2. This seems to imply that modernity coincides with the technology of writing, which paradoxically produces forgetfulness, not memory, as Plato had made clear at the end of Phaedrus, well known to Leopardi (see D’Intino, L’immagine della voce, ch. 1 [B11]), and even more with printing, as Marx maintains in the passage quoted in the note to Z 2944.
3. This passage astonishingly recalls a similar argument by Chateaubriand, for whom Napoleon is, however, the last of the ancients, not, as here, the first of the moderns: “Bonaparte will be the last isolated existence of this ancient world which is vanishing: nothing will again rise above societies which have been leveled out, and the greatness of the individual will henceforth be replaced by the greatness of the species” (Essai sur la littérature anglaise, in Oeuvres complètes, Paris: Garnier, 1861, vol. 11, p. 734). See also Z 4368 and note 1.
Z 4271
1. Buffon’s discourse, delivered in 1753, is reproduced in Leçons, tome 1, pp. XXV–XXVI.
Z 4272
1. See Encyclopédie méthodique. Histoire naturelle des animaux, art. “éphémère,” tome 6, pp. 41–58. This entry refers back to Z 4268–71.
Z 4273
1. In order to explain the passage, Casaubon cites (p. 647), Cicero, De natura deorum 1, 113, where Metrodorus is recalled with biting irony.
2. In the notes to The Rape of the Lock (Pope, The Works, vol. 1, pp. 136–37), one can read the Latin translation of canto 1, ll. 121–48, made by Thomas Parnell (1679–1718), a friend of the author. Leopardi quotes the lines corresponding to ll. 121–22 and 139–40 of Pope’s original (given in square brackets).
Z 4274
1. See Z 4239, note 2.
2. See Z 4141–42, 4177–78 and note, 4292.
Z 4275
1. Rousseau, Émile, bk. 4 (in Oeuvres, vol. 4, p. 688), but as quoted in Leçons, tome 1, p. 314 (it is worth recalling that Leopardi did not own a copy of Émile).
Z 4278
1. See Z 3430–32. Holbach asserted in Le bon sens, ch. 102, p. 105: “Nothing more natural and simple than to believe that a dead man no longer lives, nothing more absurd than to believe that a dead man is still alive” (Damiani).
2. This thought, which echoes in some passages the translation made by Leopardi of the second letter De nepote amisso by Fronto (Opere inedite, pp. 421–23), will be given poetic form in the two great cantos “A Silvia” (1828) and “Le ricordanze” (1829), both elegies on the death of a young girl, which mark the resurgence of his poetry after a long period of silence. See the next note. On compassion for the dead see Z 355 and note.
Z 4279
1. Note the date on which this thought was drafted, a point in the Christian calendar at which death and resurrection are central.
2. Barthélemy, Voyage, tome 1, p. 85. Leopardi must have remembered or jotted down this phrase in his notes from his stay in Rome in 1823. In the Italian ed. at Recanati, Viaggio d’Anacarsi, it reads “sguardi di fuoco” (tome 1, p. 89).
Z 4280
1. A project never realized. The theme of the confederation of all intelligent beings against nature would later be greatly amplified in “La ginestra,” in particular ll. 126–57.
2. This is the only place (except Z 4242) where Leopardi uses a double exclamation mark. This clearly shows how important for him (against Rousseau) is the idea that humans and animals naturally hate (and envy) each other; see, e.g., Z 1164–65, 2644, 4509. The sources are: the tale by M.-Ch.-J. de Pougens in Nuovo Ricoglitore, loc. cit. (“Ioco. Aneddoto indiano tradotto da un manoscritto portoghese. Operetta del sig. Carlo Pougens,” in N.R. 3, 27, pp. 212–16), and Roberti, Opere, tome 3, pp. 90–91, where the soul of a child recounts to his father his discovery in the mirror of “another,” the same as he, and his displeasure at the existence of “those two who were alike.” In the notes to Pougens’s text (in successive issues of the Nuovo Ricoglitore) scientific and philosophical authorities (Linnaeus, Buffon, Cuvier, Locke, etc.) as well as travelers are invoked by way of commentary on the remarkable stories told.
3. A. Barbier du Bocage, “Cenni sull’isola di Cuba.”
4. See Z 4245 and note 2.
Z 4281
1. Reimar, in Cassius Dio, Historiae Romanae, p. XII.
Z 4282
1. See A. M. Salvini, Prose toscane, Florence 1715, vol. 1, p. 75.
2. Sophocles, Philoctetes 1452ff.
3. Cf. Z 2752, 4250.
Z 4283
1. This thought—a reworking of a concept in Z 2923, which ended up in Pensieri 62—is the first written in Florence after Leopardi had left Recanati on 23 April via Bologna on the way to Tuscany.
