Giacomo Leopardi, the greatest Italian poet of the Nineteenth Century, was, born at Recanati, a town of the March of Ancona, on the twenty-ninth of June, 1798; the eldest son of Count Monaldo Leopardi, and Adelaide, his wife, daughter of the Marquis Antici. He had four brothers and one sister—Paolina. His father possessed a splendid library, and was a man of learning and literary tastes, appearing himself as an author in prose and verse.
Recanati is situated on an eminence in the Appenines, not far from Ancona and the celebrated shrine of Loreto; and as a biographer of our poet says: "Its natural beauties are superb, and the genius of its great son has made them incomparable." Up to the age of twenty-four Leopardi did not leave his native place. The constant sight of so lovely a landscape, bordered in the distance by the Adriatic, contributed in no slight measure to give him that exquisite taste and sympathy for nature, for which he is unique among the poets of his country.
He, very early, gave proofs of extraordinary ability. Of modern languages, he knew—besides his own—English, French, German, and Spanish. His knowledge of Greek and Latin is proved by his philological works; and at the age of fourteen, his intimate acquaintance with Rabbinical literature astonished some learned Jews of Ancona. But his industry was fatal to himself. As a child he seems to have enjoyed good health; but from the age of sixteen to twenty-one his form became bent and his constitution weaker and weaker; and from the latter date, his life was one series of infirmities.
The deepest melancholy took possession of his mind. His imagination was of intense strength, but it served only to conjure up the gloomiest visions. He conceived a morbid hatred of Recanati, hatred uttered in immortal verse in the "Ricordanze." Though surrounded by those he loved, and living in a handsome style in his father's house, life became unendurable to him. He conceived a wild idea of flight, and actually wrote a letter to his father, explaining his motives for so doing. But happily the scheme was abandoned, and the letter never delivered, although it was preserved by his brother Carlo and published some years ago. This letter was written in July, 1819. He complains of the little liberty that was allowed him; of the dreadful monotony of life at I Recanati, of the little opportunity he had of exercising his N talents to his future advantage; and of the sufferings inflicted upon him by his "strange imagination" in the absence of all pleasure and recreation.
This last complaint was certainly well-founded. If ever man required distraction and amusement, it was Leopardi. With his self-harassing mind, his melancholy, his delicacy of health, solitude was to him the worst of evils. Change might have done him some good, but change was not to come for another three years, and when it came, it was too late.
In the course of 1819, to his other miseries was added that of failing sight, in consequence of overstudy. He was obliged to pass nearly twelve months without reading or writing; and during this period he began to meditate on the problems of life, laying the foundation of the gloomy philosophy which was to inspire all his future productions.
Two years previously he had begun to correspond with the celebrated writer, Pietro Giordani, a man of brilliant intellect and generous character, who became immediately his intense admirer and devoted friend; and who spoke and wrote of him in terms that might then have seemed extravagant, but which were fully justified by the event. Our poet published, among other works of less importance, translations of passages from the "Odyssey," and an essay on the "Popular Errors of the Ancients."
But works of greater value, though of smaller dimensions, were soon to follow. At the age of twenty he published the "Ode to Italy" and the "Poem on the Monument of Dante;" and, two years later, one of his masterpieces, the "Ode to Angelo Mai." It is sad to relate that Mai in later years, instead of being grateful to the poet for addressing him in sublime verse, depreciated his learning, and coolly appropriated the emendations to an ancient Greek author, which had been communicated to him by the too-confiding Leopardi. Indeed, our poet showed himself in Greek more than a match for that celebrated scholar.
The winter at Recanati being cold and windy, his parents were at last persuaded to give him leave to go to Rome in November, 1822, hoping the milder climate would produce a beneficial effect.
On arriving in Rome, he wrote to his brother Carlo, confessing that all the marvels of that city had already palled upon him, and that his melancholy, instead of diminishing, was increasing. Nor did this impression vanish with time. He tells his sister Paolina that the most stupid person in Recanati had more sense than the wisest Roman. The frivolity of society disgusted him, and even the grandeur of the public buildings wrought a disagreeable effect upon his mind. He made, however, some pleasant and agreeable acquaintances, among others, the historian Niebuhr, at that time Prussian Ambassador to the Vatican. Niebuhr conceived the highest admiration for his talents, and spoke of him in terms of the warmest eulogy to Cardinal Consalvi, Secretary of State to Pius VII. The Cardinal offered him rapid promotion on condition of his entering the priesthood; but not feeling the vocation, Leopardi was too conscientious to do so. For his own prosperity this refusal was unfortunate; but we must approve the motives that prompted it, and, indeed, we could scarcely picture to ourselves the author of "Amore e Morte" in the garb of a Monsignor. Pius VII. died a few months later, and Consalvi retired from the direction of public affairs. So favourable an opportunity never returned. Niebuhr offered our poet an appointment in Prussia; but he declined it, dreading the long journey and the rigorous climate of Berlin. His greatest pleasure consisted in receiving letters from home, and when his health permitted, in pursuing his studies in the Vatican library. The literary society of Rome was not congenial, its exclusive devotion to antiquarian minutiae seemed to him both tedious and trifling.