioli tried to make Moore and Murray L ieve that the stanzas were “mere verses of society” and that they did not refer to her. Since Byron's own statements are generally accurate in such matters, however, and since he was rather explicit regarding the date and circumstances of the composition, we may reasonably infer that those lines express his sincerest feelings on his involvement with Teresa, and that they were set down as sheer emotional relief before he started on his journey. It is probable that the first idea for the stanzas was conceived in April while Teresa was at Ca' Zen at the mouth of the Po, where she and her husband stopped at one of the Count's estates on their way to Ravenna. But it was not until the day before his departure that he sat down to write the complete poem. On June 1, 1820, he wrote to Douglas Kinnaird: “You may give any copies you like of the lines to the Po (damn your quibble) since you think them so fine—even to Murray. I wrote them this very day last year, June 1st.” (From an unpublished letter, Murray MSS.) And writing to Hobhouse a week later, June 8, 1820, he said: “You say the Po verses are fine; I thought so little of them, that they lay by me a year uncopied, but they were written mred-hot earnest and that makes them good.” (From an unpublished letter, Murray MSS.) The MS in the Berg Collection is dated June 2,1819, the “‘2”‘ being placed above the line as if inserted later. All this evidence taken together justifies the conclusion that the stanzas were conceived in April, and that the writing was begun on June 1,1819, and completed the next day.

6 This note is quoted in the auction catalogue of the American Art Association, Nov. 7, 1934.

7 Origo, proof sheets. (This is the Marchesa Origo's translation of Teresa's original French.)

8 Some details of the career of Alborghetti are given in Moroni's Dizionario Storico-Ec-clesiastico.

9 Fletcher used similar terms in a letter to Augusta Leigh describing his own agitation at the death of Byron (Murray MSS).

10 The gift of a handkerchief had great significance in Italian love etiquette.

11 Origo, proof sheets. From a letter dated “Giugno 11, 1819”, translated by the Mar-chesa Origo, who is publishing all the letters of Byron to Teresa Guiccioli in the Gamba Collection both in English and in the original Italian.

12 It was Francesco Rangone of Bologna who had given Byron a letter to Count Albor-ghetti and to Count Rasponi and others in Ravenna, but Hoppner and other friends in Venice had also supplied him with letters.

13 Murray MSS. Part of this sentence (“though” to “own palace”) was omitted in Letters and Journals.

14 Fulvio Cantoni, La Prima Dimora di Lord Byron a Bologna (Bologna, 1926), p. 36.

15 Alborghetti's own poetic pretensions probably accounted in part for the eager interest he took in Byron. Louis Madelin in La Rome de Napoléon (Paris, 1906) speaks of “le célèbre Alborghetti… favori des Muses” (p. 425), and again with more frankness than flattery he records that “le grand poète de Rome, le plus infatigable à coup sur et le plus fatigant, est un conseiller de préfecture populaire aux Arcades” (p. 528).

16 From the MS in the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection in the New York Public Library.

17 Sentence beginning “She bears up… ” omitted in Letters and Journals but quoted in Sotheby auction catalogue, Dec. 10–14, 1917.

18 Cantoni, p. 36.

19 This and all the other Alborghetti letters are here printed from the MSS in the Murray files. Alborghetti's first name was Giuseppe, according to Uccellini's Dizionario Storico di Ravenna, but his signature to all his letters to Byron looks like an “I” or a “J”, possibly “J” for “Joseph”, a translation of Giuseppe.

20 From the MS in Byron's hand in the public library of Forli, Italy. For a transcript of this and other letters from the same source, I am indebted to the Marchesa Origo. A curiously garbled account of this episode was given by a police spy on Sept. 10,1819: “I must tell you that some time ago the Cardinal of Ravenna gave a most brilliant conversazione in honour of the noble Lord, at which, however, the Cardinal himself did not appear, lest he should act, said he, as a decoy to the assembled ladies…” (Letters and Journals, iv, 462).

21 Lord Byron's Correspondence, ed. John Murray (1922), ii, 119.

22 Malvasia was sent to Ravenna in 1816 as the first “Legato apostolica” on the re-establishment of the Papal States after the Napoleonic occupation. It might be added that besides being a lover of parties he was also a celebrated scholar and founder of the literary academy called after him “Le Malvasiana”, to which most of the well known Italian poets and scholars of the day belonged.

