Poem in octaves in eight Cantos with animal protagonists, probably begun in Florence in 1831 and continued in Naples (through to Leopardi’s last days), published by Ranieri, Paris 1842, with Librerie Baudry.

Paralipomeni, literally “things neglected”, is intended in the sense of “follow up”, “continuation”; the Batracomiomachia, that is “battle of the mice and frogs”, is a pseudo-Homeric work that Leopardi translated as many as three times.

The subject of the poem, which has as “precedents” Gli animali parlanti/Talking animals (1802) by Casti and some works by Byron, is indeed the battle between mice and frogs, helped by crabs: behind the comic fiction we can see the events of Italian politics between the Restoration and the upheavals of 1820-21 and 1831, and behind the animal characters the liberals (mice), papal conservatives (frogs), and the Austrians (crabs).

This political and ideological satire (in a very varied style) is pitiless: the liberal mice, albeit generous, appear as wishful thinkers and frivolously enthusiastic (e.g. Conte Leccafondi, “a rare mouse for his times, who of profound / thoughts and doctrine was a portent: / the laws and states he knew of both the worlds, / and was always reading newspapers”, “moral philosopher and, pro-mice”; I, 34 e 41); the Austrian crabs (and the papal frogs) are ferocious and stupid.

It is obvious how Leopardi here confirms the targets of his polemics, already stigmatised in works such as  Palinodia, I nuovi credenti and La ginestra: on the one hand the progressive optimism of the Florentine liberals, on the other the Catholic spiritualism of Naples; but perhaps with something yet more negative (and without the “solidarity” of the Ginestra): his criticism is not addressed at the single ideologies or forms of government, but against the selfsame idea that man can contrast the “malignity” of nature and improve his state of unhappiness.

The only critical edition is by Francesco Moroncini (Opere minori approvate, 2 voll., Cappelli, Bologna 1931).

Manuscript of the first octave of the Paralipomeni alla Batracomiomachia, at the Biblioteca Nazionale «Vittorio Emanulele III» di Napoli. Source: Giacomo Leopardi a Napoli, Macchiaroli, Naples 1998.