Leopardi, Giacomo

giving a detailed description of his infirmities and ill-health, exacerbated by cold, wind and lack of gentle exercise, explaining that he has decided to spend the winter in Pisa, since the climate is much kinder to his weak health than in Florence or Recanati, the winds being less fierce, the streets being fine and clean, and the snow lying for much shorter periods than in Recanati, as his sister Paolina has reported to him;  Leopardi describes the cold he suffered the previous winter, when all he could do was sit at home and shiver, and the suffocating effects of the summer, when he could not take air or move around, and expresses regret that he has not received any letters from his father,

2 pages, 8vo (c.21.5 x 15.5cm), integral autograph address panel, Pisa, 3 December 1827, light overall browning, a few perforations of the paper, some due to oxidization of the ink

F. Flora, Tutte le opere di Giacomo Leopardi, volume 5 (1949), no.568.

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate
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“...Sono venuto qua preparato a patir molto, per non istar male di salute, il che è per me inevitabile quando sono costretto a passar mesi interi senza prender aria e senza far moto: alla primavera comincio a cadere in mille incomodi, che durano tutta l'estate, come mi è accaduto quest' anno...Mi sono sentito e mi sento assai meglio che nei mesi passati, benchè non lasci però di patire assai dal freddo, come avevo preveduto; perchè in casa non fo altro che tremare, non potendo usar fuoco, nè avendo quelle comodità impagabili e impareggiabili che avrei avute in casa...

Leopardi was one of the greatest Italian Romantic poets; he was born into a noble family, but suffered for his art and died tragically young.  His relationship with his father Count Monalo Leopardi was always uneasy.  

This is a poignant and expressive decription by Leopardi of his suffering through overwork and infirmity. His early weak constitution had never been able to support his relentless study and research, and this was exacerbated by the endless overwork of his maturity. Leopardi died of cholera in Naples in 1837, two weeks short of his thirty-ninth birthday. Thousands of people in Naples died of this epidemic: Gaetano Donizetti lost his wife and children at the same time.