Vittorio Alfieri and the 'English Republic': Reflections on an Elective Affinity

The essay aims to retrace the evolution of Vittorio Alfieri’s interest for Great Britain’s history, culture and frame of mind. This appreciation emerges quite evidently from Alfieri’s private documents and autobiography, but also from many observations entrusted to his political works (Della Tirannide; Del Principe e delle Lettere). Yet, the network of relations between Alfieri and the Anglo-Saxon world deserves a more thorough critical research, starting from his juvenile associations (at Turin’s Accademia Reale), through the project (then shelved) of embracing a Diplomatic career, to his proximity to masonic circles. Appreciating Alfieri’s ‘English Myth’ more exhaustively entails a critical interpretation of his personal judgment about the Stuart dynasty, which informs his rather unusual reading of the Mary Stuart affair in the homonymous tragedy. In addition to that, British Parliamentary monarchy remained an essential political point of reference for Alfieri, even in the delicate phase in which he sided with American rebels, and more predictably in the aftermath of the French revolution, when his anti-French sentiment became more and more deeply-rooted.