ABSTRACT
Among the books that Ugo Foscolo left behind in Italy at the time of his self-imposed exile and entrusted to his friend Silvio Pellico, are the essays of Montaigne, Locke, and Hume, while in London Hume's letters to Robertson are a frequent source of inspiration during the composition of the Lettere scritte dall'Inghilterra. Foscolo often praises his free education and in the Pavia lessons he considers it to have been instrumental to the fostering and strengthening of his artistic genius. Foscolo reveals a profound affinity to philosophical empiricism in his conception of nature and education, as well as in his view of passions and the limits of rational inquiry. Hume observes that 'upon the whole, this struggle of passion and reason, as it is called, diversifies human life, and makes men so different not only from each other, but also from themselves in different times'.
