Pietro Giordani at The Borghese Gardens, Rome

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Pietro Giordani was born on January 1, 1774, in Piacenza. He initially aimed to become a monk but changed his mind and abandoned the clerical vocation in favor of literature. Giordani had a strong admiration for Napoleon Bonaparte and the Napoleonic regime in Italy. In 1807, he wrote a Panegyric on the Sacred Majesty of Napoleon. The following year, he obtained the post of proto-secretary at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna but had to abandon it in 1815 due to his liberal and republican ideals becoming suspect during the Restoration. Giordani began exchanging letters with Giacomo Leopardi in 1816, visiting him in 1818, and continued frequent visits throughout the years. He played a significant role in fostering Leopardi's intellectual growth by exposing him to various cultural environments. The two shared a deep affection and esteem for each other, with Leopardi describing Giordani as his "dear and beneficent paternal image." In 1817, Giordani inherited a substantial sum of money from his father, ensuring his economic independence and allowing him to pursue intellectual freedom. He traveled extensively and settled in Piacenza, Bologna, and Milan, where he became an editor of the classicist magazine La Biblioteca Italiana alongside Vincenzo Monti, Giuseppe Acerbi, and Scipione Breislak. However, Giordani felt compelled to leave due to increasing political tension with Acerbi. In Florence, he began subscribing to the liberal magazine Antologia run by Giovanni Pietro Vieusseux. In 1825, he published a letter proposing the idea of collecting and publishing the works of prominent Italian writers in affordable volumes. Despite his involvement with Antologia, Giordani maintained a detached attitude due to its materialistic and commercial vision of the intellectual's role. After the suppression of uprisings in 1821, intellectuals shifted towards a more moderate reformist program, and the center of progressive culture moved from Milan to Florence. Giordani became an outcast in Italian society during the 1831 uprisings. He lived in Parma until his death on September 2, 1848, ironically coinciding with the provisional success of anti-Austrian uprisings.