Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  Z 3081

  1. See Encyclopédie méthodique. Grammaire et Littérature, tome 3, part 2, p. 645.

  Z 3084

  1. Leopardi may have in mind here the despotic regime of Louis XIV. See Z 1077–78.

  Z 3090

  1. Leopardi seems to be arguing that if any fixed rule for beauty exists, then it should be dictated by a noncivilized nature, hence force, not delicacy. This contrasts, however, with his idea of the relativity of beauty; hence this convoluted line of reasoning.

  Z 3094

  1. This episode was recounted by Cellini in a letter of 9 September 1536 to Benedetto Varchi, see B. Cellini, Opere, Milan 1806–11, vol. 2, pp. 234–35 (Pacella).

  Z 3095

  1. This is the beginning of a 72-page-long “essay” on Homer and the epic tradition. There is an allusion here to those sixteenth-century theorists who regarded unity of time, place, and action as an essential prerequisite of the epic. They obviously relied on Aristotle’s Poetics 1459a, where the laws governing tragedy also apply to epic; in both the fable must “consist of a single action, which is a coherent whole, complete in itself, and has a beginning, a middle, and an end.” Thus the epic poem may be likened to “a perfect living organism.” Cf. also Z 3138, 3593. Cesarotti discusses the “double plot” in his translation Iliade o Morte di Ettore, tome 1, pp. XIX–XX, on which see Z 3113–14. On the unity of the Homeric poems cf. Z 4313ff. and 4343ff.

  Z 3096

  1. The Latin term signifies men of letters who are not the genuine article.

  Z 3098

  1. See also Z 3342–43, 3382, 4119, 4240, 4309.

  Z 3103

  1. Homer, Iliad 21, 211ff. Achilles does battle here with a river, also named the Scamander.

  Z 3104

  1. See Z 1672 and note 2, 3126.

  2. Isocrates, Panegyricus 159.

  Z 3106

  1. Phrynichus, an Athenian dramatist of the sixth to fifth century BCE, was the author of the famous Capture of Miletus, a tragedy that so disturbed the Athenians that its author was fined. Leopardi’s account of the reception granted to this tragedy is drawn in the first place from the entry devoted to Phrynichus in the “Notitia tragicorum,” in Fabricius, Bibliotheca Graeca, vol. 1, p. 654; from Meurs, Bibliotheca Attica (a survey of the totality of ancient Greek literature produced in Athens and its environs), bk. 5, in Opera omnia, vol. 2, cols. 866–67; and from Richard Bentley, Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris, London 1816, pp. 225–26 (and not p. 256, as Leopardi writes), though this last reference may have been taken by Leopardi from Longinus, ed. Toup, p. 198. The episode in Athens is recounted by Pseudo-Longinus, On the Sublime 24, 1 and by Aelianus, Varia historia 13, 17. Other references in this passage are to: Plutarch, Precepts of Statecraft (Moralia 814b); Strabo 14, 1, 7, 635a; Scholia to Aristophanes, Wasps 1490; Herodotus 6, 21; Tzetzes, Chiliades 7, 156.

  Z 3109

  1. Here Leopardi rectifies the notion expressed on Z 108–109 (see note), to the effect that compassion is “the sole human quality or passion” extraneous to self-love.

  Z 3112

  1. Homer, Iliad 22, 5ff.

  Z 3113

  1. In the LL there is no trace now of a copy of the version published by Cesarotti in Venice in 1795, entitled Iliade o Morte di Ettore; cf. in particular tome 1, pp. XXVff. See also Z 3144.

  Z 3114

  1. See Z 3095. In his criticism of Cesarotti Leopardi follows Ugo Foscolo’s article “Sulla traduzione dell’Odissea,” published in 1810 in Annali di scienze e lettere.

  Z 3115

  1. This line of argument had already been developed at length in the long “essay” on Z 872–911 and in many other thoughts. On Homer and compassion see in particular Z 2759–60.

  Z 3117

  1. Pallas was Evander’s son, slain by Turnus in the Aeneid, bk. 10.

  Z 3118

  1. This assertion directly contradicts Rousseau’s cardinal principle that compassion is a natural impulse. Cf. Z 108–109 and note.

  Z 3120

  1. Leopardi owned only a translation of Sophocles consisting of Antigone, Electra, and Oedipus (Rome 1782). He had nothing at all by Aeschylus or Euripides. This summary judgment of the Greek tragic dramatists is in line with views widely held at the time, and reflects, in particular, an opinion expressed by Voltaire (cf. A Discourse on Tragedy, in The Dramatic Works, London 1761, vol. 1, pp. 211–13).

