Giacomo Leopardi

Catalogo della Biblioteca Leopardi in Recanati, in «Atti e memorie della deputazione di storia patria per le province delle Marche», IV, 1899, Ancona, Morelli 1899, 447 p.

The Leopardi family library was created by Count Monaldo Leopardi, father of the poet, who initially purchased books only occasionally during fairs at Recanati and Senigallia. Later, however, he took advantage of the suppression of religious orders following Napoleon’s invasion of Italy (1798-1799) and subsequently of the occupation of the Marche region united with the Kingdom of Italy (1807-1808) to buy in bulk the book collections of abandoned religious congregations and convents. This explains the prevalently theological nature of the texts in the Leopardi family library. The collection was further expanded by Giacomo and his brothers, who were for some time the only ones to use it, despite the fact that in 1812 Monaldo had had a plaque hung which declared the library open not only to filiis but also to amicis and civibus.
The catalogue reproduces, in diplomatic transcription, a list deposited at the Roman National Archives by the Leopardi family for the obtainment of the rights of primogeniture. The list contains about 14,000 titles, in alphabetical order. Each title is provided with a complete bibliographic description: author, title, place and date printed, format.
The reproduced copy of the catalogue belonged to Sebastiano Timpanaro and is currently part of the Timpanaro collection in the library of the Scuola Normale in Pisa. Although lacking its heading, preface and appendix, it offers rare annotations in Leopardi’s own handwriting, all concerning 19^th century editions of classical works: On p. 71 he corrected the alphabetical order of the list of titles, inserting Caesar, which had been placed as Caesaris on p. 92. On pp. 98-99 he corrected the title and the date of publication of some works by Cicero (but if he indicated correctly that the Frammenti della Repubblica were not “regularized” but rather “translated into the vernacular” by  Teresa Carniani-Malvezzi, he seems to have overlooked that the year of publication was 1827 and not 1807, as is indicated). On p. 117 he again corrected a title (Meletemata instead of Opuscula graeca illustrata), and on p. 124, the publication date of a volume of Demosthenes and Aeschines, noting that it contains only the Latin translation. On p. 143 he noted that the editor of the Historia ecclesiastica by Eusebius was Henricus Valesius and not Henrico Volgius. On pp. 184 and 189 he placed a note to refer to p. 188 (at the entry Grevius). On p. 203 he corrected the name of the editor of Horace. On p. 211 in placed a note to refer to Flavio Giuseppe (p. 181), and on p. 267, the number of a volume. On p. 313 he gave the exact number of the volumes comprising the Variarum lectionum by Pietro Vettori. On p. 387 he corrected the date of a 16^th century edition of Giovanni Stobeo. On p. 423 he placed a note to refer to p. 313, for Pietro Vettori. On p. 446 he corrected the Latin declination of the name of an author and the publication date of a 16^th century lexicon.

G. Pacella, Elenchi di letture leopardiane, «Giornale storico della letteratura italiana», CXLIII, 1966, pp. 557-577.

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