1. The following sentence and the cross-reference are added in the margin with no insertion marks.
Z 3967
1. See Hippocrates, Opera, p. 36. Leopardi discerns a point of contact between Greek and Italian in the use of the infinitive instead of the imperative.
2. Bk. 1, ch. 8.
Z 3970
1. Cervantes, Vida, ed. 1697, bk. 4, ch. 29, vol. 1, p. 312.
Z 3973
1. See Z 851.
Z 3974
1. Cf. Z 1630 and note.
Z 3975
1. The meditation on civilization again leads Leopardi to question anthropocentrism (see Z 84 and note 1).
2. Homer is the archetype of the poetics of the vago, or indefinito (the vague or indefinite); see Z 26 and note 2. For the influence of Longinus, see Z 27 and note 3, and cf. Z 1826.
Z 3976
1. Leopardi alludes to the theories advanced by Vico and by F. A. Wolf, in his Prolegomena ad Homerum, which at this time he knew only indirectly. See, for example, Choiseul-Gouffier’s very critical article about Wolf, which was translated in Spettatore, tome 7, no. 69, 1817, pp. 295–96. When later, in August 1828, Leopardi actually read the Prolegomena, he came to accept Wolf’s hypothesis, albeit only in part: see the series of reflections on the Homer question occasioned by his reading of Wolf, from Z 4312 on. Cf. Timpanaro, La filologia, pp. 156–57 (B11).
2. Cf. Z 1860–62. Leopardi also calls it “sentimental” poetry (see Z 136, 734–35, 1448–49).
3. It was his reading of Barthélemy’s Voyage du jeune Anacharsis in Rome, in February 1823, and of the previously unfamiliar classical texts cited in it, that led to Leopardi’s “discovery” of the sorrow and pessimism of the ancients. See Z 2672, note 1.
4. Damiani points out the coherence of Ariosto’s place here “among the ancients” with Leopardi’s contention in his “Discourse on the Present State of Customs Among the Italians” that the Renaissance restored the “ancient state” of civilization, in contrast with that of the Middle Ages, which was “equally far away from culture and from nature.”
Z 3978
1. Thomas, in the passage cited, writes: “Newton … was obliged to simplify the universe in order to calculate it. He made all the stars move in free spaces: henceforth no more fluid, no more resistance, no more friction; the bonds which link together all the parts of the world, are no more than relationships of gravitation, purely mathematical entities.” The assumption that points are indivisible is analogous to the assumption, in Newtonian physics, that bodies are moving in a vacuum.
Z 3982
1. Leopardi paraphrases Fabricius, vol. 1, pp. 567–68; De Rogati, “Discorso preliminare,” in Anacreon, Le odi, p. 58.
2. Abydenus, a Greek historian of uncertain date and the author of a history of the Assyrians, is cited by Eusebius (see Scritti filologici, pp. 38, 315). Leopardi had written about Theocritus, a Hellenistic Greek poet and the originator of pastoral or bucolic poetry, in his “Discorso sopra Mosco,” an introduction to his translations of a number of idylls belonging to the ancient Theocritus corpus.
3. See Z 2231, note 1.
Z 3984
1. Leopardi was familiar with the Encomium calvitii [Eulogy of Baldness] by Synesius, which itself contained passages from Dio Chrysostom’s work in praise of hair. See Z 8, note 3, and further on Z 3988 for other examples.
Z 3985
1. Same reference on Z 3636.
Z 3986
1. The following examples are added in the ms. margin.
Z 3988
1. In a learned comment on l. 10 of ode 29 (Carmina Anacreontea 17 West) De’ Rogati, in order to demonstrate how the ancients prized a low forehead, cited passages from Horace and Petronius (Anacreon, Le odi, tome 1, pp. 163–66).
Z 3989
1. Frederick II, Oeuvres complettes, tome 14, p. 191–92.
Z 3990
1. Leopardi refers to the Hippocratic treatise De aere, aquis et locis, cited on Z 3961. On the influence of climate on the character, habits, and customs of peoples see Z 74–75 and note.
2. A radical confirmation of one of his first thoughts (Z 51), and an appeal to the wisdom of “poets,” “musicians,” and “ancient philosophers” (Z 2680–81 and note).
Z 3991
1. See Z 3516 and note 2.
Z 3992
1. All this passage after the date is an unattached marginal addition. The references are to Fabricius, Bibliotheca Graeca, vol. 1, pp. 592–93.
Z 3993
1. Frederick II, Oeuvres complettes, tome 14, p. 334. Compare a very similar sentiment expressed by Frederick on Z 3899 and 3931.
