Vincenzo Monti (19 February 1754 – 13 October 1828) was an Italian poet, playwright, translator, and scholar, the greatest interpreter of Italian neoclassicism in all of its various phases. His verse translation of the Iliad is considered one of the greatest of them all, with its iconic opening ("Cantami, o Diva, del Pelide Achille,/L'ira funesta[...]", lib. I, verses 1-2) becoming an extremely recognizable phrase among Italians (for example, being the text shown when opening a font file in Microsoft Windows). Biography Monti was born in Alfonsine, Province of Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna the son of Fedele and Domenica Maria Mazzari, landowners. He was educated at the seminar in Faenza and at the University of Ferrara, where he studied medicine and jurisprudence. Chronology In 1775 he is admitted to membership in the Academy of Arcadians and the next year his first book is published: "La visione di Ezechiello" ("Ezekiel's vision"). In 1778 Monti moves to Rome, invited there by cardinal and papal legate in Ferrara, Scipione Borghese. He marries who bears him a daughter, Costanza, and a son, Francesco (the latter dies at only two years old). Through her the singer Fanny Eckerlin is his niece. He published in 1785 his tragedy of "Aristodemo," which was received with great favour. His poem entitled "Bassvilliana," (1793), suggested by the murder of Nicolas Jean Hugou de Basseville, envoy of the French Republic at Rome, had also great popularity, and passed through eighteen editions in six months. In 1797 he leaves Rome and, after visiting Bologna and Venice, finally settles in Milan, forsaking his former opposition to the French Revolution (expressed in the "Bassvilliana") and becoming a supporter of the newborn Cisalpine Republic. In 1799, he is forced to leave the city when the French are defeated, but it takes him only two years to come back, following the Battle of Marengo (1800). While in Paris, Monti devotes more and more of his time to translations from French and Latin, which today are considered to be his best works: he publishes "La Pucelle d'Orleans" by Voltaire, soon to be followed by the "Satire" by Persius and the "Iliade" (Iliad) by Homer. Soon after his return, Monti published his tragedy of "Caio Gracco," "La Mascheroniana," a poem on the death of his friend Lorenzo Mascheroni, and his beautiful and popular hymn beginning "Bell'Italia," etc. Monti became in 1803 professor of eloquence at Pavia, and on the coronation