Giaconio Leopardi, count, an Italian poet, born at Recanati, near Ancona, June 29, 1798, died near Naples, June 14, 1837. He was the son of Count Monaldi Leopardi and the marchioness Adelaide Antici. Though bodily feeble and sickly, he made surprising progress in his early studies. At the age of 16 he wrote a commentary on Porphyry's "Life of Plo-tinus," and about the same time a dissertation on the life and writings of the principal rhetoricians of the 2d century, of which Cardinal Mai availed himself in preparing his edition of the "Epistles of Fronto." These and many of his other writings remain unpublished. At the age of 20 he was celebrated throughout Italy for the eloquence and energy of his burning patriotic strains, noble passion, and despair. In 1819 his sight was so much impaired by severe studies that he was forbidden to read, and about the same time he went on account of ill health to Rome, where he became acquainted with Niebuhr and with Bunsen, who afterward proposed to write his memoirs. As a critic Leopardi ranks with the most eminent of modern Italy. Of his poems, Il sabato del villagio and La sera del di di festa are remarkable for their truth to nature, and their chaste and beautiful style; his ode "To Italy" is the most widely known.

The best complete edition of his works is that published at Florence in 1845. His Saggio sopra gli errori popolari degli antichi, written in 1815, was edited by Prospero Vane, and published in 1846; and a selection of his correspondence (Bpistolario) appeared in 1849.