Z 3995
1. Monti, Proposta, vol. 2, part 1, pp. 61–62.
Z 3996
1. Leopardi has dated this entry 20 December, but the preceding one is dated the 21st.
Z 3997
1. Hippocrates, De flatibus 1, in Opera, part 2, p. 24.
2. The sentence in question is on p. 24 of Mercuriale’s edition.
3. Leopardi refers to the case of Simonides.
Z 3998
1. That is, Facciolati’s Compendiaria (see Z 2780, note).
2. Weller, Grammatica Graeca nova, p. 82.
Z 3999
1. Cervantes, Vida, ed. 1697, bk. 4, ch. 39, vol. 1, ch. 39, p. 447. There is no trace of the following sentence in the text.
2. In fact there were a number of Greek colonies in Spain, including Emporion (now Empúries), on what is now the Costa Brava, founded c. 575 BCE.
Z 4000
1. Petrarch, Rime 119, 39–42. The title is underlined by Leopardi in the ms.
Z 4002
1. That is, the kingdom of Naples.
2. Perticari, Apologia di Dante, pp. 71–74.
3. Menander, fr. 777. Leopardi read this dictum in the works of St. Maximus the Confessor, ed. Combefis, Paris 1675 (= LL), tome 2, p. 625, “De veritate et mendacio.” See Z 2680–81, 3530, and 3954–55.
4. Hippocrates, De morbo sacro 1, 22, in Opera, p. 346.
Z 4003
1. Hippocrates, De morbo sacro 1, 44, in Opera, p. 347d.
2. Leopardi refers with a sign to the entry “See the preceding thought,” etc., written after the following one.
3. That is, the entry before the preceding one (see the note above).
Z 4006
1. That is, “an infinite number of derivatives of this and many other types.”
Z 4011
1. Cassius Dio, Historiae Romanae, vol. 2, p. 1316, note 44 to 78, 8, 5. Perizonius (J. Voorbroek, 1651–1715) published an edition of Aelian, Varia historia, at Leiden in 1701.
2. See Scritti filologici, pp. 270–72 and 489–90.
Z 4014
1. Machiavelli, Tutte le opere, part 3, p. 16, where it in fact reads “intiero.” The subsequent quotations are taken from this edition, part 3, pp. 21, 30.
2. This thought follows in the ms. the entry “For p. 2779.”
3. There is no indication of Leopardi having spoken of such a derivation before.
Z 4015
1. Cervantes, Vida, ed. 1697, bk. 4, vol. 1, p. 597. The following quotation ibid., p. 593.
Z 4016
1. The fragment by Cicero is preserved by Juvenal (Satires 10, 122).
2. That is, Rhetorica ad Herennium, a work once believed to be by Cicero. All these references are given by Forcellini.
Z 4017
1. Charles VIII invaded Italy in 1494 and the next year occupied the kingdom of Naples, but an anti-French alliance forced him to retreat.
Z 4018
1. Tutte le opere, part 5, p. 39. Here Leopardi spells the author’s name “Macchiavelli” (though elsewhere “Machiavelli”). In the following paragraph another quotation from ibid., p. 49.
Z 4019
1. Lucian, Opera, tome 1, pp. 88 and 55.
2. That is to say, it meant “loin, hip” but not only that.
3. See Scapula, Lexicon, col. 712.
4. In the Crusca.
&nb
sp; 5. On the same day, 19 January 1824, Leopardi began writing the “Storia del genere umano,” thus inaugurating the composition of the Operette morali which was to occupy much of the rest of the year.
6. Horace, Odes 1, 2, 9.
7. Stobaeus (Sententiae 4, 46, 10 Hense), transmits the Archilochus fragment 122 West.
Z 4020
1. Voltaire, Opere, vol. 2, pp. 3–24. This is one of the first topics addressed by Leopardi and a long-standing one; see Z 8.
2. Cervantes, Vida, ed. 1697, vol. 2, prologue to the reader.
3. Scapula, Lexicon, col. 1049.
Z 4021
1. This thought is probably inspired by the composition of the Operette morali, inaugurated a few days before. Leopardi reflects again on the “perfection of style” and on how this is neglected in modern times in 1827, while publishing the Operette (Z 4240, 4268–72).
