What do you think?
Rate this book
Sepulchres
The most significant and adored works from the popular Italian poet Ugo Foscolo are collected in this lucid verse translation. Expressing the author’s political, civic, and sentimental concerns, these poems captivate with their immediacy and intimacy. Each work reveals the inner recesses of a passionate, restless, and surprisingly modern mind.
120 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1807
5 people are currently reading
260 people want to read
About the author
Ugo Foscolo
385 books100 followersFoscolo was born on the Ionian island of Zakynthos. His father was Andrea Foscolo, an impoverished Venetian nobleman, and his mother Diamantina Spathis was Greek.
In 1788, on the death of his father, who worked as a physician in Spalato, today Croatia (Split), the family removed to Venice, and at the University of Padua Foscolo completed the studies begun at the Dalmatian grammar school.
Amongst his Paduan teachers was the abbé Cesarotti, whose version of Ossian had made that work highly popular in Italy, and who influenced Foscolo's literary tastes; he knew both modern and Ancient Greek. His literary ambition revealed itself by the appearance in 1797 of his tragedy Tieste--a production which obtained a certain degree of success.
Foscolo, who, for causes not clearly explained, had changed his Christian name Niccolò to that of Ugo, now began to take an active part in the stormy political discussions which the fall of the republic of Venice had provoked. He was a prominent member of the national committees, and addressed an ode to Napoleon Bonaparte, expecting Napoleon to overthrow the Venetian oligarchy and create a free republic.
The Treaty of Campoformio (17 October 1797), by which Napoleon handed Venice over to the Austrians, gave a rude shock to Foscolo, but did not quite destroy his hopes. The state of mind produced by that shock is reflected in his novel Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis) (1798), which was described by the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica as a more politicized version of Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, "for the hero of Foscolo embodies the mental sufferings and suicide of an undeceived Italian patriot just as the hero of Goethe places before us the too delicate sensitiveness embittering and at last cutting short the life of a private German scholar."
The story of Foscolo, like that of Goethe, had a groundwork of melancholy fact. Jacopo Ortis had been a real person; he was a young student of Padua, and committed suicide there under circumstances akin to those described by Foscolo.
Foscolo, like many of his contemporaries, had thought much about the topic of suicide. Cato and the many classical examples of self-destruction described in Plutarch's Lives appealed to the imaginations of young Italian patriots as they had done in France to those of the heroes and heroines of the Gironde. In the case of Foscolo, as in that of Goethe, the effect produced on the writer's mind by the composition of the work seems to have been beneficial. He had seen the ideal of a great national future rudely shattered; but he did not despair of his country, and sought relief in now turning to gaze on the ideal of a great national poet.
After the fall of Venice Foscolo moved to Milan, where he formed a friendship with the older poet Giuseppe Parini, whom he later remembered with admiration and gratitude. In Milan, he published a choice of 12 Sonnets, where he blends the passionate sentiments shown in Ortis with classical control of language and rhythm.
Still hoping that his country would be freed by Napoleon, he served as a volunteer in the French army, took part in the battle of the Trebbia and the siege of Genoa, was wounded and made prisoner. When released he returned to Milan, and there gave the last touches to his Ortis, published a translation of and commentary upon Callimachus, commenced a version of the Iliad and began his translation of Lawrence Sterne's Sentimental Journey. He also took part in a failed memorandum intended to present a new model of unified Italian government to Napoleon.
In 1807, Foscolo wrote his Carme Dei sepolcri, which may be described as a sublime effort to seek refuge in the past from the misery of the present and the darkness of the future. The mighty dead are summoned from their tombs, as ages before they had been in the masterpieces of Greek oratory, to fight again the battles of their country. The inaugural lecture On the origin and duty
In 1788, on the death of his father, who worked as a physician in Spalato, today Croatia (Split), the family removed to Venice, and at the University of Padua Foscolo completed the studies begun at the Dalmatian grammar school.
Amongst his Paduan teachers was the abbé Cesarotti, whose version of Ossian had made that work highly popular in Italy, and who influenced Foscolo's literary tastes; he knew both modern and Ancient Greek. His literary ambition revealed itself by the appearance in 1797 of his tragedy Tieste--a production which obtained a certain degree of success.
Foscolo, who, for causes not clearly explained, had changed his Christian name Niccolò to that of Ugo, now began to take an active part in the stormy political discussions which the fall of the republic of Venice had provoked. He was a prominent member of the national committees, and addressed an ode to Napoleon Bonaparte, expecting Napoleon to overthrow the Venetian oligarchy and create a free republic.
