Z 4065
1. The subject of the verb is “each individual” from the previous sentence.
Z 4069
1. See Z 835–38, 1737–40.
Z 4071
1. The “scapegoat,” studied by René Girard, The Scapegoat, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U.P., 1986; Violence and the Sacred, ibid., 1977. See Z 2673.
Z 4074
1. A similar hypothesis had been formulated, among others, by Cesare Beccaria and Pietro Verri, whose Discorso sull’indole del piacere e del dolore was not, however, in the LL.
Z 4075
1. See Z 4087.
2. Damiani rightly recalls Pascal, Pensées (ed. Brunschvicg), §§ 139–43.
Z 4076
1. Leopardi owned Voltaire’s Histoire du siècle de Louis XIV (see Z 4082).
2. That is, Divus Iulius 88. The last two sentences are a marginal ms. addition.
Z 4077
1. On Z 1 Leopardi gives his own translation of these lines.
Z 4078
1. After the apotheosis of Julius Caesar, in 44 BCE, a new priestly office was created, that of the flamen Divi Iulii. Subsequently this flaminate and the one established in honor of Augustus were combined, to form the office of flamen Augustalis.
2. On Z 3105–106 Leopardi had been discussing how Phrynichus was driven from the theater at a performance of his tragedy, The Capture of Miletus, for reviving uncomfortable memories of domestic disasters.
Z 4079
1. Casimir Delavigne’s tragedy, Les Vêpres siciliennes, was first performed in Paris in 1819. The example of the Sicilian revolt of 1282 played an important role in the Italian Risorgimento (see Alberto Banti, La nazione del Risorgimento, Turin: Einaudi, 2000). A series of canvases were devoted by Francesco Hayez to this episode, from 1821 onward.
2. This operetta morale—the exact title of which is “Dialogo della Natura e di un’Anima”—was composed between 9 and 14 April 1824, and thus completed just nine days before the drafting of this thought.
Z 4081
1. The note is an unattached ms. marginal addition. The emblem book by Diego de Saavedra Fajardo was first published in 1640 (LL = ed. in Spanish: Amsterdam 1659, pp. 201–202). In the passage cited this author recalled how the Church had for many reasons showed itself very generous toward the kings of Spain, obtaining in return backing for its wars against the infidels.
Z 4082
1. That is, Regole ed osservazioni, p. 3.
Z 4083
1. Guicciardini, Della istoria d’Italia, ch. 13.
Z 4084
1. In Italian of earlier centuries “avere” was often used as the auxiliary of false reflexive verbs. This usage is less common now, but Leopardi considered it to be the correct one. Note that in Leopardi’s time aveva (also written avea) and era were the common spelling of what in modern Italian are written as avevo (I had) and ero (I was), and were used for both the first and the third person singular of the imperfect of the verbs avere and essere.
Z 4085
1. In Leopardi’s own lifetime, before first the daguerreotype and then the photograph had been invented, the silhouette, usually cut from black paper, was the principal form of cheaply priced portraiture.
Z 4087
1. The Icelander would challenge Nature to explain this “contradiction” in the operetta morale begun ten days after this thought, “Dialogo della Natura e di un Islandese.” See Z 1531 note 2, and 4099–101, 4127–32, 4180–81.
Z 4088
1. The ms. reads “de suo consulatu”: Leopardi adjusts the title to his own syntax. Passages from this oration are in Cicero, De divinatione 1, 17–18.
Z 4090
1. Petrarch, Rime 119, 42, also quoted on Z 4000.
Z 4092
1. Buffon, Storia naturale. Storia naturale dell’uomo, tome 4, pp. 269–70.
2. This dialogue was written between 14 and 19 May 1824. See also Z 352, 3511–14, 4062–64.
Z 4093
1. Cicero, De divinatione 2, 63, not cited by Forcellini.
2. Cicero, De divinatione 2, 59, cited by Forcellini.
Z 4094
1. In his commentary Servius says that bees, like all other animals, “have a part of divinity.”
Z 4095
1. Lucian, Opera, vol. 1, p. 820.
2. Both this and the following paragraph constitute nearly identical first drafts of a passage in the operetta morale “Detti memorabili di Filippo Ottonieri.”
