Historic-Military Writings of the Napoleonic Years

Foscolo occasionally devoted himself to publications of a historic-military nature commissioned by the authorities or promoted by himself as part of his varied polygraph activities during his years of direct military service. The Commentario della Battaglia di Marengo (Commentary of the Battle of Marengo) was translated from French upon commission from the government of the Kingdom of Italy and prepared for print in 1806, although it was only made public in 1811 because of the lack of illustrations of the battle that were meant to come from France. Relation de la Bataille de Marengo had been written by General Alexandre Berthier and offered to Napoleon in 1805 on the occasion of his coronation in Italy. The translation of the work into Italian had been promoted by Napoleon and carried out by Foscolo who, despite a great deal of research, effectively limited himself to translating the text. Opere di Raimondo Montecuccoli (Works by Raimondo Montecuccoli, 1807-1808), on the other hand, was a philological salvage operation and, at the same time, a contribution to the patriotic effort to promote works by illustrious Italians. At the same time Foscolo intended to contribute to the progress of Italian military science and the constitution of a national army, an issue he had already addressed in 1801 when he wrote a opinion work Per la compilazione del codice militare italiano (For the compilation of the Italian military code). The works of Montecuccoli, a courageous 17th-century commander, were known in Italy thanks to their French translation; Foscolo recovered the Italian edition of 1704, which was full of mistakes and gaps, and used the Latin edition that came out in Vienna in 1718, introducing the corrections and additions he wanted. The initiative was meant to have generated major earnings for the editor but, apart from a government subsidy, the work did not enjoy the success Foscolo hoped for and only a few copies were sold.