Once back from his journeys in Italy and Europe, Alfieri established himself in Turin and in February 1774 began the composition of the Cleopatra (cat. n. 2): from hereon the poet records the beginning of his literary years, registered in his brief intellectual autobiography, the Rendimento di conti. Although his inspiration was both tragic and comical, as witnessed by the contemporary composition of the farce I poeti, the wish to become a tragic author prevailed.
   In 1775 he developed the idea, in French, of the tragedy Filippo (cat. n. 12), successively written in Italian prose and versified. The idea, the composition in prose and the versification - defined by Alfieri as the 'three breaths' of his writing - became from this moment a constant method of work. The first great difficulty to overcome was that of the conquest (cat. n. 8) of a poetical language. For this reason he started to translate Seneca, studied Ossian translated into Italian by Melchiorre Cesarotti and read Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto and Tasso. These last four authors accompanied him as models for the rest of his life.
   His stay in Siena in 1777, during which he established a strong relationship with Francesco Gori Gandellini and a small group of other people which inspired him to compose the treaty Della tirannide (cat. n. 18), influenced by his reading of Machiavelli. Always at Siena, he read the Italian translation of the Tebaide by Statius, conceived La congiura de' Pazzi and composed the Agamennone and the Oreste.
   The necessity to free himself from economical and political ties, a fundamental requirement for a tragic author, induced Alfieri to leave his estate to his sister Giulia in exchange for a life annuity.