country were too bold to be even submitted to the dictator of France. The year 1807 witnessed the appearance of his Carme sui sepolcri, of which the entire spirit and language may be described as a sublime effort to seek refuge in the past from the misery of the present and the darkness of the future. The mighty dead are summoned from their tombs, as ages before they had been in the masterpieces of Greek oratory, to fight again the battles of their country. The inaugural lecture on the origin and duty of literature, delivered by Foscolo in January 1809 when appointed to the chair of Italian eloquence at Pavia, was conceived in the same spirit. In this lecture Foscolo urged his young countrymen to study letters, not in obedience to academic traditions, but in their relation to individual and national life and growth. The sensation produced by this lecture had no slight share in provoking the decree of Napoleon by which the chair of national eloquence was abolished in all the Italian universities. Soon afterwards Foscolo’s tragedy of Ajax was represented but with little success at Milan, and its supposed allusions to Napoleon rendering the author an object of suspicion, he was forced to remove from Milan to Tuscany. The chief fruits of his stay in Florence are the tragedy of Ricciarda, the Ode to the Graces, left unfinished, and the completion of his version of the Sentimental Journey (1813). His version of Sterne is an important feature in his personal history. When serving with the French he had been at the Boulogne camp, and had traversed much of the ground gone over by Yorick; and in his memoir of Didimo Cherico, to whom the version is ascribed, he throws much curious light on his own character. He returned to Milan in 1813, until the entry of the Austrians; thence he passed into Switzerland, where he wrote a fierce satire in Latin on his political and literary opponents; and finally he sought the shores of England at the close of 1816.
During the eleven years passed by Foscolo in London, until his death there, he enjoyed all the social distinction which the most brilliant circles of the English capital confer on foreigners of political and literary renown, and experienced all the misery which follows on a disregard of the first conditions of domestic economy. His contributions to the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, his dissertations in Italian on the text of Dante and Boccaccio, and still more his English essays on Petrarch, of which the value was enhanced by Lady Dacre’s admirable translations of some of Petrarch’s finest sonnets, heightened his previous fame as a man of letters. But his want of care and forethought in pecuniary matters involved him in much embarrassment, and at last consigned him to a prison; and when released he felt bitterly the change in his social position, and the coldness now shown to him by many whom he had been accustomed to regard as friends. His general bearing in society—if we may accept on this point the testimony of so keen an observer and so tolerant a man as Sir Walter Scott—had unhappily not been such as to gain and retain lasting friendships. He died at Turnham Green on the 10th of October 1827. Forty-four years after his death, in 1871, his remains were brought to Florence, and with all the pride, pomp and circumstance of a great national mourning, found their final resting-place beside the monuments of Machiavelli and Alfieri, of Michelangelo and Galileo, in Italy’s Westminster Abbey, the church of Santa Croce. To that solemn national tribute Foscolo was fully entitled. For the originality of his thoughts and the splendour of his diction his country honours him as a great classic author. He had assigned to the literature of his nation higher aims than any which it previously recognized. With all his defects of character, and through all his vicissitudes of fortune, he was always a sincere and courageous patriot.
Ample materials for the study of Foscolo’s character and career may be found in the complete series of his works published in Florence by Le Monnier. The series consists of Prose letterarie, (4 vols., 1850); Epistolario (3 vols., 1854); Prose politiche (1 vol., 1850); Poesie (1 vol., 1856); Lettere di Ortis (1 vol., 1858); Saggi di critica storico-letteraria (1st vol., 1859; 2nd vol., 1862). To this series must be added the very interesting work published at Leghorn in 1876, Lettere inedite del Foscolo, del Giordani, e della Signora di Staël, a Vincenzo Monti. The work published at Florence in the summer of 1878, Vita di Ugo Foscolo, di Pellegrino Artusi, throws much doubt on the genuineness of the text in Foscolo’s writings as given in the complete Florence edition, whilst it furnishes some curious and original illustrations of Foscolo’s familiarity with the English language. (J. M. S.)
