Pellico

Pellico, SILVIO, an Italian poet, celebrated for his long and cruel imprisonment by the Austrians, was born 24th June 1788, at Saluzzo, in Piedmont, and was educated in Pignerol, where his father, Onorato Pellico, a lyric poet, had a silk-factory. In his sixteenth year he accompanied his sister Rosina (on her marriage) to Lyons, where he remained until Foscolo's Sepolcri awakened in him a strong patriotic feeling and an irresistible desire to return to Italy. Coming, about 1810, to Milan, he was warmly received by Ugo Foscolo and Vincenzo Monti, and became French tutor in the military school. His tragedies of Laodamia and Francesca da Rimini gained him an honorable name amongst Italian poets. He also translated the Manfred of Byron, with whom he had become acquainted. He lived in great intimacy with the most eminent patriots and authors of liberal views, and took an active part in a periodical called Il Conciliatore, which after a time was suppressed on account of its liberal tone. In 1820 he was arrested on a charge of Carbonarism, and sent to the prison of Sta Margherita, and afterwards to the Piombi at Venice. After two years' imprisonment he was condemned to death, but had his sentence commuted to fifteen years' imprisonment, and was carried to the fortress of Spielberg near Brunn; he was, however, liberated in August 1830. During his imprisonment he had written two other dramas; and afterwards he published an account of his sufferings during his ten years' imprisonment, under the title Le mie Prigioni (Paris, 1833), which has been translated into many languages, and has made his name familiar where it would not have been known on account of his poetry. Pellico's health, never robust, was permanently injured. The Marchioness of Barolo received him into her house at Turin as her secretary. Pellico subsequently published numerous tragedies and other poems, and a little catechism on the duties of man. He died January 31, 1854. See the Life by Chiala (Italian, 1852), and that by Bourdon (Paris, 8th ed. 1885).