I understand, too, that
he is one of the first of the rising poets of Italy. What a nobly
gifted people!"
Niebuhr offered to procure him a professorship of Greek philosophy in
Berlin, but Leopardi would not consent to leave his own country;
and then Niebuhr unsuccessfully used his influence to get him some
employment from the papal government,--compliments and good wishes it
gave him, but no employment and no pay.
From Rome Leopardi went to Milan, where he earned something--very
little--as editor of a comment upon Petrarch. A little later he went
to Bologna, where a generous and sympathetic nobleman made him tutor
in his family; but Leopardi returned not long after to Recanati, where
he probably found no greater content than he left there. Presently we
find him at Pisa, and then at Florence, eking out the allowance from
his father by such literary work as he could find to do. In the latter
place it is somewhat dimly established that he again fell in love,
though he despised the Florentine women almost as much as the Romans,
for their extreme ignorance, folly, and pride. This love also was
unhappy. There is no reason to believe that Leopardi, who inspired
tender and ardent friendships in men, ever moved any woman to love.
The Florentine ladies are darkly accused by one of his biographers of
having laughed at the poor young pessimist, and it is very possible;
but that need not make us think the worse of him, or of them either,
for that matter.
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