Ugo Foscolo’s Inni alle Grazie: A celebration of the Arts Through Poetry

Ugo Foscolo is one of the most important figures in Italian literary history. In his fragmentary and unfinished work Inni alle Grazie (Hymns to the Graces), he celebrates the three Graces as goddesses of the arts, imagining a ritual ceremony on the Bellosguardo hills in Florence. This lecture will address Foscolo’s figurative imagery in Inni alle Grazie. As well as considering the writer’s aesthetic principles, it will explore the influence of 18th-19th-century arts on Foscolo’s writing, including landscape painting, interior decoration, sculpture (notably Antonio Canova’s Venere Italica and The Three Graces), dance, gardening and architecture. This demonstrates the unique nature of Inni alle Grazie as a poetic work about the arts.