Foscolo devoted himself to the study and translation of Lucretius between 1802 and 1803 while he was preparing the Milan edition of Poesie. Of this work, which was subsequently considered too ambitions and abandoned for the translation of, and comment on Chioma di Berenice, remain notes written in the margin of Alessandro Marchetti's De Rerum Natura and a few Frammenti (Fragments) from the planned three-part Discorsi (Discourses): Della Poesia Lucreziana (Of Lucretius's poetry), De’ Tempi di Lucrezio (Of Lucretius's time) and Della religione Lucreziana (Of Lucretius's religion).

Lucretius's poetry touched on themes that were particularly congenial to Foscolo's sensibilities in this period; therefore the interest in the Latin poet stems from thought that Foscolo was developing about existential themes: religion, which has the job of consoling men within a mechanistic conception of existence, the role of beauty, the civil value of art, pain for the homeland, meditation on death via Epicurean philosophy.

The interest in Lucretius was also part of a more general view on the political and social role of ancient religions, in a line of reflection that would then be expressed in a more articulated way in the Pavia lectures; and, viewing Lucretius's work in relation to his time, Foscolo experimented a historical-critical approach that he would perfect in subsequent works, above all in the period of exile.

The Frammenti also contain interesting autobiographical material and critical reflections: in them Foscolo argued that the greatest poets are those who "dictated theology, politics and history to nations with their poems; so Homer, and the Jewish prophets and Dante Alighieri and Shakespeare” ("la teologia, e la politica e la storia dettavano co’ lor poemi alle nazioni; onde Omero, e i profeti ebrei e Dante Alighieri e Shakespeare”); he named Alfieri and Parini among his contemporaries.