  2. Homer, Iliad 6, 369ff.

  Z 3126

  1. The Lusiads is the national epic of Portugal, published by Camoens in 1572. See Z 1672, note 2, and 3126.

  2. The Henriade, Voltaire’s epic, celebrates the achievements of Henry IV, who drove the Spaniards out of France and established the principle of toleration by means of the Edict of Nantes (1598).

  Z 3127

  1. In 1580 Celio Malespini had published the first, uncorrected, and incomplete edition of Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata with the title Goffredo, unbeknown to its author.

  Z 3128

  1. An allusion to the piracy of the Barbary corsairs, a perennial hazard in the Mediterranean and the pretext for France’s conquest of Algeria in 1830.

  2. Petrarch, Rime 28, the ode dedicated to Giacomo (or Giovanni) Colonna on the occasion of the Crusade of 1333.

  Z 3130

  1. In his oration To Philip 128–31, Isocrates says that he has solicited the intervention of the Macedonian king, in order to be sure of having an effective leader in the struggle against the barbarians, though he might thus bring down the hatred of his compatriots upon his head. In March 1825 Leopardi will translate the beginning of this oration.

  2. See Speroni, Orationi, pp. 1–39.

  3. Aelianus, Varia historia 13, 7. Leopardi was reading “Vita et argumenta octo orationum Isocratis,” that is, the life of Isocrates and a summary of eight orations (cf. Prose, p. 1224). From this text he gathered that Isocrates composed the oration to Philip at an advanced age, and that Alexander, having read it, decided to wage war on Darius III.

  Z 3131

  1. The passage from “It should also…” is a later marginal addition; hence the forward reference to Z 3525.

  Z 3132

  1. The Bibliotheca Graeca, loc. cit., cites the Antonii epistola ad Philippum Melanchthonem, which Leopardi discusses on Z 3173. The references that follow are added in the margin. All three passages by Speroni are imbued with a crusading fervor, as well as the passage from Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier, bk. 4, ch. 38.

  2. The Spanish poet Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga (1533–1594) took part in the conquest of Chile (1555) and celebrated it in his poem, La Araucana. Leopardi did not own this work but did possess L’Italia liberata dai Goti, a heroic poem on the Ostrogoths’ war with Byzantium (535–539) by Gian Giorgio Trissino (1478–1550).

  3. Leopardi’s scant respect for Arici, whose Gerusalemme distrutta was published in 1818, is borne out by other passages on Z 725 and 732.

  Z 3138

  1. Cf. Z 3095 and note, 3593.

  Z 3141

  1. Voltaire, in his Essai sur la poésie épique (mentioned on Z 4020), regarded “making Saladin hateful a brilliant artistic device. Without this artifice more than one reader would have taken the side of the Mahommedans against the Christians” (ch. 7, Oeuvres, Paris 1792, p. 376). This passage in Italian in the LL edition of Voltaire’s Opere scelte, vol. 2, p. 79.

  Z 3148

  1. Sveno the Dane, killed by Solimano, see Gerusalemme liberata, canto 8. The other characters named here feature in cantos 2, 7, and 12.

  Z 3149

  1. Dudone, prince of Consa, is slain by Argante. See Gerusalemme liberata 3, 39ff.

  Z 3155

  1. Like Monti: see Z 36.

  Z 3156

  1. The next two sentences are a marginal addition.

  Z 3157

  1. The last three sentences (from “In fact”) are an unattached marginal addition. In his “Discorso di un italiano intorno alla poesia romantica” (1818) Leopardi had contested the view t
hat Homer was “one of the least sentimental poets” (Prose, pp. 393–94). Homer’s “Christian” regard for the reality of the other (an “enemy” and “wretched”) is attributed to the poet’s objective attitude to feelings.

  2. Cf. also Z 3115. This change of mores is discussed by Saint-Evremond in his “Sur les poèmes des anciens” (1686), especially with regard to the “inhumain” Achilles (Oeuvres, n.p., 1740, vol. 4, pp. 305–306). Leopardi owned the 1739 edition, where, however, this essay does not feature.

  Z 3158

  1. In her L’Iliade ou le poème de la force, Simone Weil expresses the same idea almost with the same words: “One is barely aware that the poet is a Greek and not a Trojan…” And she continues: “The chansons de geste, lacking the sense of equity, could not attain greatness.” (S. Weil and R. Bespaloff, War and the Iliad, trans. Mary McCarthy, New York 2005, pp. 33–34).

  Z 3159

  1. A paraphrase of a line by Sannazaro, “E tanto è miser l’uom quant’ei si reputa,” cited on Z 58.

  Z 3161

  1. Almost the same expression on Z 4515.

  Z 3162

  1. Homer, Iliad 24, 477ff.

  Z 3167

  1. Leopardi has not changed his mind since Z 58 (and see also Z 2573–74).

  Z 3170

  1. Leopardi quotes from Terence, Comoediae sex cum interpretatione Donati et Calphurnii, ed. A. H. Westerhoff, The Hague 1732, p. 56 (= LL).

