Antonietta Fagnani Arese

Antonietta Fagnani Arese (Milan, 19 November 1778 – Genoa, 11 December 1847) was a Milanese noble woman, translator of Goethe, and correspondent of Ugo Foscolo.

[citation needed] Fluent in French, English, and German, she translated The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe into Italian and helped Ugo Foscolo with his revisions of The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis (1802).

[citation needed] A Milanese legend tells that at a full moon the ghost of Antonietta, as protector of lovers, would appear on the balcony of Palazzo Arese at 8 corso Venezia.

[3] Antonietta's reputation was often one of controversy: Stendhal referred to her as a femme de génie,[4] Vincenzo Monti admired her greatly, and Giuseppe Pecchio, biographer of Foscolo, wrote: "She makes a game of men because she believes them born like roosters, made for loving, jealousy, and scuffles" ("Si fa gioco degli uomini perché li crede nati come i galli per amare, ingelosirsi e azzuffarsi")[citation needed] Giuseppe Rovani, in his masterwork Cento anni, wrote: "most beautiful of beauties, she had much spirit, much ingenuity, much culture (she spoke four languages); she was kind, generous, and affable; in sum, she constituted the rare combination of egrege qualities; but all of them seemed to fall apart under the hurricane of her one defect.

She made love her only pastime; but a pastime that was tumultuous, quivering, restless; one must say that this love was parent of that which remained naked in Greece, as Foscolo said" ("bellissima fra le belle, aveva molto spirito, molto ingegno, molta coltura (parlava quattro lingue); era buona, generosa e affabile; costituiva insomma il complesso rarissimo di egrege qualità; ma tutte parevano sfasciarsi sotto l'uragano di un difetto solo.