Leopardi, Monaldo

LEOPARDI, MONALDO. - Writer, b. at Recanati on 16 Aug. 1776, d. there on 30 Apr. 1847. Of weak will, he was dominated in the management of the household by his wife Adelaide Antici; he was not, however, an unloving father to his son Giacomo, as a literary legend had portrayed him.

A notable figure of local erudition, he composed the Annali di Recanati; a proud defender of the alliance between State and Church, he was opposed to the Congress of Vienna, which had not fully accepted the concept of legitimism: he was nevertheless favorable to the "spirit of forgiveness, conciliation and peace" of the Consalvi government. For M. L. "to restore means to mend things that have been spoiled" (as he wrote in the Dialoghetti sulle materie correnti nell'anno 1831, on p. 49 of the reprint edited by A. Moravia under the title Viaggio di Pulcinella, Rome 1945), but by this he by no means shows himself favorable to eighteenth-century royal absolutism, precisely because it smacked of jurisdictionalism and was therefore anti-curial. From 1832 to 1835 he published the Voce della ragione, in which he fought for his political ideas.

Among his historical publications are to be remembered: Serie dei vescovi di Recanati (Macerata 1828); Vita di Nicolò Banofede, vescovo di Chiusi (Pesaro 1832); La S. Casa di Loreto (Lugano 1841); Cose lauretane (Ancona 1844).

Vuoli published for the first time, 2 vols., ibid. 1945); id., M. L. di fronte alla letteratura, offprint from Atti e memorie della Deputazione di storia patria per le Marche (7th series, 1946), Ancona 1949; A. Donini-U. Magrini, M. L., Recanati 1947; M. Angelastri, M. L., Milan 1948 (with bibl.).