Amajor fresco cycle dating to the end of the 16th century and the start of the 17th has been found in the library of Casa Leopardi, the Marche home where Italy's greatest poet and philosopher after Dante, Giacomo Leopardi, grew up in the early 19th century, the Leopardi House said Thursday.

    The frescoes have been discovered during consolidation and restoration work on the library in the hilltown of Recanati near Macerata where the precocious genius pored over ancient books so intensely as to cause his precarious health later in life, the House said.

The huge library of the great polymath and Romantic poet recently went online.
    The library largely amassed by Leopardi's father Count Monaldo is now available to all Leopardi fans at (https://bibliomarchesud.it/opac/.do).
    The library helped Leopardi boast a precocious knowledge of Latin, Greek and other ancient languages but his strenuous voracious reading is thought to have contributed to his life-long ill health.
    Leopardi (29 June 1798 - 14 June 1837) was a philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist.
    He is considered the greatest Italian poet of the nineteenth century and one of the most important figures in the literature of the world, as well as one of the principal figures of literary romanticism.
    Talking about the discovery of the frescoes, the poet's descendant and head of the House Countess Olimpia Leopardi said: "This discovery further enriches the historical and artistic heritage of Casa Leopardi and provides us with a precious testimony to the history of the palazzo.
    "It's exciting to think that Giacomo might have also observed these paintings before they were hidden by subsequent transformations."
   

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