Commentari della Storia di Napoli (Commentaries on the History of Naples)

Commentari della storia di Napoli, written by Foscolo not before 1801, is an incomplete, fragmented work that tells of the events of Parthenopean Republic from the entry of the French into Naples in 1799. It is part of a broader project in which Foscolo intended to give an overview of Italian history from 1789 to the return of the French in 1800; also part of this project was a book entitled Commentari Cisalpini (Cisalpine Commentaries), which was lost when the manuscript was handed by Quirina Mocenni Maggiotti to Giuseppe Mazzini, who was preparing his edition of Scritti Politici Inediti  (Unpublished political writings) by Ugo Foscolo in London.

Commentari stemmed from Foscolo's desire to interpret and report the history of his time, narrating the events of contemporary Italy from a pro-independence, patriotic perspective. It retraced the tragic events in Naples with the intention of comprehending the reasons for the Republic's defeat, substantially attributing blame to the failure of the French Directorate, which was hostile to the patriots' aim of unification and was the architect of a policy of exploitation and betrayal of the Neapolitans. The aim of this historic reconstruction, which is too fragmentary to allow more in depth evaluations, was to promote the project of unification and independence, highlighting the ambiguity of French policy, in part in view of the political prospects that opened up after the victory of Marengo in 1800.