The hill of the Infinite
On a long hill between the Potenza and Musone valleys, a few kilometres from the sea and Loreto, Recanati is an elegant town of palaces and churches with a splendid view over the hills of the Marche and, on clear days, the sea and the mountains of the Sibillini. It is the town of Giacomo Leopardi, one of the greatest poets and thinkers of Italian literature, born here in 1798 into an aristocratic family, who spent most of his youth in his father's palace, studying day and night in the vast library, and who described the town, its landscapes and its people in many of his most famous poems, such as "Il sabato del villaggio" and "A Silvia".
The Casa Leopardi, the family palace, still inhabited by the poet's descendants, can be visited: it preserves the extraordinary library gathered by his father, Count Monaldo, with about 20,000 volumes, in which the young Giacomo educated himself, learning Greek, Hebrew and several modern languages. In front of the palace is the small Piazzuola del Sabato del Villaggio, and a short walk away the window of Silvia, the young woman who inspired one of his most famous poems. On the top of the Colle dell'Infinito, Monte Tabor, a small garden with a hedge recalls the place where, in 1819, Leopardi wrote "L'Infinito", one of the most famous poems in the Italian language, in which the hedge that blocks the view opens the poet's mind to the thought of infinite space and time. Recanati is also the birthplace of the tenor Beniamino Gigli, and the civic museum of Villa Colloredo Mels preserves works by Lorenzo Lotto, including a famous Annunciation.
Tip: read "L'Infinito" on the hill where it was written; book the visit to the Leopardi library in advance.
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