Career
His task as doge was to lead Venice in a long and protracted series of wars against Milan, governed by the Visconti, who were attempting to dominate all of northern Italy. Despite the justification of Venetian embroilment in the terraferma that was offered in Foscari"s funeral oration, delivered by the humanist senator and historian Bernardo Giustiniani, and some victories, the war was extremely costly to Venice, whose real source of wealth and power was at sea. Sforza soon made peace with Florence, however, leaving Venice alone.
Foscari was married twice: first to Maria Priuli, and then in 1415 to Marina Nani.
In 1445, his only surviving son, Jacopo, was tried by the Council of Ten on charges of bribery and corruption and exiled from the city. Two further trials, in 1450 and 1456, led to Jacopo"s imprisonment on Crete and his eventual death there.
News of Jacopo"s death caused Foscari to withdraw from his government duties, and in October 1457 the Council of Ten forced him to abdicate. However, his death a week later provoked such public outcry that he was given a state funeral.
Foscari"s life was the subject of a play The Two Foscari by Lord Byron (1821) and an episode in Samuel Rogers" long poem Italy.
The Byron play served as the basis for the libretto written by Francesco Maria Piave for Giuseppe Verdi"s opera I due Foscari, which premiered on 3 November 1844 in Rome. Mary Mitford, author of the popular literary sketches of the English countryside entitled Our Village, also wrote a successful play concerned with events in Foscari"s life. Mitford"s play debuted at Covent Garden in 1826 with famed actor Charles Kemble in the lead.
