Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  5. The differentiation of the human body from that of animals had been traditionally identified as an element of man’s perfection (see the role of the standing position in Vitruvius, that of the hand in Galenus). Recent research has in fact suggested that the development of human speech depends on a different conformation and the subsidiary use of the whole respiratory apparatus and of part of the digestive apparatus (see, among others, Eric H. Lenneberg, Biological Foundations of Language, New York: Wiley, 1967; P. Lieberman, On the Origins of Language, New York: Macmillan, 1975), which made man, as Leopardi says, “more suited to society” (cf. Z 417). Leopardi takes a long detour, trying again and again to justify a teleological view of nature (but see, e.g., Z 830ff., 1618–19, etc., against the idea of “perfectibility” of man, or Z 835–36, where the role of chance is highlighted, etc.) before coming back to this early intuition (see, e.g., Z 4461–62, 4467–69, 4510).

  Z 57

  1. The Nencia da Barberino, by Lorenzo de’ Medici, and the Lamento di Cecco da Varlungo, a rustic poem by Francesco Baldovini, published in 1694, which took its inspiration from a story by Boccaccio.

  2. The letter of 9 May 1772 (in Leopardi’s Italian ed.—cf. Z 56, note 4—the letters were numbered). Here Werther had recalled how as a child he had spent many hours gazing at a river, and losing himself in its “invisibile immensità,” p. 116. If, as some critics suppose, “L’infinito” was written between the spring and the summer of 1819, this passage may have influenced its composition (“So my mind sinks in this immensity,” l. 14, trans. Galassi). Cf. also Z 4427.

  3. Cf. Z 536. Leopardi had earlier written a Dissertazione sopra i sogni [Dissertation on dreams] (1811) on the mechanism and the power of dreams, where he quotes L. A. Muratori, Della forza della fantasia umana [On the strength of the human imagination], Venice 1753, which is, however, not a direct source (Crivelli, in Dissertazioni, p. 72, B2).

  4. A crucial theme in English and French seventeenth- and eighteenth-century culture, self-love is for Leopardi inseparable from life itself, and increases with “the feeling of one’s own existence” (Z 2410–14); it is a blind desire for one’s own preservation and well-being (Z 2549–51); it “is very subtle and insinuates itself everywhere” (Z 109, 2153–55, 3839) because it coincides with all the passions (Z 2489–92); it becomes egoism if it is ill-directed (Z 669–74). On self-love and compassion see Z 108–109 and note.

  Z 58

  1. Leopardi never changed his mind on this point: cf. Z 2573–74, 3165–67.

  2. Here Foscolo’s character Jacopo Ortis likens the Italians to the slaves of the ancient world, or of the modern, and foresees a time when their conquerors would lay waste to the ancestral tombs and scatter the bones they held. This note testifies to Leopardi’s reading of the Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis, which, along with Goethe’s Werther, served as a model for the project of an unfinished autobiographical novel (see “Vita abbozzata di Silvio Sarno,” §§ 60, 88).

  3. The Emperor Julian, Misopogon, ch. 2 (360d).

  4. Jacopo Sannazaro, Arcadia, eclogue 8, l. 126, in Opere volgari, vol. 1, p. 75.

  Z 59

  1. Such feelings, probably awakened by a girl referred to as “Brini,” date to May 1819 in the autobiographical sketches “Vita abbozzata di Silvio Sarno,” §§ 104–105, 108–109, where Leopardi mentions “cose notate ne’ pensieri” (“things noted down in my thoughts”) [our emphasis].

  2. We find similar expressions in the “Memorie del primo amore,” §§ 16–18 and in the “Vita abbozzata di Silvio Sarno,” § 26.

  Z 60

  1. Petrarch, Triumphus pudicitiae 136–37.

  2. Luigi Alamanni, Girone il cortese, canto 17, stanza 62, ll. 1–4 (p. 179).

  3. Pier Jacopo Martello, “Le montanine,” in Versi e prose, Bologna 1729, vol. 2, pp. 154ff. The line “Qual Villanella a coglier fonghi uscita” is on p. 157. This poem is quoted and commented by L. A. Muratori in bk. 4 of Della perfetta poesia italiana.

  4. See Z 4286. The theme of “remembrance of things past” also features in the idyll “Alla luna,” which almost certainly predates “L’infinito” (1819). For the poetics of rimembranza see Z 4426 and note 2.

  Z 61

  1. In a letter of 21 June 1819 to Giordani, Leopardi recorded the fact of his having just read Lorenzino de’ Medici’s Apologia.

