Teresa Fattorini
Teresa Fattorini and Teresa Brini were young lower class women from Recanati who Leopardi talks about in the Ricordi d’infanzia e di adolescenza/Memories of childhood and adolescence. Teresa Fattorini, the coachman’s daughter, died of consumption at the age of twenty one on 30 September 1818, she lived opposite palazzo Leopardi; in the same piazza also lived Maria Belardinelli, a “weaver” who died at the age of twenty seven on 3 November 1827. Leopardi recalls Teresa “in quello aspettar la morte per sé/in that waiting for her death to come”:
cenare allegramente dal cocchiere intanto che la figlia stava male, storia di Teresa da me poco conosciuta e interesse ch’io ne prendeva come di tutti i morti giovani in quello aspettar la morte per me ... ella per la lunghezza del suo male sperimentò la consolazione dei genitori ec. circa la sua morte e la dimenticanza di sé e l’indifferenza ai suoi mali ec., non ebbe neppure il bene di morire tranquillamente ma straziata da fieri dolori la poverina ... mio dolore in veder morire i giovani come a veder bastonare una vite carica d’uve immature ...
A jolly dinner at the coachman’s house whilst his daughter lay ill, the story of Teresa whom I knew little and who interested me in as far as I am interested in any youth on a deathbed whilst waiting for my own death ... she for the length of her illness experimented the consolation of her parents etc. for her death and forgetfulness towards her and indifference to her plight etc., she did not even receive the gift of a peaceful death but torn by pain was the poor soul ... my pain in seeing die the young is as if to see a vine loaded with unripe fruit beaten with a stick ...
Teresa Brini, who was Leopardi’s age, is remembered as the protagonist of one of the poet’s dreams (also Geltrude Cassi, in the Diario del primo amore/Diary of my first love, appears to Leopardi in a dream):
vista già tanto desiderata della Brini ... Riveduta la Brini senza sapere ed avendomi anche salutato dolcemente (o ch’io me lo figurai) ben mi parve un bel viso ... sogno di quella notte e mio vero paradiso in parlar con lei ed esserne interrogato e ascoltato con viso ridente e poi domandarle io la mano a baciare ... e io baciarla senza ardire di toccarla con tale diletto ch’io solo allora in sogno per la primissima volta provai che cosa sia questa sorta di consolazioni con tal verità ... e sonnacchiando e risvegliandomi a ogni momento rivedeva sempre l’istessa donna in mille forme ma sempre viva e vera ...
The sight already much hankered after of the Brini girl ... Saw Brini again without knowing and she having sweetly said hello (or did I imagine that) I thought what a fine face ... that night’s dream and my true paradise in speaking with her and being questioned by her and listened to her with a smiling face and then I asking her for her hand and kissing it ... and I kissing her with fear for touching her with such delight that I then alone in my dream for the very first time experienced what could be such consolations with such veracity ... and half asleep and wakening I at every moment always saw the same woman in a thousand forms but always alive and real ...
From the memories of these women Leopardi was to draw inspiration for the creation of some of the most intense characters of his lyrics, girls who die young: in Sogno/Dream, in A Silvia and in the Ricordanze/Remembrances.
