Discourses “Della servitù dell’Italia”(Of the Servitude of Italy)

Among the few papers that Foscolo took with him on the night of March 30 1815 when he left Milan for ever was the manuscript of the discourses Della Servitù d’Italia, which the writer continued to work on during the first period of exile. The work was conceived for self-apologetic purposes, but it also raised the general problem of an Italian initiative within the crisis of the Napoleonic domination.

Foscolo found himself the focus of a series of personal attacks in the first few months of 1815; in February an anonymous booklet (which in reality was the work of Senator Leopoldo Armaroli) appeared entitled Sulla rivoluzione di Milano seguita nel giorno 20 aprile (On the revolution of Milan of april 20) in which Foscolo was unjustly accused of being one of those responsible for the bloody revolt of April 20 1814 when the city was about to be handed over to the Austrians. Foscolo had said previously that he was in favour of an independent kingdom led by Eugenio di Beauharnais or Gioacchino Murat, but the hypothesis that he was one of the promoters of the revolt, which he immediately condemned, is out of the question.

The plan for a book Della Servitù dell’Italia, which Foscolo gave the title Dell’indipendenza del Regno d’Italia (Of the independence of the Kingdom of Italy) in the first draft, featured a series of discourses in which the writer addressed all Italians, calling on them to consider the deplorable state of the nation, which was debased by infighting. An introductory discourse is followed by Discorso agli Italiani di ogni setta (Discourse to  Italians of every sect) in which Foscolo reiterated the danger of the division of the people into parties and a series of questions about Italian independence that were meant to have formed the basis of the second discourse, which remained incomplete.