  2. Quintilian was the first to praise Horace for the boldness of his style, but by the eighteenth century it was a commonplace, employed by, for example, Algarotti in his Saggio sopra Orazio, in Opere, tome 4, pp. 337–439, in particular pp. 358 (“disinvoltura e grazia”), 399–400 (“disinvoltura e frizzo”), 431.

  3. Horace, Odes 1, 35, 17–19.

  Z 62

  1. Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 120, 20, 4. Seneca argued that the use of this Greek term in Latin should not be condemned, since it had entered into ordinary usage, but that care should be taken to restore it to its original meaning.

  2. Luigi Alamanni, Girone il cortese, canto 11, stanza 21, l. 5 (p. 388). The remark refers to “vengianza.”

  3. In his letter of April 3, 1818 to Pietro Giordani Leopardi acknowledged that Xenophon had “a truly Homeric and Ionian simplicity,” and likened him to the Italian writers of the fourteenth century. On Leopardi and Xenophon, see Volgarizzamenti (B2), pp. 59–70.

  4. Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander 8, 6; Quintus Curtius Rufus, Historiae Alexandri Magni 3, 23; Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander 2, 9, 3–4.

  Z 63

  1. Paolo Costa, Della elocuzione. According to Pacella, Leopardi consulted the Venice 1818 edition, now lost.

  Z 64

  1. For the philosophical implication of this thought see Z 3496 and note 2.

  2. It is worth recalling here La Rochefoucauld’s maxim 136: “Il y a des gens qui n’auraient jamais été amoureux s’ils n’avaient jamais entendu parler de l’amour” [“There are people who would never have fallen in love if they had not heard love being spoken about”]. Leopardi read Goethe’s Werther (Verter in his Venetian translation of 1796, see Z 56, note 4) from March to May 1819, and this thought was probably written in May. It is worth noting that he does not mention here Foscolo’s Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis, another story of suicide, although he read it in the same year, perhaps even before, as the entry on Z 58 shows. Both works are in fact mentioned in his sketch of an autobiographical novel from this same year, “Vita abbozzata di Silvio Sarno” (Werther at §§ 31 and 75, Ortis at §§ 60, 88). Later on Leopardi considers modern suicide as a consequence of reason (cf. Z 223, 484–85, 1978–82, 2549–55, 3784).

  3. This passage from Algarotti’s Pensieri diversi is cited at length on Z 4227.

  4. A concept of fundamental importance in classical Greek culture, often regarded as equivalent to that of a “gentleman” (literally, “[the] beautiful and [the] good” or “virtuous”). See also Z 112, 2486, 4013.

  Z 65

  1. The mechanism described here is a typical Stoic “spiritual exercise” (Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault, Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1995) as Leopardi acknowledges, adding in 1827 at the end of the paragraph a reference to Epictetus’s Handbook, which in the meantime he had translated (fall 1825). Cf. Volgarizzamenti (B2), pp. 159ff. See Z 530 and note. Pietrino and Luigi are two of Leopardi’s younger brothers.

  Z 66

  1. This last interpolation was an interlinear addition. Analogical reasoning here shows that human beings were not meant by nature to be conscious of their own state. This is the first passage in the Zibaldone where the epistemological value of analogy is clearly stated. This is reiterated on Z 84, 157, and 3649. See also Z 947 and note. It is not clear, however, to what extent analogy is understood in the Aristotelian sense of proportion between four terms (A: B = C: D), or understood as logical inference of an inductive kind, where one of the terms may be missing: e.g., A: B = C: B1, thus A and C belong to a same class (Versace, “Appunti su Leopardi e l’analogia” B12).

  2. The c
oncluding sentence of this paragraph was an interlinear addition.

  Z 67

  1. Lorenzo Pignotti, Favole e novelle, Pavia 1791 (= LL).

  2. Roberti, Opere, tome 10, p. 138.

  3. According to tradition, Atilius Regulus returned to Rome on parole from Carthage in about 250 BCE, but rather than negotiating a peace treaty as mandated, urged the Senate to continue fighting; he then honored his parole by going back to Carthage, where he was executed.

  Z 68

  1. The library at Recanati contained an Italian version of the Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce but in February 1823 Leopardi was able to read Barthélemy’s work in the original French (see the numerous quotations starting from Z 2669). The passage on Thermopylae was also reproduced at the beginning of Leçons de littérature et de morale (tome 1, p. 11).

  2. Virgil, Aeneid 6, 304.

  Z 69

  1. A possible echo of Rousseau here, in particular of the Discours sur l’origine de l’inégalité. Cf. Z 1601–602 and note, “Canto notturno,” 39–40.

