Giacomo leopardi

Giacomo Leopardi was born on 29th June 1798 in Recanati by Count Monaldo and by Adelaide of the Marquesses Antici. The father, endowed with exquisite literary and artistic tastes, succeeded in collecting an important domestic library, containing thousands of books and which will see the young Giacomo frequent visitor, so much so that at thirteen he already delighted in Greek, French and English readings, made insensitive to the paternal exhortations that he wished for him to lead a healthier and more dynamic life.
In the library at home he spends the "seven years of mad and desperate study" in the desire to take possession of the widest possible universe: these are the years that irreparably compromise the health and external appearance of Giacomo, source among other things of the eternal rumors about birth of the so-called Leopardian pessimism.

Leopardi himself has instead always opposed the attempt to debase the scope of his convictions, disputing that they were born out of those. The truth is that the precocious man of letters suffered from a form of hypersensitivity that kept him away from everything that could have hurt him, including interpersonal relationships. At the age of eighteen he wrote Greek odes making them believe they were ancient, and he began to publish works of historical and philological scholarship. His father, Monaldo, organized academies in the  family to make his son's genius shine, but he now dreamed of a bigger world, a more varied and less provincial public.

Between 1815 and 1816 we find what has become famous as Leopardi's "literary conversion", that is the passage from simple erudition to poetry; what Leopardi himself called "transition from erudition to beauty". This will be followed by the abandonment of the reactionary political conception of the father and the separation from the Catholic religion.

It is 1816, in particular, the year in which the vocation to poetry is most clearly heard, even among the many erudition works that still occupy the field: alongside the translations of the first book of the Odyssey and the second of the Aeneid, composes a lyric, "Le rimembranze" a canticle and a hymn. He intervenes in the Milanese controversy between classic and romantic. In 1817 new translations and significant poetic tests were recorded.

The life of Giacomo Leopardi in itself is poor of external events: it is the "story of a soul". (With this title Leopardi had imagined writing an autobiographical novel). It is a drama lived and suffered in the intimacy of the spirit. The poet, and thus in his transfiguration, the human being "tout-court" aspires to an infinite happiness that is totally impossible; life is useless pain; intelligence does not open the way to any higher world since this does not exist except in human illusion; intelligence serves only to make us understand that we have come from nothing and we will return to nothing, while the fatigue and pain of living nothing builds.

In 1817, suffering from a deformation of the spine and nervous disorders, he formed a correspondence with Pietro Giordani, whom he met in person only the following year and who will always give human understanding to his friend's outbursts. In this period the great poet begins among other things to write down the first thoughts for the Zibaldone and writes some sonnets. 1818, on the other hand, is the year in which Leopardi reveals his conversion, with the first writing having the value of a poetic manifesto: the "Speech of an Italian around romantic poetry", in defense of classical poetry; he also publishes in Rome, with a dedication to Vincenzo Monti, the two songs "All'Italia" and "Sopra il monumento di Dante". Meanwhile, he is struck by a serious eye disease that prevents him not only from reading, but also from thinking, so much so that he often thinks about suicide.

In this climate the so-called "philosophical conversion" matures, that is the passage from poetry to philosophy, from the "ancient" condition (naturally happy and poetic) to the "modern" (dominated by unhappiness and boredom), according to a path that reproduces to individual level the itinerary that mankind found itself fulfilling in its history. In other words, the original condition of poetry recedes in his eyes more and more in the past, and appears irreproducible in the present age, where reason has inhibited the possibility of giving life to the ghosts of fantasy and illusion. Unfortunately, in this period he also falls in love secretly with his cousin Geltrude Cassi Lazzari, who represents one of his many unrequited loves, loves to which the poet attributed almost salvific abilities to alleviate the pains of the soul. Finally, in February 1823 Giacomo with his father's permission can realize the dream of leaving Recanati where he felt himself a prisoner of a mediocre environment, which he neither knew nor could understand. But when he went to Rome with his maternal uncle, he was deeply disappointed by the city, too frivolous and not very hospitable.

Only the sepulcher of Tasso is moved by it. Returning to Recanati, he remained there for two years. He then took up residence in Milan (1825) where he met Vincenzo Monti; and then again in Bologna (1826), Florence (1827), where he met Vieusseux, Niccolini, Colletta, Alessandro Manzoni, and Pisa (1827-28). He maintains himself with the monthly salary of the editor of the Milanese Stella, for which he takes care of the commentary on Petrarch's rhymes, carries out translations from the Greek and compiles two anthologies of Italian literature: poems and prose. Having missed these entrances, he returned to Recanati (1828). In April 1830 he returned to Florence at the invitation of the Colletta; here he becomes friends with the Neapolitan exile Antonio Ranieri, whose association will last until the death of the poet.

In 1831 the "Canti" edition was born in Florence. In 1833 he left with Ranieri to Naples, where two years later he signed a contract with the publisher Starita to publish his works. In 1836, to escape the threat of cholera, he moved to the slopes of Vesuvius, where he composed two great lyrics: "Il tramonto della luna" and "La ginestra". On June 14, 1837 he died suddenly, only 39 years old, due to the aggravation of the evils that had afflicted him for some time.

Remembered for his intensely pessimistic attitude towards the human condition and life, Giacomo Leopardi was a significant figure of the Italian Romanticism era. His talents not limited to a single domain associated him to several fields of art. Giacomo Leopardi was a notable poet, philosopher, scholar, essayist and philologist. Although Leopardi did not attain the fame he deserved in his lifetime, he was later declared the greatest Italian poet of the nineteenth century. Leopardi's seven volume notebook Zibaldone is considered the finest and is also the most appreciated of his works.