In Novembre 1807 Foscolo confided to his friend Marzia Martinengo Cesaresco (Ep. II, p. 315) that he aspired to the position of professor of eloquence at Pavia, which had become vacant after the death of the holder, Luigi Cerretti. The writer, who was almost 30, was now fed up of the military life and hoped to find a position that would guarantee him a regular salary and leave him time to devote to his studies. The appointment was signed in March 1808; Foscolo should have started lessons the following autumn, but in December the government proceeded with a reform of university studies that stopped all first-year teaching, including eloquence at Pavia, with a decree.
Foscolo had already moved to a house furnished at great cost in the university city and he tried in vain to have the measure revoked, with the intervention of Vincenzo Monti; he decided to hold a series of lectures anyway, even though the decree allowed the faculty to do without the teaching while maintaining the salary for the year in course.
The inaugural lecture, held on January 22 1809, was followed by a large crowd, some of whom had come from Milan. Among those present was Vincenzo Monti, who in a letter of January 23 advised Foscolo to add words of praise for the Emperor in the printed version of the lecture (Milan, Stamperia Reale, March 1809), and he received an indignant refusal. The cycle of five lectures that followed the inaugural one took place between February and June; at the end of his term in Pavia, at a unspecified date but probably in June, Foscolo gave a lecture Sull'Origine e i Limiti della Giustizia (On the Origins and limits of the justice).
Professor of Eloquence at Pavia University
