Leopardi, Giacomo, Count Leopardi (1798–1837)

Italian romantic poet. The first collection of his uniquely pessimistic poems, I Versi/Verses, appeared in 1824 and was followed by his philosophical Operette morali/Minor Moral Works (1827), in prose, and I Canti/Lyrics (1831).

Born at Recanati of a noble family, Leopardi wrote many of his finest poems, including his patriotic odes, before he was 21. Throughout his life he was tormented by ill health, by the consciousness of his deformity (he was hunchbacked), by loneliness and a succession of unhappy love affairs, and by his ‘cosmic pessimism’ and failure to find consolation in any philosophy.