Byron and the Risorgimento

Abstract

While Byron’s death in Greece led to a reevaluation of his reputation, what Italians saw as his sacrifice for liberty only increased their esteem for him. Selections from Byron’s Conversations with Captain Medwin appeared in January 1825 in Florence’s influential periodical LAntologia, published by Giovan Pietro Vieusseux, which sought to counterbalance the romanticism of periodicals like Il Conciliatore and the neoclassicism of Biblioteca italiana, both published in Milan. In 1833, Cesare Cantù lectured on Byron at the Ateneo di Bergamo, a presentation that subsequently became part of an anthology of Byron’s poetry and letters related to his experiences in Greece and Italy (Cantù). While some Italians read Byron’s poetry in English or in French, most read his work in Italian translations, whose poor quality Byron and others have overstated. Edoardo Zuccato contests the view that “translators were enthusiastic but incompetent and misrepresented Byron,” and praises Michele Leoni and Giuseppe Nicolini for their knowledge of English and the quality of their work (82-83). Most of these works contain “few actual misunderstandings of the original texts,” since translators worked directly from English primary texts, as well as occasionally consulting French versions (Zucatto 82). Silvio Pellico, in his April 25, 1819 Il Conciliatore review of an Italian prose translation of Byron’s Corsair, finds the translation very accurate (273).