FOSS, EDWARD (1787–1870), English lawyer and biographer,
was born in London on the 16th of October 1787. He was a
solicitor by profession, and on his retirement from practice in
1840, he devoted himself to the study of legal antiquities. His
Judges of England (9 vols., 1848–1864) is a standard work,
characterized by accuracy and extensive research. Biographia
Juridica, a Biographical Dictionary of English Judges, appeared
shortly after his death. He assisted in founding the Incorporated
Law Society, of which he was president in 1842 and 1843. He
died of apoplexy on the 27th of July 1870.
FOSSANO, a town and episcopal see of Piedmont, Italy,
in the province of Cuneo, 15 m. N.E. of it by rail, 1180 ft. above
sea-level. Pop. (1901) 7696 (town), 18,175 (commune). It has
an imposing castle with four towers, begun by Filippo d’Acaia
in 1314. The cathedral was reconstructed at the end of the
18th century. The place began to acquire some importance in
the 13th century. It appears as a commune in 1237, but in
1251 had to yield to Asti. It finally surrendered in 1314 to
Filippo d’Acaia, whose successor handed it over to the house of
Savoy. It lies on the main line from Turin to Cuneo, and has
a branch line to Mondovì.
FOSSANUOVA, an abbey of Italy, in the province of Rome,
near the railway station of Sonnino, 64 m. S.E. of Rome. It
is the finest example of a Cistercian abbey, and of the Burgundian
Early Gothic style, in Italy, and dates from the end of the 12th
to the end of the 13th century. The church (1187–1208) is
closely similar to that of Casamari. The other conventual
buildings also are noteworthy. Thomas Aquinas died here in
1274.
See C. Enlart, Origines françaises de l’architecture gothique en Italie (Paris, 1894) (Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, fasc. 66).
FOSSE (or Foss) WAY, the Early English name of a Roman
road or series of roads in Britain, used later by the English,
running from Lincoln by Leicester and Bath to Exeter. Almost
all the Roman line is still in use as modern road or lane. It
passes from Lincoln through Newark and Leicester (the Roman
Ratae) to High Cross (Venonae), where it intersects Watling Street
at a point often called “the centre of England.” Hence it runs to
Moreton-in-the-Marsh, Cirencester, Bath and Ilchester, crosses
the hills near Chard, Axminster and Honiton, and enters Exeter.
Antiquaries have taken it farther, usually to Totnes, but without
warrant. (See further under Ermine Street.) (F. J. H.)
FOSSICK (probably an English dialectical expression, meaning
fussy or troublesome), a term applied by the gold diggers of
Australia to the search for gold by solitary individuals, in
untried localities or in abandoned diggings. A “fossicker,”
or pocket miner, is one who buys up the right to search old
claims, in the hope of finding gold overlooked by previous
diggers.
FOSSOMBRONE (anc. Forum Sempronii), a town and episcopal
see of the Marches, Italy, in the province of Pesaro and Urbino,
11 m. E.S.E. of the latter by road, 394 ft. above sea-level. Pop.
(1901) town, 7531, commune, 10,847. The town is situated
in the valley of the Metauro, in the centre of fine scenery, at the
meeting-point of roads to Fano, to the Furlo pass and Fossato
di Vico (the ancient Via Flaminia), to Urbino and to Sinigaglia,
the last crossing the river by a fine bridge. The cathedral,
rebuilt in 1772–1784, contains the chief work of the sculptor
Domenico Rosselli of Rovezzano, a richly sculptured ancona
of 1480. S. Francesco has a lunette by him over the portal.
The library, founded by a nephew of Cardinal Passionei, contains
some antiquities. Above the town is a medieval castle. There
is a considerable trade in silk.
The ancient Forum Sempronii lay about 2 m. to the N.E. at S. Martino al Piano, where remains still exist. It was a station on the Via Flaminia and a municipium. The date of its foundation is not known. Excavations in 1879–1880 led to the discovery of a house and of other buildings on the ancient road (A.