  2. Virgil, Eclogues 2, 73.

  3. Leopardi refers here to the pronunciation of the word for the letters f, l, m, s, etc.

  4. Cf. “Canto notturno,” 105–106: “O resting flock of mine, you blessed beings, / who don’t, I think, know your own misery!” (trans. Galassi).

  Z 71

  1. See Genovesi, Logica per i giovanetti, bk. 4, ch. 7, § 3 (p. 187).

  2. The observation had already been made by Buffon, Storia naturale, vol. 1, p. 13 and vol. 6, p. 212 (Pacella).

  Z 72

  1. This aphorism is supported on Z 4289–90 by “Stendhalian” stories about Naples heard from Baron Giuseppe Poerio.

  2. Note that a man who commits a crime without remorse is for Leopardi “innocent” (Z 51 and 276).

  3. The style and the content of this passage resemble those of a letter to Giordani of 19 November 1819: these pages of the Zibaldone might have been written in that fall.

  Z 73

  1. Damiani suggests that Leopardi might refer here to his brother Carlo, who boasted of his adventures in love.

  Z 74

  1. The passage quoted from Corinne is in tome 1, p. 212. Leopardi’s discovery of Corinne was of cardinal importance for his philosophical development (cf. Z 22, note 1).

  2. Leopardi’s mistake; it is actually the fifth edition: see Z 87.

  3. Corinne, tome 1, pp. 246–47.

  Z 75

  1. Staël, Corinne, bk. 6, entitled “Les moeurs et le caractère des Italiens,” is indebted to the eighteenth-century theory of the influence of climate upon civilization, elaborated by Jean-Baptiste Du Bos, Montesquieu, Buffon, Winckelmann, and by most physicians following Hippocratic teaching (see E. Williams, The Physical and the Moral; Anthropology, Physiology and Philosophical Medicine in France, 1750–1850, Cambidge: Cambridge U.P., 1994). Leopardi, who cites Hippocrates on Z 3961 and 3990, expounds upon several aspects of this theory (cf., e.g., Z 622–25, 2874–75, 2928, 3891–93, 4031–33). Here he probably has in mind the passage from Corinne cited above, tome 1, p. 246: “The peoples of the south frequently pass from the greatest agitation to the most profound repose; this is yet another contradiction in their character, idleness, linked with the most indefatigable activity;… they show themselves as the most audacious of men; if they are indolent, it is perhaps because they are resting after having acted, or because they are preparing themselves to act once more.” Cf. also ibid., pp. 271–72. On the polarity between north and south see, e.g., Z 1351–52, 2086, 3676–82, 4256.

  Z 76

  1. The sense of “a purpose in life” is the only chance for happiness, as Leopardi explains on Z 4518. The religious undertones of this idea are made explicit by the “corollary” on the “anchorites” a paragraph later. See however Z 4421–22, which seems to contradict this recollection.

  2. On the role of physical exercise among the ancients see Z 115, 207–208.

  3. That is, the first thought on Z 76.

  4. On the difference between ancient and modern pain see Z 88, 105, 1677–78, 2434–36, 2754–55, 4156, 4243–45, 4283.

  Z 77

  1. Cf. Z 3342–43, 4119.

  2. Leopardi had in mind here a passage from Staël’s Corinne (bk. 18, ch. 4), in which the pain suffered by Niobe is related to fate and not to passions arising in the human heart. Winckelmann had written at length on the celebrated sculptures of Laocoön and Niobe (Damiani).

  Z 78

  1. “Discorso di un italiano intorno alla poesia romantica,” in Prose, pp. 399–400.

  Z 79

  1. The “emblems of life” are those objects buried with the dead man, and intended to ease his passage through the afterlife, for example in Etruscan or Egyptian tombs.

  2. Staël, Corinne, bk. 9, ch. 2, tome 2, p. 97.

  Z 80

  1. The parallel between music and architecture was stated by Kant, especially in the Critique of Judgment. It found little favor among the German Romantics, and was rejected by both Hegel and Schopenhauer. Leopardi did not have direct knowledge of Kant: see Z 1857, note 1.

  2. A poetic sketch. In a later note the two moments—hope and disillusionment—are attributed to different parts of the day: morning and evening (see Felici, La luna nel cortile, pp. 30–31 [B11]). The term noia, usually rendered in this edition as “boredom,” is here translated as “tiredness.”