Z 4096
1. Cf. Leopardi, Pensieri 55. Other thoughts on the theme of success and celebrity on Z 4153–54, 4329, 4389–90, 4508.
Z 4098
1. The Prussian monarch, who is often cited in the Zibaldone, stands here as the embodiment of a typically modern prince, illuminated by despotic reason. See Z 906, 2295 and note. The information about Klopstock’s criticism of Frederick (as Pacella points out) comes from a note in the Spettatore, tome 6, no. 52, 1816, p. 105, where two poems by Klopstock against the king (“Der Traum” and “Die Rache”) are published in translation.
2. Caro, Lettere familiari, vol. 3, p. 255.
3. See C. Rabbi, Sinonimi ed aggiunti italiani, with additions by A. M. Bandiera, Bassano 1783, p. 19 (= LL).
4. That is, Decameron 2, 9.
Z 4099
1. This operetta morale had been finished on 30 May 1824. The statement here about “the awful mystery of things and of universal existence” is linked to the Icelander’s final, unanswered question: “for whose pleasure or in whose interest is this most unhappy life of the universe, preserved by the injury and death of all those things that make it up?” This is a turning point in Leopardi’s view of nature, after he had tried to give a solution to the paradox of self-love (see Z 2495 and note 2), that is, the “contradiction” of Z 4087. See Z 4174 and note 2. On this passage, cf. Colaiacomo (B12), pp. 246–50.
2. That is, the principle of noncontradiction which Aristotle in Metaphysics 1005b, 20 defines as “the most certain of all principles,” the negation of which renders discourse impossible.
Z 4101
1. Rabbi, Sinonimi ed aggiunti italiani, Bassano 1783.
2. See Caro, Lettere, vol. 3, p. 241, and p. 234.
Z 4102
1. A sketch for the operetta morale “Detti memorabili di Filippo Ottonieri.”
2. The reference to Molière is a marginal addition of 1827. One of the characters in the comedy cited goes by the name of “Diafoirus.”
Z 4103
1. Horace, Satires 1, 8, line 1.
Z 4104
1. Another sketch for the operetta morale “Detti memorabili di Filippo Ottonieri.” This image may be traced back to Job 7 but it became a topos through Seneca, De tranquillitate animi 2, 6. See also Dante, Purgatorio 6, 149–51.
Z 4105
1. On Z 618 this kind of despair is said to be “more or less characteristic only of reason and philosophy, and therefore especially and particularly of modern times.” At the end of the following year Leopardi translates Epictetus’s Handbook, making of this “despair” a profession of stoicism. See the last paragraph on Z 4149.
Z 4107
1. In the ms. the original subject of this sentence (and of the one preceding it) is “egli” (he), but Leopardi inserts a crosslet and writes in the margin “quell’anima già poco prima sì tenera.” On compassion see Z 108–109 and note.
2. Note that this thought is written on Leopardi’s twenty-sixth birthday, shortly after he had written (as Damiani observes) to Cardinal Guerrieri-Gonzaga pleading for a post in the Curia (Epistolario, pp. 803–804), with very little prospect of success.
Z 4108
1. Thomas, loc. cit.: “[Descartes] conceived the idea of a universal language, which would establish general signs for all thoughts, the same as that which exists to express all numbers; a project which several celebrated philosophers have revived, which without doubt gave Leibniz the idea of an alphabet of human thoughts; and which, if it is one day achieved, will probably be the epoch of a rev
olution in the human spirit.” On the universal language see Z 937, 1028, 3253–62.
Z 4109
1. From this thought Leopardi will take inspiration for a passage of his operetta morale “Il Parini ovvero della gloria,” ch. 8, which he will start to compose on 8 July.
Z 4110
1. Teodoro Fusconi, from Cesena, was a friend of Leopardi’s.
2. Lucian, Lucius sive asinus 49, where there is mention of a gladiatorial spectacle offered as a gift to the city of Thessaloniki, in Opera, loc. cit.
Z 4111
1. See the argument on Z 1635–36 and, at a later point in the text, 4206–208, where the definition of spirit as substance which is not matter is dismissed as a “delirium.” Note that Leopardi uses the term “ideological” here (and elsewhere) not in the modern sense but as referring to the scientific study of the origin and operation of ideas. See note 1 to Z 53.
Z 4112
1. Plato, Phaedrus 252e.
2. The passage “In Greek too … (15 July 1824).” is a marginal addition with a crosslet indicating that it should be relocated here: this explains the date.
Z 4113
1. Cicero states that opinions regarding beauty are highly varied and that even a defect may be deemed beautiful. Thus, Quintus Catulus judged Roscius lovelier than a god even though he had a squint, a feature that made his beauty seem all the greater to the person who loved him. See Z 8 and note 3.
