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Introduction
LIFE & WORKS: Early Years Tour Early Fame Marriage & Exile Revolutionary & Martyr Byron and Newstead Abbey The Abbey through Byron's Eyes
Byron's Life and Works: Revolutionary and Martyr
Byron met the Countess Teresa Guiccioli in 1819 and she became his mistress.
Her father, Count Ruggiero Gamba, was an Italian patriot active in the
Carbonari , a secret society of republican revolutionaries who sought
to free Italy from Austrian rule. The poet was sympathetic to their cause
and gave the Carbonari money to buy arms.
He remained in Italy, following the Gamba family from Venice to Ravenna, Pisa and Genoa while continuing work on Don Juan and other controversial works. In 1823 he went to Greece as a representative of the London Greek Committee, which was formed to support the War of Independence from the Turks. The poet arrived in Greece that August with a cargo of arms and medical supplies bought with his own money for the Greeks. He also helped by maintaining an army of 500 soldiers from his personal funds and by forming an artillery brigade from the many foreign volunteers.
However, despite Byron's efforts to unite them, the Greek leaders plotted against each other and these internal rivalries badly weakened their campaign against the Turks. On April 9, 1824, Byron contracted a fever from which he died ten days later, aged 36. He was a hero to the Greek people. The unity of their leaders, for which Byron had struggled so hard, was at last achieved as a result of his death. His support and martyrdom inspired them to win liberation from foreign rule. Continue with the story of Byron...
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