Giacomo Leopardi

Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi (Italian: [ˈdʒaːkomo leoˈpardi]; 29 June 1798 – 14 June 1837), also known as "the hunchback of Recanati", was an Italian poet, philosopher, essayist and philologist. He is widely acknowledged to have been one of the most radical and challenging thinkers of the 19th century. Although he lived in a secluded town in the ultra-conservative Papal States, he came in touch with the main thoughts of the Enlightenment, and, by his own literary evolution, created a remarkable and renowned poetic work, related to the Romantic era. The extraordinarily lyrical quality of his poetry made him a central protagonist in the European and international literary and cultural landscape. 2Biography Giacomo Leopardi was born into 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. Following a family tradition, Leopardi began his studies under the tutelage of two priests, but his innate thirst for knowledge found its satisfaction primarily in his father's rich librar