  3. The chapter in question is entitled “Foiblesse de l’Empire de l’Orient.” Leopardi makes extensive use of Montesquieu’s Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur decadence (an edition that also contained Dialogue de Sylla et d’Eucrate, Le Temple de Gnide, and the Essai sur le goût, Amsterdam 1781). The reading of this work is probably linked to the project of a “political book” (Prose, p. 1212) considered perhaps in 1820, where we find echoes from Montesquieu as well as from Machiavelli, whose name nevertheless is not mentioned. The LL also had copies of De l’esprit des loix, Geneva 1751, and Lettres persanes, Geneva 1731.

  Z 81

  1. See also Z 710–11, and, five years later, Z 3932–36. A similar view was held by Nietzsche, see, e.g., The Gay Science, § 23. This thought is the basis of Leopardi’s interest in “practical” versus “theoretical” morality (cf. Z 520–22 and note, 2492–93, 2574–76).

  Z 82

  1. What Leopardi describes here might recall what Benjamin calls “collapsing words” in Baudelaire: “Shock is among those experiences that have assumed decisive importance for Baudelaire’s personality … Rivière has pointed to the subterranean shocks by which Baudelaire’s poetry is shaken; it is as though they caused words to collapse” (Walter Benjamin, “Some Motifs in Baudelaire,” in Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism, trans. by Harry Zohn, London: New Left Books, 1973, pp. 118–19). In Alessandro Verri, Le notti romane, night 5, conversation 2, p. 86, the story concerns a Vestal Virgin who, meeting a young man by night, was discovered, and seized and imprisoned.

  2. For the idea of pleasure as an interruption of pain one might recall Plato, Phaedon 60b–c, but most likely Leopardi relied here on widespread eighteenth-century sources (e.g., Verri), or on personal experience (Timpanaro, “Epicuro, Lucrezio e Leopardi,” pp. 179–80 [B12]). See Z 2599–602. Sappho was believed to have leaped to her death from Cape Lefkada, and many others after her. One of the modern sources for this story might be the last chapter (3, 9), “Il salto di Leucade,” of Verri’s Le avventure di Saffo. In 1823 Leopardi contemplated giving his Operette morali the title “The Leap from Lefkada.” See “Le ricordanze,” ll. 104–109. The theme is explored in Margaret Reynolds, The Sappho History, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

  Z 83

  1. A crucial word for Leopardi, who, especially in relation to poets, often understands it etymologically as “possession by a god,” “divine inspiration.” This is the sense in which it was often discussed by Arcadia and more broadly in the eighteenth century; a much-quoted text is Saverio Bettinelli’s Del
l’entusiasmo (1769), owned by Leopardi.

  Z 84

  1. In a dissertation on astronomy written at the age of thirteen, Leopardi exalted Copernicus—to whom he later dedicated one of the Operette morali—because he had wrested from Ptolemy “the unjustly usurped scepter” (Prose, p. 483). Two years afterward (1813), he composed a lengthy history of astronomy, in which he displays his knowledge of many sources, mostly derived from works of scientific divulgation. He certainly relied on Fontenelle, Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes (Oeuvres, vol. 1, pp. 209–336). The “new mysteries” alluded to here will be investigated, e.g., on Z 1637–45. See “Vita abbozzata di Silvio Sarno,” § 32. Note that on Z 56 Leopardi had defined man as “the first of all beings in our world.” For Leopardi’s critique of anthropocentrism see, e.g., Z 2895–903, 3647–48, 3975 (see, however, Z 3172 and note). The passage shows the ambiguity of the concept of analogy in Leopardi’s thought: law of nature, similarity, or argumentative procedure. See Z 66 and note.

  2. Note probably written around 20 December 1819, because almost identical to a passage from a letter to Giordani of that day (Pacella).

  Z 85

  1. Timpanaro, “Appunti,” p. 615 (B12), judged these pseudo-senarii (lines of six feet) on the pious to be the work of Leopardi himself, and to be a veiled comment on the monarchs of the Holy Alliance, during a period of extreme political tension in Europe. See Z 4165 and note 6.

  2. Jean-François Marmontel, “Alcibiade, ou le Moi,” in Contes Moraux, The Hague 1783 (= LL), vol. 1, p. 31.

  Z 86

  1. Staël, Corinne, tome 3, p. 256.

  Z 87

  1. Here in Corinne Staël judges the “laugh of despair” to be one of the most compelling of all dramatic effects employed on the stage. One might think of it as a source for l. 45 of the canto “Bruto minore,” where Brutus “maligno alle nere ombre sorride” (“bitterly he smiles at the black shades,” trans. Galassi), but see also Verri’s Avventure di Saffo, bk. 3, ch. 9, p. 281, where Venus smiles “con maligno sorriso.” Cf. also Z 188 and 4391.