Byron: A Play in Three Acts

In 1823, Lord Byron rented the Casa Saluzzo at Albaro in the hills east of Genoa, Italy. The poet shared the 16th-century palazzo with his mistress, Teresa Giuccioli, her brother, and their exiled father, Count Gamba.

His neighbors were Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, whose poet husband had recently drowned; Leigh Hunt, the critic and editor; and Edward Trelawney, a Cornish adventurer and close friend of both poets.

A frequent visitor that summer was Lady Marguerite Blessington, wh...