Abstract:

Ugo Foscolo was born in Zakynthos in 1778 and died in 1827 in England, where he had been in self-exile since 1816. His compatriots paid tribute to him with a ceremony in the Catholic Church of the city. They paid homage to the great man who distinguished himself in Italian Letters as well as with his commitment and involvement in the public sector of a European Continent rocked by the upheavals of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars and the Restoration. The funeral oration, a Eulogy, composed in Italian, according to the rules of classical rhetoric, was delivered by Dionysios Solomos in front of an empty coffin. The choice of the orator, already known by his Anthem (Hymn) to Liberty, and the portrait of the man he painted in his eulogy, provide an occasion to observe Solomos's own ambitions to excellence as well as the expectations of his milieu in the Heptanese, which was under British rule at the time.

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