The rebuilding of the City of Zakynthos, after the destructive earthquakes in the Ionian Islands, was completed a few years later, with the resettlement of those affected in small single-storey houses and with the creation of a series of fine public buildings to house the island’s services.

On the site where the historic house in which the poet Nicolaos – Ugo Foscolo grew up once stood—which the Municipality of Zakynthos had purchased in 1885 and in which it had installed the renowned “Foscolian Library”—there remained a small plot, within which in 1969 the famous sculpture by Ioannis Vitsaris, “Mourning Spirit”, was placed, on the initiative of the late Prefect Andreas Ioannou, who, in cooperation with the municipal authority of the time, created a dignified and tasteful garden around the monument.

In the early years of the 2000s, on the initiative of the Municipality of Zakynthos, Kyriakou Xenou Street was pedestrianised and, after the protective railing around the monument was removed, most of the garden was paved.

Ever since the earthquakes of 1953, the intellectual community of our homeland had envisioned the rebuilding of the house where the poet was born, and there was always an open discussion about the fate of the plot belonging to the Municipality.

Conditions began to mature in the 1990s, when through spontaneous initiatives of scholars and intellectuals the proposal took shape for rebuilding the house in its original, pre-earthquake form.

The person who took the initiative to express this vision in deeds was Nikos Lalotis. An outstanding Zakynthian with intense involvement in environmental protection and the preservation of our historical identity, who grew up with memories of the pre-earthquake period, he took the initiative to found, together with other progressive Zakynthians, the Cultural Association of Zakynthos “Ugo Foscolo”, dedicated to the poet and with the first aim of rebuilding the house where he was born in 1779 in Zakynthos.

Nikos Lalotis lived most of his life in Athens, where he worked as a bank employee. As a citizen he was a member of the best-known ecological organisations of his time and had developed rich activist work.

He settled in Zakynthos in the mid-1990s and worked for the creation of the National Marine Park in the Bay of Laganas while at the same time beginning to write for the local press and becoming better known as the producer of the weekly radio programme “Alcyon Days’ Journeys” on the radio station ERMIS 91.8 FM.

Through his articles and his radio programme he supported, among other things, the historic demand that the house where the poet was born be rebuilt in its original form on the site where it had stood before the earthquakes. Nikos Lalotis’s initiative was strongly supported by 34 fellow citizens from the worlds of letters, science, the arts and journalism. Among them was Dionysios Zivas, professor at the National Technical University of Athens, who prepared free of charge the architectural study for the erection of the poet’s house.

The statutes of the Association “Cultural Association of Zakynthos Ugo Foscolo” were approved by the Court of First Instance of Zakynthos by decision no. 157 of 12 November 2009, with a provisional administration consisting of Nikos Lalotis, Dionysios Zivas, Nikias Lountzis, Dionysios Serras, Dionysios Flemotomos, Dimitris Arvanitakis and Theodora Papadatou.

Approval of the Association’s Statutes was served on the Public Prosecutor of the Court of First Instance and the Prefect of Zakynthos on 24 December 2009. Thereafter the Association began to operate under the conditions then laid down by law.

The purposes of the Association stated in the statutes are the restoration of the house where the poet was born and grew up, the creation of a Museum, the re-establishment of the Foscolian Library, and the support of scholarly research and the promotion of the poet’s work.

The first President of the Association was the late Nikos Lalotis, with the late Dionysios Zivas as Vice-President.

A turning point for the Association’s activity was the signing on 4 February 2013 of a Memorandum of Cooperation with the Municipality of Zakynthos, which has since bound both sides.

Under it the Association undertook to cover, through sponsorships or other forms of funding, the erection of the poet’s house on the basis of Professor Dion. Zivas’s architectural study, and the Municipality undertook to grant the plot for the erection of the house.

The same document also stated that the Memorandum would be valid for ten years and that the Municipality undertakes to grant the completed poet’s house to the Association for fifty years as the seat of the Museum under formation.

After continuous efforts by the Association, the funder of the project to erect the poet’s house was the Region of the Ionian Islands through the NSRF programme of the 2007–2014 period, financed by the European Union.

This was preceded by a Programme Agreement of cooperation between the Municipality of Zakynthos and the Region of the Ionian Islands in 2014, which set the terms and conditions for the funding and execution of the project, with a budget of €210,000.

The contracting company took possession in May 2015 and began work on erecting the House with traditional materials on the plot where, until the earthquakes of 1953, the house in which the poet grew up had stood.

Meanwhile, on 29 July 2015 the founder and first President of the Association, Nikos Lalotis, passed away at the age of 85 after a long stay in a hospital in Athens. The duties of President were assumed by the then Vice-President of the Association, Professor Dionysios Zivas, and those of Vice-President by the then Treasurer of the Association, journalist Filippos Synetos.

In the elections of spring 2016 Professor Dion. Zivas, citing health reasons, did not stand as a candidate, and from them a new Board emerged with Filippos Synetos as President and Pierrina Koriatopoulou–Aggeli as Vice-President.

The project of erecting the poet’s House was completed towards the end of 2016.

On the evening of 16 December 2016 the Association opened the poet’s house to the public for the first time. It organised an evening of remembrance for the late founder of the Association, Nikos Lalotis.

On 9 March 2017 a Concession Agreement for the House was signed by the Region of the Ionian Islands with the Cultural Association “Ugo Foscolo”. The agreement provides for the concession of the use of the House to the C.A.Z. “Ugo Foscolo”, free of charge and for as long as the agreement by which the Municipality granted the Region the plot for the erection of the dwelling remains in force. It also provides for the Association’s installation on the ground floor, the creation of a museum exhibition on the first floor, and its operation as a visitable historic site (Museum).

Immediately the first donations of objects, works of art and old books began, with the aim of creating a first exhibition on the life and work of the poet.

On 13 February 2018 the former President of the Association, Dionysios Zivas, passed away at the age of 90 after a long stay in a hospital in Athens.

In recent years the Association, having made the rebuilding of the Poet’s House a reality, has accepted the installation of part of the exhibition on the poet prepared in 2014 by the University of Pavia and is proceeding with the drafting of a museum study and the submission of a related dossier to the Ministry of Culture for recognition of the collections it has gathered.