The Final Years

Assailed by creditors, Foscolo was forced to abandon Digamma Cottage at the start of 1824; he moved to a rented room in London under a false name and managed to return to the home in August 1824, although not for long.

In perennial financial difficulty, Foscolo frequently changed address and identity; in autumn 1824 he was in serious difficulty because of his debts. In his moments of most dramatic need the banker Hudson Gurney, one of his most faithful English friends, came to the rescue with timely loans.

The writer led a withdrawn existence at the various homes that he constantly changed, some of which were in an extremely poor state, almost taking pleasure in the laborious solitude, dedicating himself to study and writing; in these final years he worked on his translation of the Iliad, on Dante and Boccaccio again, and on Tasso; he published an article in the “London Magazine” entitled Women of Italy. In 1825 he became an Italian teacher at a female institute; the following year he applied for the professorship of Italian at the recently founded University of London.

In the meantime his neglected health deteriorated because of a bilary illness; in 1827 he moved to Bohemia House at Chiswick in the London suburb of Turnham Green. His conditions became extremely serious in the summer; he was operated on by his Italian doctor, Dr. Negri, for a form of hydropsy and spent his last weeks surrounded by a few extremely loyal friends, including his collaborator Giulio Bossi with whom he was preparing Antologia Critica di Poesia Italiana (Critical Anthology of Italian Poetry), and Spanish exile Miguel Riego, the executor of the writer's literary estate after the death of Floriana. He died on September 10 and was buried at Chiswick Cemetery. His ashes were taken to Florence's Santa Croce Church in 1871.