Zibaldone di pensieri
| Giacomo Leopardi | |
|---|---|
_-_ritr._A_Ferrazzi,_Recanati,_casa_Leopardi.jpg)
Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi
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| Born |
29 June 1798 Recanati, Papal States |
| Died | 14 June 1837 (aged 38) Naples, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies |
| Cause of death | Pulmonary edema or cholera |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Era | 19th century |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Classicism, later enlightenment, Romanticism |
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Main interests
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Poetry, essay, dialogue |
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Notable ideas
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Pessimism |
| Signature | |
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Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi (Italian: [ˈdʒaːkomo leoˈpardi]; 29 June 1798 – 14 June 1837) was an Italian philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist. He is widely seen as one of the most radical and challenging thinkers of the 19th century. Although he lived in a secluded town in the conservative Papal States, he came in touch with the main ideas of the Enlightenment, and through his own literary evolution, created a remarkable and renowned poetic work, related to the Romantic era. The strongly lyrical quality of his poetry made him a central figure on the European and international literary and cultural landscape.
Giacomo Leopardi was born into a local noble family in Recanati, in the Marche, at the time ruled by the papacy. His father, Count Monaldo Leopardi, was fond of literature but weak and reactionary, who remained bound to antiquated ideas and prejudices. His mother, Marchioness Adelaide Antici Mattei, was a cold and authoritarian woman, obsessed with rebuilding the family's financial fortunes, which had been destroyed by her husband's gambling addiction. A rigorous discipline of religion and savings reigned in the home. However, Giacomo's happy childhood, which he spent with his younger brother Carlo Orazio and his sister Paolina, left its mark on the poet, who recorded his experiences in the poem Le Ricordanze.
Following a family tradition, Leopardi began his studies under the tutelage of two priests, but his thirst for knowledge was quenched primarily in his father's rich library. Initially guided by Father Sebastiano Sanchini, Leopardi undertook vast and profound reading. These "mad and most desperate" studies included an extraordinary knowledge of classical and philological culture – he could fluently read and write Latin, ancient Greek and Hebrew – but he lacked an open and stimulating formal education.
Between the ages of twelve and nineteen, he studied constantly, driven also by a need to escape spiritually from the rigid environment of the paternal palazzo. His continual studies undermined an already fragile physical constitution, and his illness, probably Pott's disease or ankylosing spondylitis, denied him youth's simplest pleasures.
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Wikipedia