2. See Z 4002 and 4009.
Z 4114
1. Lucian, Somnium seu Gallus 1.
Z 4115
1. Cicero, De natura deorum 2, 49, 126, a passage cited from Ciceronis opera omnia, Mannheim 1783 (= LL).
2. See also Z 3817–18 and 4009.
3. The Greek example given by Leopardi is modeled on Lucian.
Z 4116
1. Leopardi cites here Stobaeus, Sententiae, third ed. Gesner, Zurich 1559, p. 601, secondhand. The passage alluded to here is ascribed to “Lycophron, tragedian.”
2. Leopardi here lists the Greek lexicons he has been consulting, among them Guillaume Budé’s Commentarii linguae Graece, Paris 1548 (= LL).
3. Pseudo-Longinus, De sublimitate 9, 13. See Toup’s ed. (1778), loc. cit.
Z 4117
1. Pseudo-Longinus, De sublimitate 9, 7. Cf. Z 3494–96, 3544–45, and 4076–78.
2. Lucian, Opera, tome 2, p. 270.
3. Tacitus, Opere, tome 2, p. 276.
4. Lucian, Anacharsis seu de gymnasiis 18, in Opera, tome 2, p. 280, note 1, where Anacharsis acknowledges that the Athenians have nothing to learn from him, since they have always lived in their own land and govern it with good laws. In the note to this passage there are citations from Thucydides, Aristophanes, Aristides, and Tzetzes, all of whom addressed this topic. The Greek word was coined by Leopardi himself.
5. “Greatly to the merit of this orator [Isocrates] were his refinements and grace of style. Now these refinements and grace belong either to ideas or to links between ideas which elude us. They presuppose the art of choosing precisely the word which corresponds to a sensation, whether delicate or fine … Places, times, memories attach to each word a crowd of ideas of which only one is expressed and of which the others develop rapidly in the sensitive soul.” This passage confirms what Leopardi had written on the distinction between “words” and “terms” and on “concomitant ideas”: cf. Z 109–11, 1226, 1234–36, 1701–706, 3952–54. Note that at the end of this year Leopardi will translate four orations by Isocrates (see Leopardi, Volgarizzamenti in prosa [B3]).
6. Thomas maintains that the perfecting of languages happens by virtue of philosophers and poets. On this basis he explains the “perfection” and the “beauty” of the Greek language.
Z 4118
1. Thomas recalls the funeral eulogy for Mary Stuart pronounced by Cardinal du Perron.
2. Heliodorus, Aethiopica 3, 4, 8. Leopardi refers here to M. Antonii Mureti Opera, Verona 1727–1730 (= LL), tome 3, p. 220.
3. Cf. Z 2866–67.
Z 4119
1. A lengthy thought on the theme of fire is on Z 3643–63. See also Z 4121.
2. See Xenophon, Memorabilia 4, 8, 11ff. (where Socrates is judged to be the best and the happiest man) and Apologia 34 (where he is judged to be the most fortunate man in the world).
3. Tasso expresses there the “foolish opinion” challenged by Leopardi. On the idea that beauty is relative see Z 8 and note 3.
Z 4120
1. Leopardi is here using Ficino’s ed. of Plato, citing Pseudo-Plato, Eryxias 400d and 399e.
Z 4121
1. Robertson remarks upon the names the Iroquois, the Caribs, and the Cherokee had given themselves, names that indicated their intrinsic superiority to all others.
2. Leopardi here quotes from the Trattato del governo della famiglia, a reworking of Alberti, De familia, bk. 3. Agnolo Pandolfini had been identified as its author since the 1734 edition, and this attribution held throughout the numerous nineteenth-century reprintings. Leopardi owned the Milanese edition of 1811.
3. Now l. 30. Ireneo Affò’s edition of the Orphei Tragoedia was published in 1776.
Z 4122
1. In fact Pisa.
2. Decameron 2, 6. The LL had two anthologies of the work, one of which was entitled Trenta novelle … scelte.
3. In the edition cited above “andava” (he went off) is not followed by any punctuation marks (as in modern eds.), and this led Leopardi to take the verb to mean “era” (he was) (Pacella). Cf. Z 3004.
4. The passage exemplifies the use of the infinitive in place of the subjunctive in Greek. See Scritti filologici, p. 654 and cf. Z 4190 the quotation from Fazio degli Uberti (Pacella).
