A period of intense creativity (1802-1804)

The stay in Milan, which lasted a number of months, was characterized by a certain sense of unease on the part of the writer, who was involved in a tumultuous relationship with Antonietta Fagnani Arese and became embroiled in an altercation at a gambling hall in January 1802 that led to the suspension of his rank and his captain's salary; at the same time Foscolo dedicated himself with commitment to study and writing, opening up a highly productive period. Literary activity in this period seemed to be a form of consolation for the marginal political position that Foscolo was forced into by the pro-independence and pro-democracy stances that had attracted the suspicion of the authorities.

In October 1802 the first edition of Le ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis came out after another incomplete print that was published at the end of 1801; in the same period Pisa's “Nuovo Giornale de’ Letterati” published eight sonnets and the ode A Luigia Pallavicini caduta da cavallo under the title Poesie; it was an initial body of compositions which others would be added to in volumes of poetry published in 1802 and in 1803.

His poetic and literary activity was flanked by works of learning that first led the writer to take on the complex translation of De Rerum Natura by Lucretius and then to put Catullus's Latin translation of  Callimachus's Coma Berenices  into Italian, with a comprehensive system of explanatory notes.