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POET OF THE DAY
Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi was an Italian poet, essayist, philosopher, and philologist. 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.

Biography

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.

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 despe..
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