The Treaty of Campoformio (17 October 1797), by which Napoleon handed Venice over to the Austrians, gave a rude shock to Foscolo, but did not quite destroy his hopes. The state of mind produced by that shock is reflected in his novel Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis) (1798), which was described by the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica as a more politicized version of Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, "for the hero of Foscolo embodies the mental sufferings and suicide of an undeceived Italian patriot just as the hero of Goethe places before us the too delicate sensitiveness embittering and at last cutting short the life of a private German scholar."
The story of Foscolo, like that of Goethe, had a groundwork of melancholy fact. Jacopo Ortis had been a real person; he was a young student of Padua, and committed suicide there under circumstances akin to those described by Foscolo.
Foscolo, like many of his contemporaries, had thought much about the topic of suicide. Cato and the many classical examples of self-destruction described in Plutarch's Lives appealed to the imaginations of young Italian patriots as they had done in France to those of the heroes and heroines of the Gironde. In the case of Foscolo, as in that of Goethe, the effect produced on the writer's mind by the composition of the work seems to have been beneficial. He had seen the ideal of a great national future rudely shattered; but he did not despair of his country, and sought relief in now turning to gaze on the ideal of a great national poet.
After the fall of Venice Foscolo moved to Milan, where he formed a friendship with the older poet Giuseppe Parini, whom he later remembered with admiration and gratitude. In Milan, he published a choice of 12 Sonnets, where he blends the passionate sentiments shown in Ortis with classical control of language and rhythm.
Still hoping that his country would be freed by Napoleon, he served as a volunteer in the French army, took part in the battle of the Trebbia and the siege of Genoa, was wounded and made prisoner. When released he returned to Milan, and there gave the last touches to his Ortis, published a translation of and commentary upon Callimachus, commenced a version of the Iliad and began his translation of Lawrence Sterne's Sentimental Journey. He also took part in a failed memorandum intended to present a new model of unified Italian government to Napoleon.
In 1807, Foscolo wrote his Carme Dei sepolcri, which may be described as a sublime effort to seek refuge in the past from the misery of the present and the darkness of the future. The mighty dead are summoned from their tombs, as ages before they had been in the masterpieces of Greek oratory, to fight again the battles of their country. The inaugural lecture On the origin and duty
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
June 14, 2025
Una lettura certamente non facile ma che sono riuscita a superare. Foscolo in questa poesia altro non fa che un inno alla patria, siamo negli anni che precedono il Risorgimento e in pieno Romanticismo italiano che esalta la patria. E Foscolo, sempre con i suoi temi principali (i sepolcri, il tempo e l'amore per la patria) attraverso la rievocazione della storia italiana, in particolare quella classica, quindi greca e latina, esorta a prendere le armi per la patria.
Read
November 12, 2017Letto dopo tanti anni; quanti? 45, forse meno? Letto per la prima volta in seconda media, in brani, sull'antologia. Mi era piaciuto allora quel "ad egregie cose l'animo accende l'urne de' forti, o Pindemonte..." imparato a memoria. Di Foscolo studiato alle Superiori non ricordo più nulla. Ero troppo distratto (e annoiato) allora; non avevo più quell'ansia di novità e quell'apertura, né tanto meno lo stupore che puoi avere a 10, 11 anni. Che dire adesso? Sì, ho letto interamente "Dei Sepolcri" in versione Kindle, ma Foscolo è troppo lontano da me (o io credo di essere troppo lontano da lui)... Certo che 45 anni fa mi era piaciuto molto di più.
June 12, 2023
... finché il Sole / splenderà su le sciagure umane.
September 9, 2013
If you love Italy, its culture, its history, you can't miss this masterpiece. Foscolo will guide you to discover Florence's beauty through its glorious past.
August 12, 2023
"e l'armonia vince di mille secoli il silenzio"
Read
February 14, 2026e riccell ma c re sta cosa dei cimiteri fuori la città
May 19, 2025
4.5⭐️
Romanticism is just death anxiety with pretty metaphors, like pretending that death means something so we don't lose our minds. Thanks Foscolo for the poetic coping mechanism 🙏🏻
Romanticism is just death anxiety with pretty metaphors, like pretending that death means something so we don't lose our minds. Thanks Foscolo for the poetic coping mechanism 🙏🏻
March 11, 2019
Certamente una delle più grandi opere italiane.
Non si parla ovviamente di un’opera imponente dal punto di vista di quantità di versi, ma imponente per il contenuto.
Sorvolando la perfezione e la compattezza della struttura e la precisione dei 4 momenti, che rendono l’opera perfettamente conclusa; trovo incredibile la potenza dello slancio sentimentale del poeta che arriva dritto al cuore del lettore e che personalmente ha lasciato esterrefatto. Senza citare poi l’incredibile bravura del Foscolo nel trattare un argomento come i sepolcri in chiava sentimentale e civile, senza ricadere nelle semplice poesia cimiteriale inglese.