5. That is, Decameron 8, 6.
Z 4123
1. Cf. I papiri diplomatici raccolti ed illustrati dall’abate Gaetano Marini, Rome 1805 (= LL), p. XXVI.
2. Pseudo-Longinus, On the Sublime 9, 13 (a passage already cited, along with Toup’s note, on Z 4116, see there note 3).
3. Pseudo-Longinus, On the Sublime 9, 9 (ed. Toup, p. 34). It is not clear what Leopardi means by “38.”
Z 4124
1. The edition in Leopardi’s possession is entitled Istoria fiorentina di Dino Compagni dal 1280 al 1312.
2. Pseudo-Longinus, On the Sublime 34, 2; Plato, Gorgias, 474d.
3. That is, Plato, Gorgias 472d and 483a. See Z 2866.
4. In the Seniles, bk. 5, letter 2, to Boccaccio, Petrarch regrets the “outrageous arrogance” of his own century, which condemns Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Virgil in order to follow new masters “empty of all knowledge.”
5. Arrian, Anabasis 5, 27, 7 and 5, 26, 4. Leopardi used the Amsterdam 1757 ed. The reference to Demosthenes is given by Tusanus.
6. See Scritti filologici, pp. 571ff. (the note in question is on p. 573).
7. In Meurs, Opera omnia, tome 7.
Z 4125
1. In Apollonius Dyscolus (see Meurs, tome 7, col. 163), it is in fact a question of a people who could only see at night; Leopardi took this passage to mean that the ancients knew of “white Moors.” Leopardi also quotes Voltaire’s “Relation touchant un maure blanc amené d’Afrique à Paris en 1744” (read in his Italian ed., loc. cit.), and Robertson, who insists that there were native American “white moors.” See also Buffon, Histoire naturelle, tome 33, “Sur les blafards et nègres blancs,” pp. 555ff. (LL = Storia naturale dell’uomo, tome 3, p. 134). The last reference is an unattached marginal ms. addition; the work is mentioned by Voltaire, but has been checked by Leopardi, who owned it: the article (“Observations de physique générale”) is an account of a black slave who had given birth to a white baby.
2. In Meurs, Opera, tome 7.
3. See A. Westermann, Scriptores rerum mirabilium Graeci, Brunswick 1839, p. 75.
4. The two references to Antigonus now in Westermann, cit. above, pp. 86 and 98.
5. That is, Gorgias 486b.
6. That is, Villani, Historie universali.
7. Herodian, Historiarum libri VIII,
Lyons 1661 (= LL).
Z 4126
1. See Z 2387–88, 3638–43, 3878–79. Leopardi is believed to have read this work by Dupuis, now missing from the library at Recanati, between March and April 1825. See Prose, p. 1232.
2. Malespini, Storia fiorentina; Villani, Historie universali.
Z 4127
1. Leopardi refers here to a passage in Antigonus of Carystus commented on in his philological observations on the paradoxographers (February 1825), whose works had been gathered together by Meurs (see Z 4151 and note 2). Once he had completed this task, Leopardi reread these authors and wrote further notes, mostly on lexical and syntactical issues. See now Scritti filologici, pp. 580 and 601.
2. A reference to Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, known as Cunctator (or “delayer”) on account of the tactics he employed against Hannibal during the Second Punic War.
Z 4128
1. See Z 4087. The only edition of Volney in the LL, Les ruines, was one published in Paris in 1822, shelved among the “banned” books.
2. This distinction had been made on Z 2936–38 from a totally different perspective. Here Leopardi responds to and contradicts that thought.
Z 4130
1. Leopardi mentions two Operette morali, composed in May and November 1824. Further on he will mention a third operetta, composed in May 1824. On the natural cycle of destruction and reproduction see Z 1530–31 and note.
Z 4131
1. The pronoun “them” refers here to “men” of the previous sentence.
Z 4133
1. This thought picks up on the philosophical meditation on Z 4099–4101, and will be referred to on Z 4137. On the state of souffrance see a celebrated passage on Z 4175–76.
Z 4134
1. Animals can therefore reach a certain degree of happiness: see 56 and note 2, 2899–900, 3846–48, 3921–27, 4180–81.
Z 4135
1. That is, Malespini, Storia fiorentina, and Villani, Historie universali.
2. In Meurs, Opera, tome 7. The relevant passage is cited in Scritti filologici, pp. 572–73.
3. Here Leopardi may already have in mind the saying of Bayle, “that reason is an instrument of destruction rather than construction,” cited on Z 4192 and with an allusion to this present thought. Compare however with this paragraph an earlier series of thoughts on Z 2705–12 (and notes).
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