Alessandro Verri

Alessandro Verri (9 November 1741 – 23 September 1816) was an Italian author.

Born in Milan into an aristocratic family, as a young man he participated in the Accademia dei Pugni, founded together with his brother Pietro Verri and their friends Cesare Beccaria, Alfonso Longo, Pietro Secchi, Giambattista Biffi and Luigi Lambertenghi. Later he collaborated in the magazine Il Caffè. In this period he wrote the Saggio sulla Storia d'Italia ("Essay on Italian History", 1761-1766).

Background

Subsequently Verri moved to Rome where his main attention moved to theatre. He was one of the first Italian translators of Shakespeare. He wrote two tragedies: Pantea and La congiura di Milano ("The Conjure of Milan"), both published in 1779.

In 1782 he wrote the novel Le avventure di Saffo poetessa di Mitilene ("The adventures of Sappho, poet of Mitilene"), but his most famous work is the Notti romane al sepolcro degli Scipioni ("Roman Nights at the Scipiones' Sepulchre"), published in two parts in 1792 and 1804, in which the ghosts of illustrious men of the past (Cicero, Caesar and others) evoke the ancient Roman civilizations, stressing its violent background in contrast with the peaceful Christian civilization. A third part remained unpublished until 1967.

His other works include a translation of Daphne and Chloe (1812), the novel La vita di Erostrato ("Life of Herostratus", 1815) and Vicende memorabili de' suoi tempi dal 1789 al 1801 ("Memorable happenings of His Times from 1789 to 1801", 1858). Also notable is his correspondence with his brother Pietro.

Verri died in Rome in 1816.

The younger brother of Alessandro Verri and Pietro Verri, Giovanni Verri, is supposed to be the natural father of the noted Italian novelist and poet Alessandro Manzoni. Their other brother, Carlo, was also a politician.