Tutta l’opera, a parer mio, è di una bellezza indescrivibile, particolarmente toccante è il IV momento e la conclusione del III, ma come ripeto è un’opera compatta e ogni momento non potrebbe esistere senza gli altri.
Lavoro magistrale, chiunque abbia dato meno di cinque stelle non può e non potrà mai capire la grandezza di questo autore e della Poesia.
Non si parla ovviamente di un’opera imponente dal punto di vista di quantità di versi, ma imponente per il contenuto.
Sorvolando la perfezione e la compattezza della struttura e la precisione dei 4 momenti, che rendono l’opera perfettamente conclusa; trovo incredibile la potenza dello slancio sentimentale del poeta che arriva dritto al cuore del lettore e che personalmente ha lasciato esterrefatto. Senza citare poi l’incredibile bravura del Foscolo nel trattare un argomento come i sepolcri in chiava sentimentale e civile, senza ricadere nelle semplice poesia cimiteriale inglese.
Tutta l’opera, a parer mio, è di una bellezza indescrivibile, particolarmente toccante è il IV momento e la conclusione del III, ma come ripeto è un’opera compatta e ogni momento non potrebbe esistere senza gli altri.
Lavoro magistrale, chiunque abbia dato meno di cinque stelle non può e non potrà mai capire la grandezza di questo autore e della Poesia.
June 3, 2025
4.5 stars. The one volume in English that contains Foscolo’s major verse in wonderful translations by Nichols. I prefer his translation of “Sepulchres” to the one by Thomas G. Bergin – the language is more fluid and intelligible to the modern ear. On the other hand, I prefer Needham’s translation of The Graces (which I am reading now), but the notes are overwhelming in that edition (a page of footnotes for three lines of text). My suggestion: read Needham for the scholarly introduction and notes, but read this volume translated by Nichols purely to enjoy the musicality of Foscolo’s verse.
May 28, 2025
Un elogio alla poesia che, sola, può vincere sull’oblio della morte. Carme stupendo🫶🏻
February 9, 2019
A beautiful piece, reminding us of the importance of honoring those who came before us.
August 8, 2016
Translating poetry is never anything but a thorny proposition, as everyone knows. How do you get across both metre and mood of the original, while balancing word choice, theme, rhythm - everything that makes up poetry, in short? If you get the mood right, it's usually at the cost of deviating a fair bit from the original with regard to actual words and imagery, as these tend to be not only language- but also culture-specific. Adversely, if you stay close to the choices made in the original with regard to these things, the best that can be said of the translation is usually that it is 'faithful'.
This edition of Ugo Foscolo's "Sepulchres" is bilingual, with the original Italian (Tuscan) printed on each verso facing the translated English printed on each recto. I hope to be able to read the original Italian one day, but as things stand, my grasp of Italian is not sufficient to be able to do much with the original beyond recognizing occasional words, throwing me into the power of the English translation, which, for me at least, does not deliver the spark and revelation Foscolo seems to have engendered with his text.
That being said, it was nevertheless good to finally get a look-in on Foscolo's work and very special to read an elegy to Santa Croce, a church which may in the end be my very favourite in the world.
This edition of Ugo Foscolo's "Sepulchres" is bilingual, with the original Italian (Tuscan) printed on each verso facing the translated English printed on each recto. I hope to be able to read the original Italian one day, but as things stand, my grasp of Italian is not sufficient to be able to do much with the original beyond recognizing occasional words, throwing me into the power of the English translation, which, for me at least, does not deliver the spark and revelation Foscolo seems to have engendered with his text.
That being said, it was nevertheless good to finally get a look-in on Foscolo's work and very special to read an elegy to Santa Croce, a church which may in the end be my very favourite in the world.
May 10, 2015
read this at school, but it didn't suit to my tastes.. I think that this italian masterpiece is a bit too depressing for me, but still, the language and the author's writing style is very good, in my opinion
February 21, 2014
A memoria in prima liceo!! Me li ricordo ancora... non tutti ...
Che splendore, non riesco a credere che l'altro unico voto sia 1 stella. Magari si trovassero ancora capolavori del genere.
Che splendore, non riesco a credere che l'altro unico voto sia 1 stella. Magari si trovassero ancora capolavori del genere.
April 27, 2014
Dio.
Che.
Noia.
Non vedevo l'ora che finisse..
Che.
Noia.
Non vedevo l'ora che finisse..
Read
May 10, 2020non ho capito un cazzo
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews