Melchiorre Cesarotti

Intellectual dialogue and relations of affection between Foscolo and Melchiorre Cesarotti (Padua 1730-1808) were constant right from the young poet's early development. As soon as Foscolo arrived in Venice, he came into contact with a group of Cesarotti's followers who attended the professor's lectures in Padua and were the first interlocutors for the poetic experiments of his youth. Cesarotti immediately appeared a maestro to the young poet for his anti-erudite, anti-pedantic attitudes and his work to renew Italian poetic language: "To the man of genius, to the poet of the nation, finally to the translator of Ossian, I set about paying a tribute that my heart made from the first instant that I started to read your verses"  ("All’uom di genio, al Poeta della nazione, al Traduttore finalmente dell’Ossian io mi accingo a rendere un tributo che già il mio cuore gli rese dal primo istante ch’io cominciai a leggere i versi suoi", Venice, September 28 1795, in Ep. I, 17-8). This affectionate tone of dialogue never ended during the exchanges of letters in the following years in which Foscolo addressed the maestro as "Padre mio" (My father), despite there being no shortage of misunderstandings and disagreements between the two literary figures. Cesarotti was perplexed by Ortis, which he expressed a rather emblematic opinion of:  "I don't want to talk of your Ortis. This arouses compassion, admiration and repugnance in me." (“Del tuo Ortis non ho voglia di parlarne. Esso mi desta compassione, ammirazione, e ribrezzo”, Ep. I, 180-181); Foscolo alternates between admiration and respect for the old literary figure and intolerance of the inevitable differences in views on criticism, the problem of the language, translation and the relationship with classical antiquity. The translator's statement of intent that precedes Esperimento di Traduzione dell’Iliade di Omero apparently contains praise for Cesarotti, as he is ranked alongside Parini, Alfieri and Monti as one of the figures responsible for the renewal of Italian poetic language that took place in the final decades of the 18^th century, although later here and elsewhere Foscolo condemns Cesarotti's translation, as he considers him the interpreter of a none too faithful way of translating Homer, an approach which is incapable of properly rendering the Greek text's most intrinsic message.