Antonietta Fagnani Arese

Antonietta Fagnani Arese (Milan, 19 November 1778 – Genoa, 11 December 1847) was an Milanese noble woman, translator of Goethe, and correspondent of Ugo Foscolo. Biography Antonia Barbara Giulia Faustina Angiola Lucia Fagnani was the last child of Giacomo Fagnani (1740-1785) and Costanza Brusati Settala (1747-1805), sister of Maria Emilia Fagnani, later Marchioness of Hertford and Countess of Pembroke. She married Marco Arese Lucini, sixth count of Barlassina of the Arese family, son of Benedetto Arese Lucini and Margherita Lucini of the Marquis of Besate, on 20 February 1798 at Santa Maria alla Porta church in Milan. They had five children, three of whom survived: Margherita (1798-1828), Costanza (1803–1822) and Francesco (1805-1881). Antonietta was one of the most notable figures of Milanese society in the Napoleonic era. Close friends with Hortense de Beauharnais, Queen Consort of the Netherlands, whose son became Napoleon III, she was active in the court of her brother Eugène de Beauharnais, Viceroy of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. 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).