Né mi diceva il cor che l’età verde
sarei dannato a consumare in questo
natio borgo selvaggio, intra una gente
zotica, vil; cui nomi strani, e spesso
argomento di riso e di trastullo,
son dottrina e saper; che m’odia e fugge,
per invidia non già, che non mi tiene
maggior di sé, ma perché tale estima
ch’io mi tenga in cuor mio, sebben di fuori
a persona giammai non ne fo segno.
Qui passo gli anni, abbandonato, occulto,
senza amor, senza vita; ...
Leopardi consigns to verses 28-39 of the Ricordanze a merciless judgement on this town in the Marche: the impossibility for the poet to have any form of intellectual exchange with the “gente zotica, vil/ the people uncouth, caddish”, his condition of truly hard isolation, not only cultural but also affective and existential, in his “natio borgo selvaggio/ native wild borgo”, remain indelible in the memory of readers.
Alas this was no passing moment: Leopardi condensed into lyrics the reasons for a negative sentiment that lasted all his life. Throughout his time there, where his only refuge was the family Library (where however the presence of his father weighed heavily), was that of flight: as of 1817, when he wrote about it to Giordani (“Di Recanati non mi parli. M’è tanto cara che mi somministrerebbe le belle idee per un trattato dell’Odio della patria/ let’s not talk about Recanati, I love it so that it could inspire me the ideas for a treatise on hatred for the nation” he wrote on 21st March; and on 30 April: “È un bel dire: Plutarco, l’Alfieri amavano Cheronea e Asti. Le amavano e non vi stavano. A questo modo amerò ancor io la mia patria quando ne sarò lontano/ It’s a fine do: Plutarch and Alfieri loved Cheronea and Asti. They loved them and they did not live there. In this way will I love my home when I am away!”), Till April 1830, when he left Recanati for the last time after having spent “sedici mesi di notte orribile/ sixteen months of horrid nights” (he wrote to Vieusseux on 21st March: “Son risoluto ... di pormi in viaggio per cercar salute o morire, e a Recanati non ritornare mai più/ I am resolved ... to set off in search of health or die, and to Recanati I shall never return”).
And yet, over and above telling us about “historic” Recanati, a far flung part of the backward Vatican State, Leopardi also gives us his sweet rimembranze or remembrances of the Recanati of his youth: the “piazzuola/ the little square”, the “torre del borgo/ the tower of the borgo”, and naturally the hill of the Infinito or infinite and Silvia’s house are places dear to all the readers of the Canti.
Recanati