  2. See Plato, Symposium 176e, and one of Leopardi’s Latin notes on Plato, critical of Ast’s translation (Scritti filologici, p. 533). In this paragraph there are many marginal additions, the last of which is unattached. All the references are drawn from Forcellini.

  Z 3172

  1. Leopardi’s critique of anthropocentrism (see Z 84 and note) loses its strength when the consideration of man’s weakness becomes a sign of his greatness, as in Pascal, Pensées (ed. Brunschvicg), §§ 347, 397, 416. See the poem “Sopra il ritratto di una bella donna,” ll. 50–52.

  Z 3173

  1. See Z 2923–25.

  Z 3176

  1. See Z 3128 and note 2.

  2. Leopardi refers to Isocrates’s Panegyricus and To Philip, and to Demosthenes’s four Philippics.

  3. In his note Leopardi quotes the place where Tasso celebrates, by means of a prophecy, the exploits of Alfonso II, who reigned from 1559 to 1597 and who was for a brief period the ally of Maximilian of Austria in his war against Suleyman.

  Z 3177

  1. The reference (a later addition) is to the sixth oration by Lorenzo Giacomini Tebalducci Malespini “in lode di Torquato Tasso,” in Prose fiorentine, vol. 1, pp. 56–77.

  Z 3178

  1. See Z 200, 1322–23, 1327, and 1576.

  Z 3180

  1. See William Robertson, Storia di America, translated by A. Pillori, Venice 1794, bk. 4, tome 2, p. 129 (= The history of America, London 1817, vol. 2, pp. 84–85: “They [the Californians] seem, however, to be every where exempt from many of the distempers which afflict polished nations. None of the maladies, which are the immediate offspring of luxury, ever visited them”). Leopardi is known to have read this book in October 1824 (Pacella). He may have read also a translation of Francisco Javier Clavijero’s Historia de la antigua o baja California, that is Storia della California, Venice 1789, in particular pp. 112–13 on the health of the Californians. The present reference is vague, however, and may indicate a more general debt to Buffon, who often commented upon the physical strength and robustness of savages, or to Rousseau (cf. Z 1602 and note). At any rate, Enlightenment travel literature was full of references to the forests of California (see also Z 2712, 3304, 3660).

  Z 3190

  1. See Virgil, Opera, vol. 1, p. 19. Both Forcellini and Fabricius give biographical information on Caius Melissus, a grammarian and comic poet from Spoleto.

  2. This passage, from “The habit of always thinking…” is a marginal addition. In depicting the characteristic traits of a person such as Rousseau, Leopardi was at the same time engaged in painting a self-portrait. The same happens perhaps on Z 3492.

  Z 3192

  1. Cicero, De natura deorum 1, 43–45, and 49; Lucretius, De rerum natura 1, 136–39, and 830–33; Horace, Ars poetica 268–69.

  Z 3196

  1. The source of this assertion is uncertain.

  Z 3198

  1. Compared to other thoughts on habituation and exercise, this thought allows more scope for the role of natural talents; see also Z 1743–44, 3345–47, and 3881–82.

  Z 3199

  1. See Z 3058–59 and note.

  Z 3200

  1. Several scientific tendencies from the late eighteenth century onward converged in the measurement and interpretation of the cranium, most notably the phrenology of Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828), followed by Camper, whose work has been quoted on Z 8 (note 5). Leopardi here uses a term (craniologi) that was shortly to be documented by Baldassarre Poli’s Saggio filosofico sopra la scuola de’ moderni filosofi naturalisti…, Milan 1827, a work that received extensive coverage, with reviews for example in Biblioteca Italiana, tome 46 (April 1827), pp. 62–76, and in Nuovo Ricoglitore, year 3 (January 1827), issue 25, pp. 93ff. Cf. also Z 3945.

  Z 3201

  1. See Z 1829 and note.

  2. Leopardi might have read dismissive judgments on the Lapps in Algarotti (Opere, tome 4, p. 232) and Buffon (Histoire naturelle, tome 3, “Variétés dans l’espèce humaine,” pp. 371ff. [LL = Storia naturale dell’uomo, tome 3, pp. 2ff.]). There had been several voyages of exploration in Lapland in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century—for example, by Giuseppe Acerbi, later the editor of the Biblioteca Italiana (see Joseph Acerbi, Travels through Sweden, Finland, and Lapland, to the North Cape, in the Years 1798–1799. London 1802)—and most travelers had come to less dismissive conclusions. See, for example, Leopold von Buch, Viaggio in Norvegia, ed in Lapponia fatto negli anni 1806, 1807 e 1808, preface by A. von Humboldt, trans. by Luigi Bossi, Milan 1817, reviewed in Spettatore, Foreign section, tome 6, 1816, no. 56, p. 196. See also Z 4024.

