Leopardi was born in Recanati in 1798, from an aristocratic and cultured family, with a conservative and Catholic orientation. Of very deep sensitivity and boundless erudition, Leopardi became very soon self-taught through "years of mad and very desperate study", even as a teenager, to master various foreign languages ​​and numerous disciplines, even very far from the history of literature. Some of his works are: Operette Morali (1824 ), stays in Rome (1822), Milan (1825), Bologna (1826), Florence (1827) where he establishes relations with Vieusseux and the intellectuals of the magazine “Antologia” and Pisa (1828) where he composes A Silvia.

"O graziosa luna, io mi rammento
Che, or volge l’anno, sovra questo colle
Io venia pien d’angoscia a rimirarti:
E tu pendevi allor su quella selva
Siccome or fai, che tutta la rischiari.
Ma nebuloso e tremulo dal pianto
Che mi sorgea sul ciglio, alle mie luci
Il tuo volto apparia, che travagliosa
Era mia vita: ed è, né cangia stile,
O mia diletta luna. E pur mi giova
La ricordanza, e il noverar l’etate
Del mio dolore. Oh come grato occorre
Nel tempo giovanil, quando ancor lungo
La speme e breve ha la memoria il corso,
Il rimembrar delle passate cose,
Ancor che triste, e che l’affanno duri!"

On June 14 of that year, Leopardi felt ill at the end of a meal ; that morning, he had eaten about a kilo and a half of cannellini confetti bought by Paolina Ranieri on the occasion of Antonio's name day and drank a chocolate, then a hot soup and a lemonade in the evening.
He fell ill shortly, as had been planned, and despite the intervention of the doctor his asthma got worse and a few hours later the poet died. 
He compose a lot of works: "i Canti", 41 lyrical compositions, are patriotic, philosophical and love songs; "le Opere Mortali", 24 prose compositions in which he exposes his pessimistic conception of life; "lo Zibaldone", a collection of thoughts, notes, notes, reflections on life and the world between 1817 and 1832.