Autobiographical writings

Leopardi thought a lot about the idea of writing an autobiographical novel, something he in the end never did; these two instances, autobiography and novel, led the first to the Canti, and the second, paradoxically, to the greatest anti-novel of the XIX century, the Operette morali.

Leopardi however did write two autobiographical texts of particular interest. The first and the only one he finished, called by the publishers Diario (o Memorie) del primo amore, is a highly detailed  analysis of the amorous sentiment felt by Leopardi for Monaldo’s cousin Geltrude Cassi, (composed at Recanati 14-23 December 1817 and with an appendix dated 2 January 1818), during her visit to Recanati (an experience that also led to the writing of the Canto Il primo amore).

The second, which he worked on between March and May 1819, commonly known as Ricordi d’infanzia e di adolescenza (D’Intino calls it the Vita abbozzata di Silvio Sarno), is made up of a series of annotations on memories, almost a direct transcription of impressions and memories of youth prepared for the autobiography he had planned (an example: “... Compassion for all those I could see would never earn fame, Tears and melancholy for being man, thought by my mother to be mad, compassion  raised by Pietruccio upon my knees, ...”).

Years later, Leopardi again tried his hand at writing autobiographical texts, but never went beyond the fragment: perhaps of 1820 is a Supplemento alla Vita del Poggio; perhaps of 1822-23, at the time of the Roman sojourn, is the Supplemento alla Vita abbozzata di Silvio Sarno; probably of 1825 is the Storia di un’anima scritta da Giulio Rivalta pubblicata dal Conte Giacomo Leopardi, of which we today have only the Proem and a sentence from Chapter I, Youth of a soul: “Of my birth I will only say ... that I was born a noble  in an un-noble city of Italy”.

The edition that is the point of reference is by Franco D’Intino (Salerno Ed., Rome 1995).