Reading Leopardi it is natural to wonder about those places he lived with
mixed feelings, a sort of affection and at the same time the desire to escape. But for the poet
it wasn't a simple love and hate, but rather an attachment to that village like that
static and the irrepressible desire to know another world.
For those who love his writings, a visit to Recanati and his house is an unavoidable event
ancestral home of the poet, which rises majestically but not intrusively and is well placed in the center of the village.
A visit that helps to frame the ambitions, disappointments and passions born among them
walls within a cultured and wealthy but oppressive family.
The town stands not far from Macerata on the almost flat top of a hill from which it is located
possible to see the sea, Mount Conero, the peaks of the Apennines and on clear days
the coasts of Croatia. A breathtaking view. The Piceni were among the first inhabitants of
place and subsequently the Romans founded the city of Helvia Recina or Ricina, from which in
406 the population moved to the hills to escape the barbarian invasions, giving life
to the new Recinetum, i.e. the city derived from the ancient Recina.
Recanati is home to the National Center for Leopardi Studies, established in 1937 on the centenary
of the disappearance with the aim of promoting meetings, conferences and seminars at the level
international to encourage new research and new studies on Giacomo Leopardi.
The reasons for a visit to Recanati that is of interest from a tourist point of view and
cultural are multiple. The Torre del Borgo crowned by Ghibelline battlements with its
36 meters high offers a magnificent view of the panorama surrounding the city. The Villa
Colloredo Mels is home to the very rich Civic Museum divided into the Leopardiana,
Medieval, Renaissance, Archaeological, Historical and Modern. There is also a museum
Beniamino Gigli, a native of Recanati, considered one of the greatest tenors of the twentieth century.
In a town so inclined towards poetry and music, the Città di Prize was born in 1990
Recanati, later called Musicultura, exhibition of author's music.
But without a doubt the most attractive attraction of the place is the visit to the House of
Leopardi which is located in the southern part of the center.
The 1750 building brought together a series of old family homes into a single block and
it is still inhabited by the poet's heirs who occupy the upper floors. The palace yes
overlooks the Village's Piazza del Sabato. The facing part is neoclassical.
Going up the entrance staircase, on the first floor you arrive in the very rich library beyond
twenty thousand volumes, in which the poet spent his years of mad and desperate study.
The family rooms open to the public are Giacomo's study, the library, the
blue living room, private entrance to the main floor and picture gallery, the mirror room with
the numismatic collection of Count Monaldo, the gallery, the reception room with
numerous paintings and objects of the family, where the little theater was set up in which the young people of
family put on theatrical plays. You then exit into the small internal garden and
passing under two arches and climbing a spiral staircase you reach the bedrooms
of young leopards. A short distance away you can see Mount Tabor, the famous hill
of the Infinite. On the ground floor, using rooms once used as warehouses, it was built
the museum area, a collection of documents, furnishings, clothing and early works sorted in
a chronothematic route, so by following the itinerary you can have a vision
of the life of Giacomo and his relatives, of his relationships with philosophy and
religion.
All the furniture is period and everything is well preserved and atmospheric as if life itself
had stopped in the poet's time.
Giacomo spent his childhood and early youth in the palace. These places in some
way they have permeated its growth and influenced its impressive production
literary. It is exciting to see his manuscripts, to savor the atmosphere of his home
Christmas and reliving his childhood and desperate study.
This is the reason why Recanati, in addition to being an interesting tourist destination, becomes
a place of conjunction with the poet, with his life and with his works.
