A New Letter from Byron to Count Alborghetti

This article introduces a newly re-discovered letter, now in the Pforzheimer collection at the New York Public Library, that Byron sent to Count Giuseppe Alborghetti on 11 December 1820. His letter is quick, business-like, and urgent, one of the many that sped between Byron and the Count throughout this period. Alborghetti was Byron's neighbour in Ravenna and the secretary to the Papal Legate of Lower Romagna. Alborghetti was a political ally but not a revolutionary, a reader of Byron's poetry, a confidante, and maybe also a friend. Their correspondence spotlights Byron in one of his most complex roles: as a political actor at once naïve and savvy, firing off reports, questions, and opinions on political affairs that entangled him, involved him, and yet found him always at a remove.