Z 4284
1. This thought calls to mind the later operetta morale “Dialogo di un venditore d’almanacchi e di un passeggere.” As Timpanaro has noted, the unsettling question upon which it pivots had been asked by Holbach, Le bon sens, ch. 93, p. 90. Another intriguing point of comparison would be with a passage in Maupertuis, Essais de philosophie morale, ch. 2 (“That in everyday life the sum of evils surpasses that of goods”) where it is stated that, if all men were asked, “one would find very few, in whatever condition one were to find them, who would be willing to begin their lives again exactly as they had been” (Oeuvres, Lyon 1756, tome 1, p. 204). The affinity between the whole passage and Leopardi’s thought is striking, even if there is no evidence of a direct acquaintance with Maupertuis, none of whose works he owned. One might recall that the famous section 341 of Nietzsche’s The Gay Science, asks exactly the same question. See also Z 4165 and note 7.
Z 4285
1. Ordinarily altrimenti would mean “otherwise” or “differently” but here it is redundant.
2. Agnolo Firenzuola, Opere, Pisa 1816, vol. 1, p. 95. In transcribing this passage in his prose Crestomazia (published in 1827) Leopardi omitted altri, which he finds redundant (Pacella).
Z 4286
1. See Z 2254, 4441.
2. This observation comes from the article by E. Moor cited in a note by Leopardi to Z 920 (see note 1), added in the ms. after reading it.
3. The scudo was a widespread currency in nineteenth-century Italy.
4. The title of one of many unrealized projects, and the heading of one of the separate slips not referred to in the 1827 Index. On the pleasure of memory see the thoughts cited on Z 4426, note 2. See also Z 60 and note 4.
Z 4287
1. See Z 108–109 and note.
2. See Leopardi, “Le ricordanze,” ll. 131–35 and Pensieri 42.
3. Vagheggiare is one of Leopardi’s “parole poetiche” [poetic words]: cf. Z 1534, 1789–90, 1825. It means to contemplate or meditate with pleasure, to desire, to yearn (for); but note that the adjective vago means both “beautiful” and “vague.”
Z 4288
1. Bayle sustains the argument that it is impossible for matter to think, a stance often cited by Catholic apologists. See, e.g., Dictionnaire historique et critique, entries on “Dicéarque” and “Leucippe.” On this subject see Z 4251–53.
Z 4289
1. See Z 305 and note, 4192–93, 4478 and note 2.
2. That is, the process described, e.g., on Z 4198–99.
3. Giuseppe Poerio, an Italian patriot and a noted jurist, was the father of Carlo and Alessandro, both friends of Leopardi. While a deputy in the Neapolitan parliament, the baron had opposed Austrian armed intervention in 1821, and then fled into exile in Florence. This entry is one of the rare occurrences in which the Zibaldone becomes explicitly an echo of lived experience. See also Z 4368.
Z 4290
1. See Z 72 and note 1.
2. Emphasis in the original text. For the French practice of prefixing authors’ names with “M[onsieur],” see Leopardi’s acerbic comments on Z 4265.
Z 4291
1. See Z 2087, where Leopardi had transcribed the passage from De l’Allemagne to which he now alludes.
2. Leopardi refers here to the arrival of Greek scholars in Italy after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and to the consequent
flowering of humanist scholarship in the peninsula.
3. An allusion to the “imaginative” etymologies of Plato’s Cratylus.
Z 4292
1. When Leopardi drafted this thought he had only recently met F. C. von Savigny, bearer of a letter from Bunsen, who had written expressing the desire (shared by Niebuhr) that he submit articles on Greek philology to the Rheinisches Museum (Damiani).
2. Here the term “analogy” is employed within a line of argument supporting the nonexistence of infinity. The form of the argument is: the earth (A), previously considered to be infinite (b), has been shown to be finite (B), instead; in the same way (=), the universe (C), now considered to be infinite (b1), must be finite as well (B1). This argument is explicitly opposed to metaphysical arguments as well as to factual proofs. Cf. also the same function of analogy on Z 4177–78 (Versace, “Appunti su Leopardi e l’analogia” [B12]). On infinity see also Z 4141–43, 4181–82, 4274–75.
