democracy, and supportive of movements urging Italians to fight for their independence." Later he moved to Naples near his friend Antonio Ranieri, hoping to benefit physically from the climate. He died during the cholera epidemic of 1837, the immediate cause probably being pulmonary edema or heart failure, due to his fragile physical condition. Thanks to Antonio Ranieri's intervention with the authorities, Leopardi's remains were not buried in a common grave (as the strict hygiene regulations of the time required), but in the atrium of the Church of San Vitale at Fuorigrotta. In 1898 his tomb was moved to the Parco Virgiliano (Mergellina) and declared a national monument. There have been speculation in academic circles that Leopardi may have had homoromantic tendencies. His intimate friendships with other men, particularly Ranieri, involved expressions of love and desire beyond what was typical even of Romantic poets. In an account of his time in Tuscany, it was written that he "became frenzied about love" whenever in the presence of the handsome younger brother of a woman he and Ranieri both admired (Fanny Targioni-Tozzetti), and that when so frenzied he would direct his sentiments towards Ranieri. In 1830, Leopardi received a letter from Pietro Colletta, nowadays interpreted as a declaration of masonic brotherhood. Leopardi's close friend Antonio Ranieri was a Master Mason. In the course of his life, Leopardi had more than twenty-five sentimental female friendships, such as the ones with Teresa Carniani Malvezzi or Charlotte Napoléone Bonaparte. The Leopardi's family share the origin of Tomasi's family, at the time of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great. Poetical works First academic writings (1813–1816) These were rough years for Leopardi, as he started developing his concept of Nature. At first he saw this as "benevolent" to mankind, helping to distract people from their sufferings. Later, by 1819, his idea of Nature became dominated by a destructive mechanism. Up to 1815, Leopardi was essentially an erudite philologist. Only thereafter he began to dedicate himself to literature and the search for beauty, as he affirms in a famous letter to Giordani of 1817. Pompeo in Egitto ("Pompey in Egypt", 1812), written at the age of fourteen, is an anti-Caesar manifesto. Pompey is seen as the defender of republican liberties. Storia dell'Astronomia ("History of Astronomy", 1813) is a compilation of all of the knowledge accumulated in this field up to the time of Leopardi. From the same year is