Revered Italian poet and novelist whose works express Italian sentiments and anxieties during the Napoleonic Wars and French Revolution. Early an enthusiast for Napoleon, he debuted on the literary scene with a poem entitled A Bonaparte liberatore (1797). His disillusionment soon after was expressed in his novel Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (1802), modeled on Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther. Foscolo's most famous work was Dei Sepolcri (1807).