physical constitution, and his illness, probably Pott's disease or ankylosing spondylitis, denied him youth's simplest pleasures. In 1817 the classicist Pietro Giordani arrived at the Leopardi estate. He became a lifelong friend of Giacomo, who derived from this a sense of hope for the future. Meanwhile, his life at Recanati weighed on him increasingly, to the point where he attempted to escape in 1818, but he was caught by his father and brought home. Thereafter relations between father and son continued to deteriorate, and Giacomo was constantly monitored by the rest of the family. When in 1822 he was briefly able to stay in Rome with his uncle, he was deeply disappointed by its atmosphere of corruption and decadence and by the hypocrisy of the Church. He was impressed by the tomb of Torquato Tasso, to whom he felt bound by a common sense of unhappiness. While Foscolo lived tumultuously between adventures, amorous relations, and books, Leopardi was barely able to escape from his domestic oppression. To Leopardi, Rome seemed squalid and modest when compared to the idealized image that he had created of it. He had already suffered disillusionment in love at home, with his cousin Geltrude Cassi. Meanwhile, his physical ailments continued to worsen. In 1824, a bookstore owner, Stella, called him to Milan, asking him to write several works, including Crestomazia della prosa e della poesia italiane. He moved during this period between Milan, Bologna, Florence and Pisa. In 1827 in Florence, Leopardi met Alessandro Manzoni, although they did not see things eye to eye. He paid a visit to Giordani and met the historian Pietro Colletta. In 1828, physically infirm and worn out by work, Leopardi had refused the offer of a professorship in Bonn or Berlin, made by the Ambassador of Prussia in Rome. In the same year, he had to abandon his work with Stella and return to Recanati. In 1830, Colletta offered him a chance to return to Florence, thanks to a financial contribution from the "Friends of Tuscany". The subsequent printing of the Canti allowed him to live away from Recanati until 1832. Leopardi found kindred company among the liberals and republicans seeking to liberate Italy from its feudal yoke to Austria. Although his idiosyncratic and pessimistic ideas made him a party of one, he railed against Italy's "state of subjection" and was "in sympathy with the ideals of constitutionalism, republicanism and