Theatrical Spinning: Ricciarda and Ugo Foscolo's Campaign For Fame

"Ricciarda, a tragedy, is one of Foscolo's most celebrated works."

—Anonymous (1827)¹

Ugo Foscolo's name does not make today's short list of Italy's great dramatists. Contemporary Italianists often overlook Foscolo's contribution to the Italian theatrical tradition, despite the fact that he wrote three neoclassical, or Alfierian, tragedies: Tieste (Venice, 1797), Ajace (Milan, 1811), and Ricciarda (Bologna, 1813).² The oversight is with good reason; these works are not particularly impressive, and they were not well received by Italian audiences.³ Yet despite the poor quality of the tragedies and their lack of Italian success, Foscolo did manage to achieve some level of renown as a tragedian, at least for a time—though only in England, where he resided during an eleven year long period of self-exile (1816–1827).

Foscolo's positive reputation in England as a successful Italian tragedian is hard to explain on its face. None of his tragedies were ever performed on the English stage, and they were not widely read. Only Ricciarda was published in England, after Foscolo's English reputation had already been established. Despite this fact, Foscolo was recognized in English literary circles as an accomplished dramatist for the better part of his residence in that country. In a way, Foscolo was a proto-celebrity to a large extent—he was known mainly for being well-known as a prominent Italian tragedian.⁴ But why? How did Foscolo manage to convince the English literary aristocracy that he should be taken seriously as a prominent Italian tragedian, despite his failures in Italy and the absence of his works from the English stage? Foscolo's mediocre—or worse—tragedies may not warrant close examination by contemporary scholars based on their own merits, but I believe that this interesting question certainly does. If nothing else, the inquiry may provide some insight into Foscolo's greatest success as a tragedian: his self-promotion as a successful tragedian.

I

Foscolo's first tragedy, Tieste, was by far his most successful, though it achieved only middling results. It was performed a total of ten times in January of 1797 at the Teatro Sant'Angelo, Venice. A successful drama at the time typically ran for more than twenty-five performances, indicating that Foscolo's work was not particularly well received.⁵ Foscolo was only a teenager when he wrote Tieste, however, and the fact that the tragedy was produced on the stage at all encouraged him to persist with his attempts in the genre.

Unfortunately for Foscolo, these subsequent efforts were unmitigated disasters. Foscolo put forth his second tragedy, Ajace several years after Tieste. The 1811 Milan debut was a complete debacle. To begin with, Ajace met with heavy resistance in the form of a hostile audience spurred by Foscolo's literary nemesis, Urbano Lampredi. Lampredi posted an epigram at the theater's entrance between the second and third acts, and it circulated throughout the audience: "Qui estinto giace il furibondo Ajace. / Requiescat in pace. . . ."⁶ Foscolo could not be blamed for feeling that this inauspicious start colored the bulk of the performance. Lampredi's sabotage was not successful, however, and the production continued to thunderous applause after Act III. The audience called for Foscolo to take the stage and accept his praise, as was the custom, but he was nowhere to be found.⁷ The snubbed audience was quick to find fault with the rest of the performance and they did not have far to look. The audience broke out in uncontrollable laughter in the penultimate scene of the fifth act when the Compagnia Reale's director, Salvatore Fabbrichesi, recited the lines: ". . . O Salamini, o soli / Di tanti forti, o sciagurati avanzi, / Che più vi resta omai?" (E.N. 2: 137). Foscolo used the words "O Salamini" to refer to the people of the Greek island of Salamis, Ajace's birthplace, but the audience could only think of sausages made in Lombardy, "anch'esse chiamate salamini."⁸ Foscolo's phrase "sciagurati avanzi," or "wretched leftovers," also provoked unintentional images of food. Such hilarity no doubt...