amore e morte

Giacomo Leopardi was born of a local noble family in Recanati, in the Marche, at the time ruled by the papacy. His father, the count Monaldo Leopardi, was a good-hearted man, fond of literature but weak and reactionary, who remained bound to antiquated ideas and prejudices; his mother, the marquise Adelaide Antici Mattei, was a cold and authoritarian woman, obsessed over rebuilding the family's financial fortunes, which had been destroyed by Monaldo's gambling addiction. At home, a rigorous discipline of religion and savings reigned. 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.



Amore e morte

Leopardi, following a family tradition, began his studies under the tutelage of two priests, but his innate thirst for knowledge found its satisfaction primarily in his father's rich library. Initially guided by Father Sebastiano Sanchini, Leopardi quickly liberated himself by vast and profound readings. He committed himself so deeply to his "mad and most desperate" studies that, within a short time, he acquired an extraordinary knowledge of classical and philological culture—he could fluently read and write Latin, Greek and even Hebrew— but he suffered from the lack of an open and stimulating formal instruction.



Amore e Morte

Between the ages of twelve and nineteen, he studied constantly, driven by a need to learn as much as possible, as well as to escape, at least spiritually, from the rigid environment of the paternal palazzo. His continuous study undermined an already fragile physical constitution, and his illness denied him youth's simplest pleasures.





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Amor E Morte


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