His frustrated passion for his cousin Gertrude Cassi produced the elegy 'The First Love".
As a young man he wrote a commentary on Plotinus, while his dialogues and prose were collected in the volume Operette Morali. He wrote a poem about infinity that begins "I have always loved this solitary hill" in his late years, when he lived on the slopes of Vesuvius. His frustrated passion for his cousin Gertrude Cassi produced the elegy 'The First Love". Serious damage to his eyes and spine probably influenced his conclusion that joy is the momentary subsidence of pain and that death brings happiness. FTP identify this poet of despair, 19th-century Italy's greatest lyric voice, most famous as the author of the Versi and the Canti.
As a young man he wrote a commentary on Plotinus, while his dialogues and prose were collected in the volume Operette Morali.
Count Giacomo Leopardi