From Split to Venice

In 1784 Andrea Foscolo was transferred to Split, an important Venetian colony on the Dalmatian coast, with the position of military hospital surgeon, a post that had previously belonged to his father. The following year his family joined him there; after receiving an initial summary education at Zante, Ugo completed his first regular studies at the local Archbishop's seminary under the guidance of Francesco Gianuizzi. The life of the family was disrupted by the father's death in 1788; Diamantina went to Corfu and then to Venice to resolve family problems, leaving the children split between relatives on the Ionian Islands of Zante and Corfu. Ugo was put into the care of his Aunt Giovanna, his mother's sister, and returned to Zante, where he stayed until 1792, when he went to stay with his mother in Venice for a short spell. It was not until 1793 that the family was finally reunited in Venice, in a house at Campo delle Gatte, not far from San Mark's Square, in the Castello quarter. The first period in Venice was not easy: the family, helped in part by Andrea's acquaintances and relatives, lived in economic straits. Foscolo attended the San Cipriano school at Murano with little benefit, but his education developed with self-teaching, above all thanks to private reading and conversation with literary figures and men of culture belonging to the lively Venetian cultural environment, which he soon came into contact with.