Rivista internazionale di studi leopardiani | 2021 | N. 14

In his “Saggio sopra gli errori popolari degli antichi” Leopardi disclaims any debt to some scholars who before him have dealt with the “popular mistakes”. He differs from them and establishes a difference between error and prejudices. The latter ones determine how the ancients saw reality, and they nourished their phantasy and poetic language, which save men from the dreadfulness of the “raison”.

The discovery of a new source for verse of “La sera del dì di festa” gives an opportunity to browse the relationship between Giacomo Leopardi and the works of the XVII century classicistic poet Gabriello Chiabrera.

After a long silence, Giacomo Leopardi’s return to poetry, during his stay in Pisa (November 1827-June 1828), is related to the preparation of his poetic Crestomazia; the selection of texts involves a re-examination of the literary tradition. In the same period, Leopardi reads Alessandro Manzoni’s civil and religious poems, which for various reasons (such as their metric configuration) bear an influence on the composition of Il risorgimento (April 1828).

The essay aims to draw a comparison between Giacomo Leopardi and Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. Moving from a general survey on the several mentions of the poet in the prince’s literary production, the paper will then propose a study on themes (death, youth, human misery, vanity of pleasure, astronomy) and attitudes (skepticism, wit, satire) that, more than others, appear to show an authentic intersection of the two authors.

This paper focuses on the musical materials contained in the private library of the Leopardi House in Recanati, which I have been studying under the permission of the House holders since 1989. In particular, this paper focuses on the opera librettos contained in the Leopardi House library: 100 of the analysed librettos are preserved in the Fondo dell’Alcova («Collection of the Bed Chamber»), whereas 25 are preserved in other collections within the library of which I give a detailed list. Through analysing the contents of the librettos found in the Leopardi House library, this paper seeks to shed light on the activities and on the personal and cultural relations between the Leopardi family and its contemporaries between the 18th and the 19th centuries. Special focus is given to the figures of Paolina and Luigi Leopardi, siblings of the poet Giacomo, who showed the greatest interest in music within the Leopardi family. In this paper’s Appendix, I offer a brief description of the Collection of musical materials of the Centro Nazionale di Studi Leopardiani (“National Centre of Leopardi Studies”) (CNSL), which was founded in the 2nd centenary of Giacomo Leopardi’s birth (1998).

Si raccolgono qui le più significative pagine leopardiane di Vincenzo Gioberti.