The Piano di Studi (Plan of studies) of 1796
The Piano di studi was written by the 18-year-old Foscolo in 1796 and was only published posthumously in 1842 when it was found by Luigi Carrer among the poet's papers. It is an extremely useful document that records the various stages of Foscolo's eclectic early development and provides indications about the first works the author wrote and the works he planned to undertake.
Foscolo indicated in the first part the authors and works that should form the basis of his cultural grounding, dividing them into subjects and literary genres. Religious texts (the Gospel and the Bible) and classical texts (Thucydides, Xenophon, Cicero, Sallustius, Livy and Plutarch) were inserted into the sections on Morality, Politics, Metaphysics, Theology and History. The Poetry section, the largest by some distance, is split by genre (epics, lyrical poetry, drama, religious, tragic etc.) and the writers are listed in chronological order inside each subsection: alongside the classic writers (Homer, Virgil, Sappho, Anacreon and others) and Italians of the past (Dante, Petrarch, Sannazaro, Ariosto, Tasso, Metastasio, Rolli etc.) are contemporary Italian and European writers, an indication of Foscolo's independent, original taste and capacity to assimilate the most innovative offerings of late 18th century culture: Ossian, Gray, Parini, Alfieri, Klopstock, Young. The two sections on Criticism and Arts, which include the names of Longino, Marmontel, Mengs and Winkelmann, close the part devoted to readings.
In the second part Foscolo lists the written works he intends to undertake in the near future: original and translated prose and verse, poems and tragedies. The list is extremely long: works written and then rejected by the author are cited as well as texts planned but never created and works deferred to the near future. Among the translation projects, which are given equal consideration to original works, is “Il contratto sociale di Gioan-Giacopo” (The social contract of John-Jacques). Such disparate choices, which range from erudite works to epistolary novels, Arcadian and pastoral verses and sepulchral compositions (the list could go on), show the young Foscolo's great willingness to cross different styles and genres, in line with the changes of taste of the end of the century.
