Byron and Shelley in Italy

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Byron met Madame de Stael in Switzerland while on his way to Italy . He composed the Fourth Canto of Harold Childe's Pilgrimage in Italy. It features references to the Italian revolutions and cycles of empire extending back to Ancient Rome.

Shelley and his wife Mary (author of Frankenstein) arrived soon after Byron. They met him in Venice and Ravenna before travelling to Naples in 1818-1819. Shelly composed his Ode to Naples in Italy and includes references to Italian revolutions and the cycle of empire evident in the history of Italy.

Mary Shelley was the daughter of the feminist author, Mary Wollstonecraft. She wrote Frankenstein while she and Percy Bysshe Shelley were in Switzerland together with Byron. She kept a journal in which she recorded their experiences in Italy and views on the Italian revolution in Naples in 1821. 

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General Pepe fought in the Neapolitan Revolution of 1799; afterwards he joined Napoleon's army; he returned to Naples and led the Republican Army when revolution broke out in 1820; when the revolution failed, he went to England in exile.

The royal palace of Caserta is the most grandiose of the Neapolitan Palaces built by the Bourbon monarchs of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. It was designed after the model of the Palace of Versailles by architect, Luigi Vanvitelli and built (1755-1780).

Countess Albrizzi hosted an important salon in Venice. Among her guests were Lord Byron, Ugo Foscolo and Antonio Canova.