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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
After Foscolo's arrival in England in 1817 he was soon made welcome at Holland House, the palatial home of Lord Holland—a home distinguished by the generous kindliness of its master and by the richness of its library. Among the residents of the great establishment were two Italians with whom Foscolo became well acquainted: Serafino Buonaiuti, a factotum who assisted in the library, and Giuseppe Binda, a protégé who at times, at least, rendered secretarial service.
1 See E. R. Vincent, Ugo Foscolo: An Italian in Regency England (Cambridge, Eng., 1953), pp. 28–32. On Lord Holland see “The Right Hon. Henry Richard Vassall Fox, Baron Holland,” in National Portrait Gallery of Illustrious and Eminent Personages of the Nineteenth Century, Vol. iii, Pt. II (London, 1834); Princess Marie Liechtenstein, Holland House (London, 1874), i, 134–163; and the article “Fox, Henry Richard Vassall,” in the DNB. The register of Lord Holland's library shows that Foscolo borrowed an Oxford Pindar in 1818, and that he returned it (see Princess Liechtenstein, II, 183). On Holland House see also Otto von Schleinitz, “Aus dem Archiv und der Bibliothek von Holland-House,” Zeit-schrift für Bücherfreunde, iii (1899–1900), 24–35. In the Harvard Coll. Lib. there is a copy of the Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (in the edition of London, 1814) that is inscribed, in the handwriting of Foscolo, “Al Signore Serafino Bonajuti l'Autore.”
2 The entire letter, which will be considered in a later section of this study, is printed by Princess Liechtenstein, ii, 189–194.
3 Printed by Francesco Viglione, in his Ugo Foscolo in In-ghilterra (Catania, 1910), p. 205, n. 2. See Cesare Foligno's “Introduzione” in his edition of the Saggi e discorsi critici of Foscolo, Edizione nazionale delle opere di Ugo Foscolo, x (Florence, 1953), xxv-xxviii.
4 See Foligno, pp. xxix-xxx.
5 See Vincent, p. 180. In the following year, after his return from France, Lord Holland made this entry in the catalogue of his library: “N.B. 1822. The three ms. letters of Petrarch were lent to Mr. Foscolo in the summer of 1821. When they are deposited again in the Library, a note should be entered to prevent mistakes.” See Princess Liechtenstein, ii, 184. Lord Holland's reference, “the summer of 1821,” is evidently inaccurate, since the editions containing the facsimile appeared in April (see Foligno, p. xxxvi).
6 The Harvard copy is dedicated to Charles Russell. An Italian translation of this dedication, made when this particular copy was in the hands of Binda, is printed in the Opere inedite e postume di Ugo Foscolo, ed. F. S. Orlandini and Enrico Mayer, viii (Florence: Le Monnier, 1854), 32. (Later reprints of this edition of the Opere inedite e postume retain the original pagination.) The Cornell copy is dedicated to Jessie Pyne Bryant. See the Cornell Univ. Lib. Catalogue of the Petrarch Collection Bequeathed by Willard Fiske (Oxford, 1916), p. 297. Five copies were dedicated to other members of the Russell family; one copy was dedicated to Lord Grenville; and one to Lady Catherine Walpole (see Viglione, pp. 197–198). One copy was dedicated to Samuel Rogers (see Foligno, p. xxxvi).
7 In the light of the sentence “Binda se chargera de la copie” in the note from Lord Holland to Foscolo quoted above, it would appear that the transcription of the Italian text was the work of Binda rather than of Foscolo.
8 The main facts as to the loss and ultimate recovery of the letters are given by Foscolo in his Lettera apologetica, in Opere inedite e postume, v (1850), 490, and in the letter of Lord Holland referred to in n. 2, above.
9 This memorandum is quoted in an undated letter to Lord Holland printed by Princess Liechtenstein, ii, 186–189, and reprinted, from her book, by Viglione, in his edition of the Scritti vari inediti of Foscolo (Leghorn, 1913), pp. 356358.
10 See Vincent, pp. 180–181.
11 Quoted from Foligno, p. xli, n. 2. This letter was evidently written after the exchange of notes just mentioned rather than in August, as Foligno suggests (with a question).
12 The letter referred to in n. 9, above.
13 See Foligno, p. xliii. The dedication, to Lady Dacre, is dated “January 1823.” In this edition Foscolo's reference to “the library and liberality of Lord Holland” appears on p. 94, and his translation of the first letter appears on pp. 118—120. The facsimile, in a Harvard copy, is inserted between the dedication and the first essay.
14 See Vincent, p. 181. That the letters were found in March appears in a letter written by Foscolo to A. J. Banim on the 26th of that month, printed by Viglione in the Scritti vari, pp. 360–362. An Italian translation of the first paragraph of this letter is printed (as a letter addressed to an unknown addressee) in Of ere inedite e postume, viii, 101–102. After receiving the letters Lord Holland made this entry in his catalogue: “They were returned and deposited in the drawers of the library table in 1823.” See Princess Liechtenstein, ii, 184.
15 xviii, 599–600. This review does not mention the loss of the letters; presumably Foscolo had informed Jullien that they had been found.
16 Excerpt from the letter referred to in n. 2, above.
17 Opere inedite e postume, vni, 158–161.
18 Here follows the passage quoted on p. 184, above.
19 An Italian translation of this covering letter, made by-Mayer, is printed in the Opere inedite e postume, v, 546.
20 The passages in question are on pp. 490–491 and 544–547.
21 Scrilti vari inediti, pp. 149–152. The date and the occasion of the writing of this fragment and its relation, if any, to the Lettera apologetica are quite uncertain—except that the fragment is certainly later than the Lettera. The parenthesized numerals that follow correspond to those used for Meneghelli's arguments.
22 This appears to be an inexact reference to a passage that occurs in Bk. ii, Ch. xii, of Salviati's Degli avverlimenti delta lingua sopra 'I Decamerone (Venice, 1584), i, 103.
23 The first is on pp. 276–277, the second on pp. 277–280. It seems to me quite possible that Tommaseo wrote the second notice as well as the first.
24 I (Florence, 1863), 9–13.
25 See notes 2, 5, 9, and 14, above.
26 La bïbliofilia, xi, 85–102. The letters are printed on pp. 97–99; the footnote quoted is on p. 88.
27 See Fubini's edition of the Saggi letkrari of Foscolo (Turin, 1926), p. 101, n. 2. Fubini had no occasion to mention the second letter.
28 Ugo Foscolo: An Italian in Regency England (n. 1, above), pp. 179–181; see also nn. 10 and 14, above.
29 See Foscolo's Saggi critici in Opere, ed. Bottaso, ii (Turin, 1950), 196.
30 See Giuseppe Billanovich, Petrarca letterato. I. Lo scrit-toio del Petrarca (Rome, 1947), pp. 257–258. I am grateful to Professor Billanovich for references that I have found useful in the preparation of this article.
31 I suspect that the mention of Cabrières in this letter is due ultimately to Vellutello's theory, stated in the introductory matter in his editions of the Rime, that Cabrières was the home of Laura.
32 The facsimile faces p. 194, in Vol. ii; and the transcription and translation are printed, in her Appendix F, on pp. 225–227.
33 The only other Latin letter attributed to Petrarch that is now thought to be a fabrication is a letter addressed to Giangaleazzo Visconti, published by Francesco Novati in his “Il Petrarca ed i Visconti,” in F. Petrarca e la Lombardia (Milan, 1904), pp. 68–72.
34 See Vincent, p. 29.
