Leopardi e la fisiognomica: una storia antica?

Abstract

Physiognomy originated in the Hippocratic context around the fifth century B.C. as a tool for interpreting those physical signs that resulted from geoclimatic influence on the individual. Leopardi shows himself to be a passionate scholar of Hippocratic τέχνη ἰατρική and the theoretical assumptions on which physiognomy is based can be recognized in Leopardi’s poetic thought. This essay collects fundamental passages from the Zibaldone in order to identify under what circumstances Leopardi may have come into contact with ancient physiognomy works – perhaps beacuse of reading Della Porta and Lavater –, and how far these texts may have penetrated his poetics.