Antoine de La Fosse

Antoine de La Fosse (alias Sieur d'Aubigny; 1653 or 1658 – 2 November 1708)[1][2] Premier gentilhomme de la Chambre [fr],[3][4] was a French playwright who wrote four tragedies, and was the last French author of tragedies to make a name for himself at the end of the 17th century.

[5][6][7] The son of a goldsmith and the nephew of painter Charles de La Fosse, Antoine served first as the secretary for the Envoy of France to Florence.

La Fosse was then attached to Marquis Francois Joseph Créquy (1662–1702) who died in the Battle of Luzzara on 15 August 1702, before he became secretary for the 2nd Duke of Aumont Louis-Marie-Victor d'Aumont (1632–1704).

[10][11][12] La Fosse's chef d'œuvre Manlius Capitolinus (1698) about Marcus Manlius Capitolinus (died 384 BCE), was imitated from the English dramatist Thomas Otway's play Venice Preserv'd, who in turn had taken his plot from César Vichard de Saint-Réal's Conjuration des Espagnols contre la République de Venise en l'Année M. DC.

[13][14][15] La Fosse's later plays were not as successful, but according to theater historian Phyllis Hartnoll in The Oxford Companion to the Theatre, many of his contemporaries thought he might have rivalled Jean Racine had he began his dramatic career earlier.