Fiesco; or, the Genoese Conspiracy: A Tragedy — Story, Setting & Ideas

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Authors: Schiller, Friedrich, 1759-1805 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2004 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Genoa (Italy) -- History -- Drama; Fiéschi, Gian Luigi, conte di Lavagna, 1522-1547 -- Drama Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 37,374

Reading time 163 min

Text sections 6

This digital edition of Fiesco; or, the Genoese Conspiracy: A Tragedy — Story, Setting & Ideas is described by source-level measurements including 37,374 words, 2 hr 43 min estimated reading time, and 6 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 10.4 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Genoa (Italy) -- History -- Drama,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #6783

Schiller's tragedy dramatizes the 1547 conspiracy of Count Fiesco against the Doria family in Genoa. The play contrasts political ambition with personal emotion, as seen in Fiesco's tense exchanges with his wife Leonora and his Moorish servant Hassan. The author's preface acknowledges historical liberties taken for dramatic effect.

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Title & short description10 pts
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Edition quality

File: pg6783

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This did not rouse thee. Then he violated the sanctuary of thy honor (starting up). Quick! Nicolo! Bring balls and powder--but stay--my sword were better. (To BERTHA.) Say thy prayers! Ah! what am I going to do?

BERTHA. Father, you make me tremble----

VERRINA. Come, sit by me, Bertha! (in a solemn manner.) Tell me, Bertha, what did that hoary-headed Roman, when his daughter--like you-- how can I speak it! fell a prey to ignominy? Tell me, Bertha, what said Virginius to his dishonored daughter?

BERTHA (shuddering). I know not.

VERRINA. Foolish girl! He said nothing--but (rising hastily and snatching up a sword) he seized an instrument of death----

BERTHA (terrified, rushes into his arms). Great God! What would you do, my father?

VERRINA (throwing away the sword). No! There is still justice left in Genoa.

SACCO, CALCAGNO, the former.

CALCAGNO. Verrina, quick! prepare! to-day begins the election week of the republic. Let us early to the Senate House to choose the new senators. The streets are full of people, you will undoubtedly accompany us (ironically) to behold the triumph of our liberty.

SACCO (to CALCAGNO). But what do I see? A naked sword! Verrina staring wildly! Bertha in tears!

CALCAGNO. By heavens, it is so. Sacco! some strange event has happened here.

VERRINA (placing two chairs). Be seated.

SACCO. Your looks, Verrina, fill us with apprehension.

CALCAGNO. I never saw you thus before--Bertha is in tears, or your grief would have seemed to presage our country's ruin.

VERRINA. Ruin! Pray sit down. (They both seat themselves.)

CALCAGNO. My friend, I conjure you----

VERRINA. Listen to me.

CALCAGNO (to SACCO). I have sad misgivings.

VERRINA. Genoese! you both know the antiquity of my family. Your ancestors were vassals to my own. My forefathers fought the battles of the state, their wives were patterns of virtue. Honor was our sole inheritance, descending unspotted from the father to the son. Can any one deny it?

CALCAGNO. No one, by the God of heaven!

VERRINA. I am the last of my family. My wife has long been dead. This daughter is all she left me. You are witnesses, my friends, how I have brought her up. Can anyone accuse me of neglect?

CALCAGNO. No. Your daughter is a bright example to her sex.

VERRINA. I am old, my friends. On this one daughter all my hopes were placed. Should I lose her, my race becomes extinct. (After a pause, with a solemn voice). I have lost her. My family is dishonored.

SACCO and CALCAGNO. Forbid it, heaven! (BERTHA on the couch, appears much affected.)

VERRINA. No. Despair not, daughter! These men are just and brave. If they feel thy wrongs they will expiate them with blood. Be not astonished, friends! He who tramples upon Genoa may easily overcome a helpless female.

SACCO and CALCAGNO (starting up with emotion). Gianettino Doria!

BERTHA (with a shriek, seeing BOURGOGNINO enter). Cover me, walls, beneath your ruins! My Scipio!

BOURGOGNINO--the former.

BOURGOGNINO (with ardor). Rejoice, my love! I bring good tidings. Noble Verrina, my heaven now depends upon a word from you. I have long loved your daughter, but never dared to ask her hand, because my whole fortune was intrusted to the treacherous sea. My ships have just now reached the harbor laden with valuable cargoes. Now I am rich. Bestow your Bertha on me--I will make her happy. (BERTHA hides her face--a profound pause.)

VERRINA. What, youth! Wouldst thou mix thy heart's pure tide with a polluted stream?

