The tragic life of a brilliant Italian writer
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| Giacomo Leopardi, depicted in a portrait in 1820 |
One of Italy’s greatest 19th century writers, Giacomo
Leopardi, died on this day in 1837 in Naples.
A brilliant scholar and philosopher, Leopardi led an unhappy
life in Recanati in the Papal States, blighted by poor health, but he left as a
legacy his superb lyric poetry.
By the age of 16, Leopardi had independently mastered Greek,
Latin and several modern languages and had translated many classical works. He
had also written some poems, tragedies and scholarly commentaries.
He had been born deformed and excessive study made his
health worse. He became blind in one eye and developed a cerebrospinal condition
that was to cause him problems for the rest of his life.
He was forced to suspend his studies and, saddened by an
apparent lack of concern from his parents, he poured out his feelings in poems
such as the visionary work, Appressamento della morte - Approach of Death - written in 1816 in terza rima, in imitation of Petrarch and Dante.
His frustrated love for his married cousin, and the death
from consumption of the young daughter of his father’s coachman, only deepened
his despair. The death of the young girl inspired perhaps his greatest lyric
poem, A Silvia.
The scholar and patriot Pietro Giordani visited Leopardi in
1818 and urged him to leave home. Leopardi then spent a few unhappy months in
Rome, but returned to live in Recanati.
After accepting an offer to edit Cicero’s works in Milan in
1825, he left home again.
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| Giacomo Leopoldi on his death bed in 1837 |
He spent the next few years travelling between Bologna, Pisa
and Florence while he wrote a collection of poems and a philosophical work.
His frustrated love for a Florentine beauty, Fanny Targioni-Tozzetti,
inspired some of his saddest poetry.
Leopardi finally settled in Naples in 1833, where he wrote
the long poem, Ginestra.
The death he had long regarded as the only escape from his
unhappiness came to him suddenly in 1837 during a cholera epidemic.
His genius and frustrated hopes during his life had found
their way into his poetry which has long been admired for its intensity and
musicality.
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| Casa Leopardi: The poet's home in Recanati is now a museum |
Travel tip:
Leopardi was born and lived for most of his life in
Recanati, a town in the province of Macerati in the Marche region of Italy.The
great tenor Beniamino Gigli was born in Recanati in 1890 and sang in the choir
at Recanati cathedral as a boy. The Italian paternal ancestors of the Argentine
footballer Lionel Messi are also believed to have originated from Recanati. Leopardi's house is now a museum.
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| The monument at Leopaldi's tomb in Parco Vergiliano, Naples |
Travel tip:
Leopardi was buried at first in the atrium of the church of
San Vitale at Fuorigrotta but in 1898 his tomb was moved to the Parco
Virgiliano in Naples and declared a national monument.