illusion and becoming conscious of his own miserable condition. Such awareness will placate the mutual hatreds. It is a vast poem, symphonically constructed with brilliant alternations of tone, from the grandiose and tragic painting of the volcano threatening destruction and of extensions of infertile lava, to the sharp ideological argumentation, to the cosmic sparks which project the nothingness of the earth and of man in the immensity of the universe, to the vision of the infinite passage of centuries of human history on which the immutable threat of nature has always weighed, to the gentle notes dedicated to the "flower in the desert", in which are compressed complex symbolic meanings: pity toward the sufferings of man and the dignity which should be characteristic of man when confronted with the invincible force of a nature which crushes him. An essential change occurs with the Ginestra, which closes the poetic career of Leopardi along with Il tramonto della Luna, which takes up the old themes of the fall of youthful illusions. The poem reiterates and reaffirms the sharp anti-optimistic and anti-religious polemic, but in a new and democratic register. Here, Leopardi no longer denies the possibility of civic progress: he seeks to construct an idea of progress founded precisely on his pessimism. Il tramonto della Luna Il tramonto della Luna ("The Waning of the Moon"), the last canto, was composed by Leopardi in Naples shortly before his death. The moon wanes, leaving nature in total darkness, just as youth passes away leaving life dark and derelict. The poet seems to presage the imminence of his own death. In 1845, Ranieri published the definitive edition of the Canti according to the will of the author. Other poems Palinodia al marchese Gino Capponi In the Palinodia al marchese Gino Capponi ("Palinody to Marquis Gino Capponi"), Leopardi fakes a retraction ("Palinodia") of his pessimism. The work, written in 1835, was intended to be satirical (he first believes that man is unhappy and miserable, but now progress has made him reconsider his position), but the thought of the inevitable destruction to which nature condemns everything leads him to express bitter conclusions in spite of himself. Regarding this work, the Marquis Capponi wrote in a letter to Leopardi that he shared, at least in part, many of his ideas and thanked him for the "noble verses". However, in a letter addressed to Viesseux, he expressed himself in