Andreas Kalvos

Andreas Kalvos (also Calvos, /ˈkɑːlvɒs/ KAHL-voss; Greek: Ἀνδρέας Κάλβος [anˈðreas ˈkalvos]; Italian: Andrea Calbo; 1 April 1792 – 3 November 1869) was a Greek poet of the Romantic school.

He published five volumes of poetry and drama: Canzone... (1811), Le Danaidi (1818), Elpis patridos (1818), Lyra (1824) and New odes (1826). He was a contemporary of the poets Ugo Foscolo and Dionysios Solomos. He was among the representatives of the Heptanese School of literature.

He is featured prominently in the Museum of Solomos and Eminent Zakynthians.

Andreas Calvos was born in April 1792 on the island of Zacynthos, then ruled by the Venetian Republic, the elder of the two sons of Ioannes Calvos and Andriane Calvos (née Roucane). His mother came from an established, landowning Venetian family. His younger brother, Nicolaos, was born in 1794. In 1802, when Andreas was ten years old, his father took him and Nicolaos, but not his wife, to Livorno in Italy, where his brother was consul for the Ionian Islands and where there was a Greek community. The two boys never saw their mother again. In 1805 Calvos's mother obtained a divorce on the grounds of desertion; and shortly afterwards remarried. In Livorno, Andreas first studied ancient Greek and Latin literature and history.

In Livorno, in 1811 he wrote his Italian Hymn to Napoleon, an anti-war poem that he later repudiated (this is how we know of its existence, as the poem itself was not saved). Around the same time he lived for a few months in Pisa, where he worked as a secretary; and then moved to Florence, a centre of intellectual and artistic life of the time.

In 1812 his father died, and Kalvos's finances became deeply strained. However, during that year he also met Ugo Foscolo, the most honoured Italian poet and scholar of the era, and, like Calvos, a native of Zacynthos. Foscolo gave Calvos a post as his copyist, and put him to teaching a protégé of his. Under the influence of Foscolo Kalvos took up neoclassicism, archaizing ideals, and political liberalism. In 1813 Kalvos wrote three tragedies in Italian: Theramenes, Danaïdes and Hippias. He also completed four dramatic monologues, in the neoclassical style.

At the end of 1813, because of his 'advanced' views, Foscolo withdrew to Zürich in Switzerland. Kalvos remained in Florence, where he again became a teacher. In 1814 he wrote another Italian ode, 'To the Ionians', expressing his sympathy with the plight of his fellow-countrymen, and at this period made a close study of the works of Rousseau. He also, it seems, embarked on a love affair with a woman.

In 1816 Calvos broke off his affair and went to join Foscolo in Switzerland. That year he also learned that his mother had died a year before, a thing that saddened him deeply, as can be seen in his Ode to Death.