Z 4022
1. Staël, Corinne, bk. 8, ch. 2, vol. 2, pp. 38–40. Leopardi’s preference for movement and liveliness in visual arts, connected with his theory of grace (Fabio Camilletti, “Il passo di Nerina,” cited in note 2 to Z 262, pp. 58–61), contrasts with the theories expressed in Lessing’s Laokoon (1766) and with Winckelmann’s ideal of classical art as “noble simplicity and quiet grandeur,” and seems to anticipate Aby Warburg’s reevaluation of movement in classical art. In “Le ricordanze,” Nerina is portrayed in the act of “passing,” a dancing and gracious movement that recalls that of the “Ghirlandaio nymph” in Warburg’s and André Jolles’s epistolary exchange of 1900: “this lively, light-footed and rapid gait, this irresistible energy, this striding step, which contrasts with the aloof distance of all the other figures” (E. Gombrich, Aby Warburg: An Intellectual Biography, Oxford: Phaidon, 1986, p. 107). Nerina’s gait, exactly like that of Jensen’s Gradiva (1903), shows her as a surviving ancient presence, whose nature as a nymph is precisely made manifest through movement (Camilletti, “Il passo di Nerina,” pp. 63–64).
Z 4023
1. As in many other cases in the following years, in the Zibaldone Leopardi drafts thoughts that he will use for his Operette morali first, and for his Pensieri later on. We will not always identify all these notes. This is for the “Detti memorabili di Filippo Ottonieri.”
Z 4024
1. Antologia, December 1823, p. 120 (and p. 121 the sentence in parenthesis). On the question of numbers see Z 1072–75, 1101–102, 1394–99, 2186–87.
Z 4025
1. Rousseau had been one of the first critics of the custom of not breast-feeding children (Damiani), see Émile, bk. 1 (in Oeuvres, vol. 2, pp. 256–59). See Z 1602, note.
Z 4026
1. That is, Phaedrus 235e.
2. From a different perspective see Z 499–501.
Z 4028
1. Leopardi read Sforza Pallavicino’s Trattato dello stile e del dialogo (in the Modena ed. of 1819) in late 1822 or early 1823.
2. Cicero, Orator 55, 186.
Z 4029
1. That is, Historia commentitia; see Z 527 and note, 4151 and note 2.
Z 4030
1. Machiavelli, Tutte le opere, part 5, p. 153.
2. Faenza is an Italian city (in Emilia Romagna). In French “Fayence” (faïence) is the name of majolica ware, but also of a small town in Provence.
3. Lucian, Opera, tome 1, p. 571.
4. Palmerius, ibid., p. 572.
Z 4031
1. On the relation between climate and civilization see Z 75 and note. At some point in 1824, while writing the first twenty Operette morali, Leopardi probably drafted his Discorso sopra lo stato presente dei costumi degl’italiani: this entry might be related to that work.
Z 4032
1. Once in Milan, however, the following year, Leopardi will miss the “conversation,” that is, the life of society, he expected to find: see his letters of 8 and 20 August 1825 (Epistolario, pp. 920–21, 930). On the lack of conversation in Italy see Z 1951, 2129, etc.
Z 4033
1. In Tutte le opere, part 5, p. 100.
Z 4034
1. Leopardi read Ver-vert and other writings by J.-B. Gresset in February 1824, in a one-volume edition (probably borrowed) published in Paris in 1817.
Z 4035
1. In fact Leopardi had not discussed this use before.
Z 4036
1. Lucian, De astrologia 29, in Opera, tome 1, p. 856, ll. 11–12. There are grave doubts as to the authorship of this text.
2. See Scritti filologici, pp. 471–542, in particular pp. 485ff.
Z 4037
1. The sentence “So we say … phrases” and the reference to Lucretius are later marginal additions. The latter, according to Timpanaro, Classicismo, p. 223 (B11), is the only reference to De rerum natura taken directly from the text, and not from Forcellini.
Z 4039
1. See Z 3491–94 (and note), where the case of Rousseau is also discussed.
Z 4040
1. Leopardi may be referring here to Phaedrus 258e (Pacella).
Z 4041
1. Both Homer and Xenophon are cited by Scapula, Lexicon, col. 715 (Pacella). Leopardi has not mentioned this diminutive before.
Z 4042
1. This thought may be associated with the theory of “middling civilization” (see, e.g., Z 420–23 [Damiani]) and of “half-philosophy” (see, e.g., Z 520–22), and recalls the thought inspired by laissez-faire notions of political economy (Z 2668–69). Cf. the primitive society without “too many rules” sketched on Z 556.