23 The Vice-Legate while Byron was in Ravenna was Giovanni Serafini; but Byron may have referred to Alborghetti by this term, since he was acting head of the Government.

24 Misdated Jan. 20 in Letters and Journals. The MS is in the Huntington Library.

25 From an unpublished letter of July 18, 1820, addressed by Count Guiccioli to his attorney, Taglioni, complaining of the separation decree. The MS is in the Rare Book Collections of the University of Texas Library.

26 F. A. Gualtieri, Gli Vltimi Rivolgimenti Italiani, I, 264.

27 Correspondence, II, 163–164.

28 From a copy in the public library at Forli.

29 From the original MS in the Morgan Library.

30 Lord Broughton, Recollections of a Long Life (London, 1910), iii, 4.

31 From an unpublished letter, Murray MSS.

32 I have supplied the names in brackets.

33 An interesting sidelight on Alborghetti, which shows both that he was suspected by the government of favoring Byron and the liberal cause and that he was eminently discreet, is contained in the following police spy report addressed to the Director of Police in Ravenna and dated Oct. 14, 1821. After saying “that he [Byron] may possess a manuscript which concerns affairs of state is quite possible, because he who has money acquires whatever he wishes and is well served”, the spy, replying to a reprimand from his chief, added: “It is true that after office hours I go into the society of Alborghetti, nor do I understand how that might be taken amiss by anyone, since in that company there is no mystery, and the conversation is of a sort that does no wrong either to the government or to particular persons. What may be the opinions of Alborghetti in political matters I would not hazard a guess, since in the way in which he has expressed himself to me he is certainly correct and reasonable.” (My translation of a copy of the police report in the Nelson Gay papers in the Keats-Shelley Memorial, Rome.)

34 Origo, proof sheets.

35 “Your distinction between literary talents and opinions is just, and I have taken the matter in hand here with all the eagerness which the interest of the thing, the person, and your solicitude have inspired in me, wherefore I hope that tomorrow or the next day you will have the article correcting so far as possible the Milan Gazette relative to the said tragedy.” “Ancona still is not occupied by the Austrians.”

36 From a letter in the Bixby collection, printed for the Society of Dofobs (Chicago, 1912).

37 According to Teresa, Gigante had carried Byron's address to the Neapolitans. (The Marchesa Origo derived this statement of Teresa from the “Vie.”) Whether this seditious document was captured with him is not known, but probably not, for it seems likely that with such evidence, the government would have taken some action against Byron.

38 From a copy in the public library at Forli.

39 The reference is to Muratori's edition of Marin Sanudo's Vite dei Doge quoted in first editions of Marino Faliero as source of the story.

40 From the MS in the Houghton Library, Harvard University.

41 From the MS in my possession.

42 Perhaps the Giovanni Fava whose whole family had been converted to Jacobinism by Luigi Uccellini. See Primo Uccellini, Memorie di un Vecchio Carbonaro Ravegnano (Roma, 1898), p. 133.

43 Pietro was arrested on the evening of July 10 as he was leaving the theatre and escorted to the frontier. His father was taken up the next day and allowed to go to Filetto to arrange his affairs before leaving the following day.

44 This letter is misdated Feb. 15,1821, in Letters and Journals.

45 Consalvi, however, had been warned, as we have seen, of Byron's activities in the Romagna.

46 Teresa's purposely ambiguous account of the exile given to Moore left a doubt as to the place of her residence at the time. She would have liked the world to believe that she was at Filetto and that she wrote to Byron from there. Actually the arrests took place in Ravenna, and Teresa remained there and saw Byron constantly until she was forced to fly to Bologna and Florence. Count Guiccioli had a strong case, for her violation of the separation decree was obvious.

47 Origo, proof sheets.

48 From an unpublished letter, dated July 6,1822, in the Rare Book Collections, University of Texas Library.

49 What was the important affair? Could it have been the final arrangements for Teresa's escape?

50 From a copy in the public library at Forli.

51 Alborghetti lived on until 1852. After leaving Ravenna he was some time Secretary General of the Presidency of the Comarca, and in 1847 Municipal Counsellor of Rome and Superintendent of Public Instruction.