Domestica facta recollected in Italy: Byron and "The Liberal"

When the first issue of The Liberal was published on 10 October 1822, the periodical was largely dismissed in the British press: “the main cause of the failure was the antipathy formed and fostered against it before it appeared”, wrote John Galt in 1830. The publication was considered primarily a political project, since the contributors to the journal were all controversial figures in contemporary England, members of a community of liberal writers who aspired to cultural and social reform – the “Pisan circle”. Drawing on critical studies by, among others, Leslie P. Pickering, W. H. Marshall and M. Eberle-Sinatra, the essay will offer a reading of Byron’s conception of and contribution to "The Liberal" focusing on the meaning of the editorial enterprise in relation to both the poet’s initial enthusiasm and later disenchantment with Italian politics, and to his attempt of rapprochement with his home country, that is, a more or less conscious desire to be rehabilitated in the eyes of his contemporary audiences, unburdening himself from the scandalous celebrity concerning his name.