A “Notebook“- composed of four half sheets folded in half to obtain eight pages – in which ca 160 ancient and late ancient authorseach of which is followed by a series of numeric references (over 550). This is an autograph from Giacomo Leopardi of 1814than the poet from Recanati had 16 yearsidentified by scholars Marcello Andrea and Paola Zitowho oversaw publication in the volume Emperors Leopardi and Giuliano. An unpublished note from the Neapolitan newspapers (Le Monnier University, 2022).
In the manuscript – hitherto unnoticed and preserved in Leopard fund of the National Library of Naples – Leopardi studies the figure Flavio Claudio Giulianothe last openly pagan Latin sovereignNickname – exactly – Julian the Apostatewho ruled by 360 to 363 AD. Thanks to the library of his father, Count Monaldo, in which thousands of volumes were kept, the young man of letters, who had only been self-taught in Greek the year before, approached readingOmnia Opera of the Neoplatonic Emperor, using the authoritative edition of Ezekiel Spanheimwhich appeared in Leipzig in 1696.
The period when Leopardi begins to read Giuliano marks an important stage in the novel’s journey upgrade the Figure of the renegadeblurred for a long time through the condemnation Almost unanimously among historians until the mid-16th century, rediscovered in the eighteenth century mainly by the enlightenment (Montesquieu, Diderot, Voltaire), but welcomed in Italy between certificates of appreciation and declared hostility. References to the work of the Emperor Giuliano will also recur in other Leopardi works: in particular in the Moral operettas (in the Memorable Sayings of Filippo Ottonieri), in Zibaldon and in some philological exercises.
“In addition to examining the purposes of the operation, i posts of the volume should to concentrate at best the Meaning of the binomial James – the apostatea relationship that challenges the longue durée by rejecting it outlook decided interdisciplinary“, we read on the back of Andria and Zito’s book. “The reflections are carried out along the thread of historical, philosophical investigations – from the 4th century AD to the Enlightenment and beyond – and philological, the latter aiming to examine the folds of a dense and significant lexical and conceptual fabric”, concludes remark.