Museum

The exhibition is divided into ten historical-thematic sections that allow visitors to “walk” with Giacomo through his history, through a wealth of objects, documents and writings, including Giacomo’s cradle and baptismal robe, his childhood toys, his childhood autographs, the ceremonial robe of Monaldo Gonfaloniere, the small belt watch that belonged to the poet’s mother, Adelaide Antici, the ceramic inkwell with which L’Infinito was written, and the fragments of the robe and the wood of the chest found in the poet’s tomb in the church of San Vitale in Fuorigrotta.

The itinerary also makes use of technological aids specifically designed to make the experience easier and more participatory for the public.

From the context of his birth, through the family background of Count Monaldo and the Marquise Adelaide, to the tangle of childhood affections and passions, visitors can immerse themselves in the world of the child Leopardi’s games and heroic fantasies. Thanks to the exhibition of childhood autographs, the mosaic of readings, studies and erudition that formed the basis of Giacomo’s literary personality is assembled. From his first playful creativity to his desire for fame, from the printing of his first songs to the friendship and esteem of some of the most important literary figures of the 19th century, the new permanent museum also recounts the temperament of the feelings and emotions of a young soul yearning for love and freedom.

From his first fall in love to his attempt to escape, from the composition of L’Infinito, passing through Rome, Bologna, Milan, Florence and Pisa, visitors will accompany Leopardi on his journey in search of happiness, contextualizing his literary journey through the milestones of the Canti – the collection of lyric poems that reinvented Italian poetry – the Operette Morali – the satirical and amoral work that irreversibly changed national prose – up to the Zibaldone, which examines the evolution of Leopardi’s thought through a very modern indexing method.

The itinerary, which is much more than a mere chronological presentation, goes beyond a simple biography of Leopardi and, in addition to the events that led to the poet’s death in Naples, it examines the mystery of his burial and the difficult path of recovering the papers left behind in the Campania capital. This new exhibition also includes an exploration of the main themes of the “philosopher” Leopardi, such as love, friendship and the conflict between reason and nature. It is a new opportunity to appreciate the contemporaneity of one of the Italian thinkers who, with the greatest rigour and ingenuity, was able to anticipate modernity and explore the great questions of human feeling, the first “modern” to undertake an unprejudiced search for happiness, alone in the face of the infinite mystery of human nature.

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