Giacomo Graf, Recanati 29.6.1798, +Neapel 14.6.1837, italien. Schriftsteller. L. war ein herausragender Vertreter der italien. Romantik. In seinen Gedichten gelang ihm die formal glänzende Umsetzung seiner Schwermut und seines Lebensüberdrußes. Bedeutend auch seine aphorist. Kurzprosasammlung 'Zibaldone' (1817/1832).
Count Leopardi (1798-1837) Italian romantic poet. The first collection of his uniquely pessimistic poems, I Versi/Verses, appeared 1824 and was followed by his philosophical Operette morali/Minor Moral Works 1827, in prose, and I Canti/Lyrics 1831.
Born at Recanati of a noble family, Leopardi wrote many of his finest poems, including his patriotic odes, before he was 21. Throughout his life he was tormented by ill health, by the consciousness of his deformity (he was hunchbacked), by loneliness and a succession of unhappy love affairs, and by his “cosmic pessimism” and failure to find consolation in any philosophy.