Z 4293
1. See Z 4376.
2. See Z 3909ff.
3. See Z 1927–30.
Z 4294
1. Leopardi is here citing the names of Greek travelers and explorers who wrote accounts of the journeys and of the lands they visited. Note that a “periplus” (pl. “periploi”) is a voyage of exploration, but also a manuscript that listed, often with notes, the ports and coastal landmarks. Dicaearchus’s fragments are published by Creuzer, Meletemata, vol. 2, pp. 179–98 (and see Z 4147, note 2). The substance of a celebrated narrative by Nearchus concerning his voyage to India has been preserved to us by Arrian in the latter part of his Indica. By “Bibliography” Leopardi means the sum of Greek texts.
Z 4295
1. The Index of what Leopardi had called (in an earlier partial index) the Pensieri di varia filosofia e di bella letteratura, which here for the first time he calls Zibaldone di pensieri, covers p. 1 to p. 4295 and includes, broadly speaking, all the main arguments and themes that have been addressed up to this point, although it presents some gaps to be filled. It is translated here on pp. 2074–2110. See Introduction, p. xxii.
2. The English text is Franklin’s original.
Z 4297
1. Leopardi had arrived in Pisa on 9 November 1827 from Florence.
Z 4298
1. The Latin verse is cited in Monti, Opere, vol. 5, Bologna: Stamperia delle Muse, 1827 (= LL), pp. 126 and 185. The same “Italianism” on Z 2608.
2. The text and the note by Monti ibid., pp. 109 and 176–77.
Z 4299
1. Plato, Republic 569b–c.
2. That is, Plato, Republic 563a–564a, where it is asserted that in a democratic state the insatiable desire for liberty ends up by generating an unbridled anarchy in all social and family relations, which culminates in contempt on the part of citizens for all laws, written and unwritten. The liberal principles diffused in Florence—Damiani notes—here plainly become the target of Leopardi’s polemic against that “filthy and fetid city” (see Z 4298).
3. Diogenes Laertius, De vitis, vol. 1, p. 619. This is the only quotation from a book of Diogenes other than the first six. Some critics have suggested that it is therefore secondhand (see Timpanaro, “Epicuro, Lucrezio e Leopardi,” pp. 158–59 [B12]).
4. Cf. D’Alembert, Mélanges, tome 1, pp. 201–202. Emphasis added by Leopardi.
Z 4300
1. Quoted from Poemetti del secolo XV, XVI, Venice 1785 (= LL), p. 209. In this period Leopardi was working on his anthology of poetry, published in 1828 as Crestomazia italiana poetica. In the following pages the quotations are generally taken from the Venetian collection “Parnaso italiano” and from the Milanese “Classici italiani.”
2. See Z 2865.
3. A burlesque poem by Lorenzo Lippi.
4. This and the preceding quotation from Menzini are taken from Ditirambici e satirici del secolo XVII, Venice 1789 (= LL), p. 143.
5. Chiabrera, vol. 2, pp. 18–19.
6. Lirici antichi seri e giocosi fino al secolo XVI, Venice 1784 (= LL), p. 28.
Z 4301
1. Chiabrera, Opere, vol. 1, p. 159.
2. See Z 4286 and note 4.
3. Anacreontici e burleschi del secolo XVIII, Venice 1791 (= LL), p. 264.
Z 4302
1. There follows until the end of the sentence a marginal addition dating from April, when after a poetic silence of five years interrupted only by the epistle in verse “Al Conte Carlo Pepoli” (1826), Leopardi composed “Il risorgimento” and “A Silvia.” On the pleasure of memory see Z 4426, note 2.
2. Examples of expressions using the word matto (mad) idiomatically: pelo matto is an adolescent boy’s first facial hair, while pasta matta is a pastry dough.
Z 4303
1. D’Alembert, Éloge historique de M. Jean Bernouilli, in Mélanges, tome 2, pp. 30–33. Leopardi inserts the footnote into the text.
Z 4304
1. Leopardi quotes from an article by N. Tommaseo in Antologia, vol. 29, no. 86, February 1828: Royer-Collard’s “Elogio di Laplace” is on pp. 129–37, Daru’s reply on pp. 138–46.
Z 4305
1. D’Alembert, Mélanges, tome 3, pp. 8–9.
2. Its name today is Piazza Felice Cavallotti.
3. D’Alembert, Mélanges, tome 4, p. 318.
4. Homer, Iliad 1, 3–5 in the translations by Foscolo and Monti (both are printed in U. Foscolo, Esperimento di traduzione della Iliade di Omero, Brescia 1807).