BOURGOGNINO (clasps his hand to his sword, but suddenly draws it back). 'Twas her father said it.

VERRINA. No--every rascal in Italy will say it. Are you contented with the leavings of other men's repasts?

BOURGOGNINO. Old man, do not make me desperate.

CALCAGNO. Bourgognino! he speaks the truth.

BOURGOGNINO (enraged, rushing towards BERTHA). The truth? Has the girl then mocked me?

CALCAGNO. No! no! Bourgognino. The girl is spotless as an angel.

BOURGOGNINO (astonished). By my soul's happiness, I comprehend it not! Spotless, yet dishonored! They look in silence on each other. Some horrid crime hangs on their trembling tongues. I conjure you, friends, mock not thus my reason. Is she pure? Is she truly so? Who answers for her?

VERRINA. My child is guiltless.

BOURGOGNINO. What! Violence! (Snatches the sword from the ground.) Be all the sins of earth upon my bead if I avenge her not! Where is the spoiler?

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Schiller's preface to Fiesco; or, the Genoese Conspiracy announces a deliberate shift from his earlier work: where The Robbers depicted a victim of extravagant sensibility, this tragedy aims to portray a victim of art and intrigue. The play's political hero, he warns, may prove less interesting on stage because the feelings of a man must be laid aside to become a political hero. This tension between private emotion and public ambition surfaces immediately in the excerpted dialogue between Fiesco and his wife Leonora, where she reproaches him for coldness while he urges her to suspend judgment for two days. The Moor's arrival with intercepted letters then pivots the action toward conspiracy, revealing that Doria has plotted to murder Fiesco and eleven senators.

The Author's Dramatic Intentions

Schiller's preface is unusually frank about the difficulties of adapting historical conspiracy for the stage. He cites three sources—Cardinal de Retz, the Histoire des Genes, and Robertson's History of Charles the Fifth—and admits to altering the real catastrophe, in which Fiesco perished when his schemes were nearly ripe. The drama, he argues, cannot allow chance or a particular Providence; it must adapt to human short-sightedness. This self-awareness about the gap between historical fact and theatrical necessity shapes the entire work. Readers should note that the preface itself is part of the literary artifact, not a neutral summary. The liberties Schiller takes are not hidden but announced, making the play a conscious exercise in reshaping history for emotional and structural effect.

Private Grief vs. Public Intrigue

The dialogue between Fiesco and Leonora in Scene III reveals a domestic counterpoint to the political plot. Leonora's language is emotionally direct: she speaks of her heart, her hopes, and her feminine weakness, contrasting with Fiesco's evasive commands. When she says, “Thy perfidy may bid me die, but cannot bid me hate thee,” the line captures a personal anguish that the conspiracy plot necessarily suppresses. Fiesco's response—“Till Genoa be two days older, inquire not! condemn me not!”—ties her emotional suspense directly to the timeline of the coup. The Moor's entrance with intercepted letters then shifts the register entirely, replacing intimate reproach with urgent, even comic, plotting. This juxtaposition of tones is a structural feature of the play, not a flaw.

The Moor as Agent and Commentator

Hassan, the Moor, serves as both a practical agent and a sardonic commentator on the action. His language is earthy and self-aware: he boasts of having “smelt out the game,” waylaid a messenger, and brought the letter to Fiesco. He presents his service as a balancing of accounts—“'twas but the other day I sought your life. To-day I have preserved it”—and claims to have only one devil in pay, “and he is in your grace's keeping.” This blend of loyalty, cunning, and moral ambiguity gives the conspiracy a grounded, almost cynical texture. The Moor's report of smuggling two thousand soldiers into the city and lodging them with the Capuchins adds a concrete, logistical detail that anchors the political intrigue in practical action.

Readers approaching Fiesco should attend to the interplay between Schiller's prefatory remarks and the scenes that follow. The play is not a straightforward historical drama but a self-conscious literary construction that acknowledges its deviations from fact. The emotional weight of Leonora's scenes and the pragmatic energy of the Moor's interventions create a texture that complicates the political narrative. The catalog subjects—Genoa's history and Fiesco's conspiracy—provide a frame, but the excerpts show a work more concerned with the costs of ambition than with the mechanics of rebellion.

Fiesco’s desperate tangle of ambition and tenderness often reminds me of another court's glittering masks—where Catherine likewise lets politics whisper over quieter hearts. I’ve shelved them near each other for years, and still find myself musing on how power wears a human face in both. Great Catherine (Whom Glory Still Adores) — A Reader’s Guide sits beside that old tragedy like a knowing neighbor.