- Creator
- Cogni, Margherita
- Call number
- Pforz MS
- Physical description
- 2 items
- Preferred Citation
- Margherita Cogni manuscript material : 2 items, Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle, The New York Public Library
- Repository
- Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle
- Access to materials
- Restricted access. Request an in-person research appointment.
- Portions of this collection have been digitized and are available online.
Margherita Cogni, "La Fornarina," a Venetian baker's wife with whom Lord Byron had an affair from ca. August 1817 to sometime in 1819. In an 1819 letter to John Murray, Byron details an incident in which Cogni, in a violent fit, cut his thumb with a knife, then threw herself in the canal. Cogni was illiterate; her letters to Byron were dictated to a professional scribe. To Lord Byron, poet : 2 letters : -- ?Jan - May 1819 : (B'ANA 0240) : in Italian, in scribal hand; an emotional plea for him to keep his promise never to abandon her. -- 11 May 1819 : (B'ANA 0241) : in Italian; in scribal hand; begging to kiss his hand before he leaves. Both letters published with translations, as SC 630 and 638, in Shelley and his Circle vol. VII, p. 359f, 517f. For an account of Byron's relationship with Cogni, see Doucet Devin Fischer's "Countesses and Cobblers' Wives," p. 198-205 of the same volume.
Digital Assets
Using the collection
Location
Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His CircleStephen A. Schwarzman Building
Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018-2788
Third Floor, Room 319