Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) is one of Italy’s most acclaimed poets and intellectuals, whose interpretation of the crisis of modernity gained him recognition already among his 19th century contemporaries Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, but it was not until the publication of his intellectual diary, the Zibaldone, at the turn of the 20th century that Leopardi’s thought began to reveal its depths and to gather due critical attention.