  Z 3203

  1. Tommaso Valperga Caluso, “Lettera…,” in Alfieri, Vita, vol. 2, p. 219.

  2. Leopardi refers here to Nicola Riganti da Molfetta (1744–1822), bishop of Ancona and subsequently a cardinal. He was a friend of the Leopardi family and of Carlo Antici, Giacomo’s uncle.

  3. Cancellieri’s work has been mentioned on Z 1177, see note 2 (Leopardi quotes here from p. 135).

  Z 3208

  1. Cf. notes 1 and 2 to Z 1871.

  2. That poetry must also be popular, that is, delight the “uninitiated,” is an idea that Leopardi never abandoned, from the “Discorso di un italiano intorno alla poesia romantica” (Prose, p. 352), to later thoughts; see, e.g., Z 4388.

  Z 3212

  1. Here Leopardi clearly echoes a passage from G. Martini, Storia della musica, vol. 1, p. 325 (= LL): “among these musical changes [of the ancients], one of the most important was the movement from Sound to Sound through the various Intervals, which established a Melody.” Further on Martini defines that “change of tonality” as a movement “of the whole Series of Pitches due to each Tone.” (Author’s emphases throughout; he is describing the ordered sequence that we would call a scale.)

  Z 3214

  1. Emperor Kangxi (1654–1722), second in the Qing dynasty, entrusted two Jesuits with the task of drawing up a musical code by means of which to disseminate European music in China. Leopardi probably derived this information from “Musica dei Chinesi,” in Il Raccoglitore, tome 1, 1819, p. 81.

  2. See Z 192.

  Z 3218

  1. Leopardi is perhaps thinking of an article by Giuseppe Carpani in the Biblioteca Italiana, tome 10, April 1818, pp. 3–25, in defense of Rossini (charged with superficiality by the followers of the German school), as a champion of melody as opposed to harmony, a distinction that Leopardi does not clearly make: cf. Z 1759–60, 1780–86. The same ideas can also be found in other articles by Carpani, later collected
in his Rossiniane, Padua 1824, pp. 61–95, 119–84. The previous February, when in Rome, Leopardi had heard and greatly admired Rossini’s La donna del lago (Epistolario, p. 646).

  Z 3224

  1. The degeneration of music, already condemned in ancient times by Plato in Laws, 700a–701b, was one of Rousseau’s themes. In his Essai sur l’origine des langues, ch. 17 (in Oeuvres, vol. 5, p. 422) he wrote that “in abandoning the oral accent and concentrating on merely harmonic structures, music becomes more noisy to the ear and less sweet to the heart. It has already ceased to talk; very soon it will no longer sing and then with all its chords and all its harmony it will no longer have any effect on us.” Carpani’s article in the Biblioteca Italiana, cited above, moves along these lines, identifying melody with “nature” and describing German, i.e., Romantic, music as intellectual and abstruse (“very strange harmonies … produced by cold reason,” p. 10).

  2. For the impact of music upon the Macedonian king, see Dio Chrysostom, Orations 1, 1–3 (Orationes, ed. Reiske, Leipzig 1784, vol. 1, p. 43); Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 12, 538f–539b; but see also Dutens, Origine, part 3, ch. 11, tome 2, pp. 142–43, with further quotations. See also Z 3425.

  3. Barthélemy, Viaggio d’Anacarsi, tome 4, pp. 234–35, argues that ancient legislators, preoccupied by the emotional power of music, favored its immutability. Cf. Plato, Laws 656d–e on Egyptian music, and 700a–701b.

  Z 3225

  1. Rousseau, by contrast, had insisted that modern music and the music of classical Greece were wholly unrelated. See his Essai sur l’origine des langues, ch. 12 (in Oeuvres, vol. 5, p. 411) (Damiani).

  2. See Barthélemy, Viaggio d’Anacarsi, tome 4, pp. 236–38, where it is recounted that Greece, at the time of its great victories over the Persians (fifth century BCE) was seized by an enthusiasm for instrumental music and for dithyrambic poetry, causing the traditional music to be corrupted. Cf. also ch. 70, tome 10, pp. 115–16.

  Z 3227

  1. Leopardi does not consider the songs of Robert Burns or of Thomas Moore, though his brother Carlo had been commissioned in 1816 to translate an article on the former (Epistolario, p. 36), and the latter’s works were widely reviewed in Italian periodicals (see Z 986).