Torraca, De Sanctis e lo Zibaldone di Leopardi

The Zibaldone and other Leopardi’s manuscripts, concealed by Antonio Ranieri after the death of the poet, were acquired by the Italian Government in 1897 thanks to initiative of the two scholars that had been former students at the so-called Neapolitan “second school” of Francesco De Sanctis : Emanuele Gianturco, minister of Education, and Francesco Torraca, head of cabinet at his Ministry, who had cared to transcribe De Sanctis’ lessons, including those on Leopardi. In the lessons of this last course held by De Sanctis at the University of Naples we can trace some clues that lead to hypothesize he might have examined Leopardi’s exceptional notes.