Z 4306
1. D’Alembert, Réflections sur l’histoire, in Mélanges, tome 5, p. 471. On what follows see Z 4273, 4282.
Z 4307
1. D’Alembert, Essai sur les élémens de philosophie, in Mélanges, tome 4, pp. 46–47.
Z 4308
1. P.-L. Ginguené, Histoire littéraire d’Italie, loc. cit., note 2. Aretino’s play is Il marescalco, act 5, scene 2.
2. Leopardi quotes from the second edition of Mai’s Fronto, Epistulae, Rome 1823, p. 135 (ed. Van den Hout, pp. 83–84).
3. Ibid., p. 319 (ed. Van den Hout, p. 210).
4. Ibid., p. 208 (ed. Van den Hout, p. 229).
5. Ibid., pp. 177, 226, 308, 317 (ed. Van den Hout, pp. 132, 138, 197, 208).
6. Ibid., pp. 1–138 (ed. Van den Hout, pp. 1–85).
7. Ibid., pp. 187–88 (ed. Van den Hout, pp. 108–109).
8. See Cicero, Ad familiares 5, 12.
Z 4309
1. See Z 4240, and “All’Italia,” ll. 91–95.
2. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Letter to Pompeius Geminus (11, 3, 2–7, ed. Aujac, Paris: Les belles lettres, 2002, tome 5, pp. 87–88).
3. Herodotus, in the edition by J. Schweighaeuser.
Z 4310
1. Courier, Collection complète, p. 81.
2. M. (or Mr.) Merle, whose first name we do not know, was a bookseller in Bologna and later in Rome, and is mentioned sporadically in the Epistolario (letters no. 826, 876, 944, 950, 1485, 1564, 1571, 1576), mainly in connection with subscriptions to be collected for Leopardi’s edition of Petrarch (1826) and for his forthcoming edition of the Canti (1831).
Z 4311
1. The phrase “The inexpressible … beauty” is added after the date. In this image of feminine innocence, usually connected to “A Silvia” and “Le ricordanze,” Leopardi turns—as Goethe does with Gretchen—the libertine ideal of the jeune fille’s charming naïveté into blissful inspiration. As a creature belonging to a state of mere potentiality, this figure is a “nymphet” (cf. the Greek νύμφη: daemonic creature, chrysalis, young, marriageable woman; or the Latin nympha, which Leopardi defines on Z 2304 as “a mysterious entity, with mysterious powers”). In the two poems mentioned, Silvia and Nerina bear the names of Arcadican nymphs (see F. Camilletti, “Il passo di Nerina,” cited in note 2 to Z 262).
Z 4312
1. Leopardi consulted the Bulletin Universel, founded by André-Étienne d’Audebard de Férussac, in Florence between July and October 1828. The article, by G.-B. Depping, is in French, as well as all the other articles transcribed from the
Bulletin. The parentheses in the text are by Leopardi.
2. In French in the original. The title of the article reads “Skriftens.”
3. On the subject of the envy of the gods see Z 197, 453–55, 2387–89, 4309.
Z 4315
1. In French in the original. All emphases in the original.
Z 4316
1. I.e., the Royal Society of Literature, founded in 1820.
Z 4317
1. Modern forms of poetic improvisation were in high fashion between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, traveling from their acknowledged homeland, Italy, right across Europe. Contemporary improvisers had been stigmatized by Leopardi’s mentor Pietro Giordani in an anonymous essay in Biblioteca Italiana, 1 (1816), tome 4, 365–75 (Giordani, Opere, vol. 10, pp. 101–12); it was another, fictionalized improviser that was the eponymous heroine of the formative novel of his youth, Staël’s Corinne. Leopardi was unsympathetic to the improvisations of his day, but not to the idea of improvisation when it was associated with the kinds of natural lyric on which he reflected intensely between 1827 and 1829, when what was stressed was the orality of the composition and the transmission of the poetic text rather than, as he saw it, the spurious extemporizing of an individual performer. See Michael Caesar, “Poetic Improvisation in the Nineteenth Century,” in Modern Language Review, 101, 3, July 2006, pp. 701–14, and, for a comprehensive account, Angela Esterhammer, Romanticism and Improvisation, 1750–1850, Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2008 (specifically on the composition and transmission of the Homeric texts: pp. 59–77).
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