Among his many writings Leopardi has also left us some important studies of a philological nature. “Technical” writings, in particular about Hellenic and late Greek texts (a field dealt with by few at the time), judged to be of a “European level” by the scholar who brought them to the attention of critics: Sebastiano Timpanaro (his was the pioneering work La filologia di Giacomo Leopardi, Le Monnier, Florence 1955, and the overseeing, with Giuseppe Pacella, of the Scritti filologici (1817-1832) by Leopardi, in 1969; other early texts were edited by Claudio Moreschini, and other scholars).

Leopardi’s technical-philological work can be divided into three phases. The first that of his youthful writings, the fruit of  “seven years of crazy and most desperate study”: Leopardi addressed the subject of the Fathers of the Church and ecclesiastical history, and between 1817 and 1819 wrote two important Letters to Pietro Giordani, one sopra il Dionigi del Mai and one sopra il Frontone del Mai. The second phase coincides with his trip to Rome in 1822-23: Leopardi published three works in the periodical “Effemeridi letterarie di Roma”, true scientific essays, among which the Notae in Ciceronis de Re Publica and his most important work, the Annotazioni sopra la Cronica d’Eusebio (also published in book form in 1823). The work of the third phase (1823-27) was on a wide range of critical annotations, which Leopardi planned, without success, to publish due to Louis de Sinner’s encouragement, and to whom he gave a selection of materials (now in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence).

Apart his philological studies, Leopardi did a considerable number of translations in prose. Among the most important are the Operette morali d’Isocrate (1824-26) and the Manuale di Epitteto (1825), never published. He also did a counterfeit version of XIV century language that fooled many readers: il Martirio de’ Santi Padri del Monte Sinai e dell’Eremo di Raitu (Stella, Milan 1826).