Virgilian Heroism(s) in Giacomo Leopardi’s All’Italia

This article examines the Virgilian echoes in Giacomo Leopardi’s All’Italia, focusing on how Leopardi drew on heroic figures from Virgil’s Aeneid to shape his vision of modern heroism. The study begins by analysing Leopardi’s views on Aeneas, contrasted with the Homeric heroes, as expressed in the Zibaldone. Through a close examination of textual and thematic allusions to the Aeneid in All’Italia, particularly to Aeneid 2, the article identifies three forms of heroism in Leopardi’s poem: the poet’s anguished willingness to sacrifice himself for his homeland, echoing Aeneas’s helplessness before the fall of Ilium; the tragic and selfless love of a hero resembling Coroebus; and the aspiration for poetic immortality voiced through Simonides, whose fame is inseparably linked with the Spartan soldiers he commemorates.