The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis by Ugo Foscolo
Saddened with his countrys loss of freedom, disillusioned with life and racked with loneliness and ennui, university student Jacopo Ortis can only find some comfort in the company of his friends and in his love for Teresa. But when his studies call him back to Padua and he is separated from her, Jacopos torments become unbearable, and he feels that there is only one way out of his misery a symbolic gesture against fate, God and all the tyrants of this world. Allegedly based on the real-life tragic story of the Italian student Girolamo Ortis, and suffused with the authors own autobiographical experiences, Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis is a masterly prose work by one of Italys most celebrated poets, and perhaps the greatest Italian novel of the Romantic movement.