2. Carmina Anacreontea 25, 15 and 27, 6 (West).
Z 4043
1. Both cited by Forcellini.
2. A more radical solution suggested on Z 352. On the theme of distraction see Z 104 and note 1.
3. See Z 4498 and note.
Z 4044
1. Guicciardini, Della istoria d’Italia.
2. The historical question addressed by this thought originates on Z 3173–77, with further appendices at 4017, 4025.
Z 4045
1. This last remark is a marginal unattached ms. addition, probably from 1827.
2. Leopardi refers here to an article by Antoine Jay published in Antologia in January 1824 (tome. 13, pp. 40–80). Jay was a liberal journalist and the co-author (with Etienne de Jouy) of Les hermites en prison, ou consolations de Sainte-Pélagie, Paris 1823, a work reviewed in the same journal in September 1823 (tome 11, pp. 135–51), with extracts where Jay illustrates his Stoic philosophy. Leopardi’s interest in the moral consequences of imprisonment is probably related to the composition of the “Discorso … sui costumi,” a social and anthropological analysis of Italy which, although less systematic, reminds the reader of La Démocratie en Amérique by Alexis de Tocqueville, who was also co-author, with G. de Beaumont, of a detailed report on American prisons: Du système pénitentiaire aux États-Unis et de son application en France, Paris 1833. On the metaphor of prison cf. Z 3040 and note.
Z 4046
1. Leopardi refers here to the use of the redundant “si.”
Z 4047
1. Xenophon, Symposium 4, 11ff., where Critobulus confesses his love for the young Cleinias. On Sappho see Z 3443–44. This thought might have been prompted by the intensive reading, in this period, of the works of Lucian. Other classical sources, in a less disparaging tone, on Z 1840–41.
2. Lucian, Opera, tome 1, pp. 254–57.
Z 4048
1. Lucian, Dialogi mortuorum [Dialogues of the Dead] 3, 2, in Opera, tome 1, p. 267.
2. Leopardi translated the poems of Moschus in 1815 and, together with the “Discorso sopra Mosco” [“Discourse on Moschus”], published them in the Spettatore in 1816.
Z 4049
1. Leopardi’s memory is correct: see Cervantes, Vida, ed. 1697, vol. 2, ch. 57, p. 504.
2. In one word in modern Italian. The English translation given reflects the description of the term given in the major new Italian dictionary of the nineteenth century, the Tommaseo-Bellini, which began publication in 1861.
3. Cited by Forcellini.
Z 4050
1. Annali, vol. 4, April 1810, p. 40.
2. Lucian, Dialogi mortuorum [Dialogues of the Dead] 16, 4 (in Opera, tome 1, pp. 298–300).
3. Ibid.
4. The Italianism concerns the Greek expression translatable as “a meno che” (unless), translated by Benedictus as “nisi si.” Leopardi may perhaps be referring to Z 4035 (Damiani).
5. Voltaire, Opere scelte, tome 3, pp. 138–39. The three reasons are: its commercial use, the quantity of pleasant books, the capacity to please everybody’s taste. See Z 321 and note.
Z 4051
1. Cf. Weller, Grammatica Graeca nova, p. 278.
Z 4053
1. Donna comes from domina, that is, “mistress” or “lady.”
Z 4054
1. That is, Seber, Index vocabulorum.
Z 4056
1. The first edition of Newton’s Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica, which Leopardi owned in the Geneva 1760 edition, was published in 1687.
Z 4057
1. In his “Discorso … sui costumi” (probably written during this period) Leopardi makes clear that the Germans are an exception, hence their superiority in modern times (Prose, p. 478). See however Z 105–106 and note on Leopardi’s ambivalence toward metaphysical systems.
Z 4060
1. See Z 1835.
2. Guicciardini, Della istoria d’Italia, bk. 17, ch. 1, passage cited in Pensieri, 51.
Z 4063
1. This axiom is illustrated in the operetta morale “Dialogo di un Fisico e di un Metafisico” (written between 14 and 19 May 1824), where Leopardi refers in a note to Maupertuis’s letter 5 “Sur l’ame des bêtes,” Oeuvres, Lyon 1768, tome 2, p. 252. See Z 352, 4092.
Z 4064
1. This hypothesis was discussed (and challenged) by nineteenth-century physiologists; see, e.g., F. Magendie, An Elementary Treatise on Human Physiology [1816–1817], trans. by John Revere, New York: Harper & Brothers, [1844] 1855, p. 26: “it has been justly concluded that living bodies are not composed, identically, of the same matter at every period of their existence, but that they undergo a total renovation. The ancients imagined that this was accomplished in the space of seven years.” Leopardi may have stumbled into this idea (Magendie’s treatise was translated into Italian in 1818–1819); and he was certainly aware that the ancients measured human life in spans of seven years (see Solon, fragment 19, Diehl; Aristotle, Politics 1335b).
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