if Ranieri had not in his old age tarnished it by assuming the relation of Trelawny to the dead Byron. Leopardi accompanied Ranieri and his sister to Naples, and under their care enjoyed four years of comparative tranquillity. He made the acquaintance of the German poet Platen, his sole modern rival in the classical perfection of form, and composed La Ginestra, the most consummate of all his lyrical masterpieces, strongly resembling Shelley’s Mont Blanc, but more perfect in expression. He also wrote at Naples The Sequel to the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, a satire in ottava rima on the abortive Neapolitan revolution of 1820, clever and humorous, but obscure from the local character of the allusions. The more painful details of his Neapolitan residence may be found by those who care to seek for them in the deplorable publication of Ranieri’s peevish old age (Sette anni di sodalizio). The decay of Leopardi’s constitution continued; he became dropsical; and a sudden crisis of his malady, unanticipated by himself alone, put an end to his life-long sufferings on the 15th of June 1837.
The poems which constitute Leopardi’s principal title to immortality are only forty-one in number, and some of these are merely fragmentary. They may for the most part be described as odes, meditative soliloquies, or impassioned addresses, generally couched in a lyrical form, although a few are in magnificent blank verse. Some idea of the style and spirit of the former might be obtained by imagining the thoughts of the last book of Spenser’s Faerie Queene in the metre of his Epithalamium. They were first edited complete by Ranieri at Florence in 1845, forming, along with the Operette Morali, the first volume of an edition of Leopardi’s works, which does not, however, include The Sequel to the Battle of the Frogs and Mice, first printed at Paris in 1842, nor the afterwards discovered writings. Vols. ii.-iv. contain the philological essays and translations, with some letters, and vols. v. and vi. the remainder of the correspondence. Later editions are those of G. Chiarini and G. Mestica. The juvenile essays preserved in his father’s library at Recanati were edited by Cugnoni (Opere inedite) in 1879, with the consent of the family. See Cappelleti, Bibliografia Leopardiana (Parma, 1882). Leopardi’s biography is mainly in his letters (Epistolario, 1st ed., 1849, 5th ed., 1892), to which his later biographers (Brandes, Bouché-Leclercq, Rosa) have merely added criticisms, excellent in their way, more particularly Brandes’s, but generally over-rating Leopardi’s significance in the history of human thought. W. E. Gladstone’s essay (Quart. Rev., 1850), reprinted in vol. ii. of the author’s Gleanings, is too much pervaded by the theological spirit, but is in the main a pattern of generous and discriminating eulogy. There are excellent German translations of the poems by Heyse and Brandes. An English translation of the essays and dialogues by C. Edwards appeared in 1882, and most of the dialogues were translated with extraordinary felicity by James Thomson, author of The City of Dreadful Night, and originally published in the National Reformer. (R. G.)
LEOPARDO, ALESSANDRO (d. c. 1512), Italian sculptor,
was born and died at Venice. His first known work is the
imposing mausoleum of the doge Andrea Vendramini, now in
the church of San Giovanni e Paolo; in this he had the co-operation
of Tullio Lombardo, but the finest parts are Leopardo’s.
Some of the figures have been taken away, and two in the Berlin
museum are considered to be certainly his work. He was exiled
on a charge of fraud in 1487, and recalled in 1490 by the senate
to finish Verrocchio’s colossal statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni.
He worked between 1503 and 1505 on the tomb of Cardinal Zeno
at St Mark’s, which was finished in 1515 by Pietro Lombardo;
and in 1505 he designed and cast the bronze sockets for the three
flagstaffs in the square of St Mark’s, the antique character of
the decorations suggesting some Greek model. (See Venice.)
LEOPOLD (M.H. Ger. Liupolt; O.H. Ger. Liupald, from
liut, Mod. Ger. Leute, “people,” and pald, “bold,” i.e. “bold
for the people”), the name which has been that of several
European sovereigns.
LEOPOLD I. (1640–1705), Roman emperor, the second son of
the emperor Ferdinand III. and his first wife Maria Anna,
daughter of Philip III. of Spain, was born on the 9th of June
1640. Intended for the Church, he received a good education,
but his prospects were changed by the death of his elder brother,
the German king Ferdinand IV., in July 1654, when he became
his father’s heir. In 1655 he was chosen king of Hungary and
in 1656 king of Bohemia, and in July 1658, more than a year
after his father’s death, he was elected emperor at Frankfort,
in spite of the intrigues of Cardinal Mazarin, who wished to place
on the imperial throne Ferdinand, elector of Bavaria, or some
other prince whose elevation would break the Habsburg succession.
Mazarin, however, obtained a promise from the new
emperor that he would not send assistance to Spain, then at
war with France, and, by joining a confederation of German
princes, called the league of the Rhine, France secured a certain
influence in the internal affairs of Germany. Leopold’s long
reign covers one of the most important periods of European
history; for nearly the whole of its forty-seven years he was
pitted against Louis XIV. of France, whose dominant personality
completely overshadowed Leopold. The emperor was a man of
peace and never led his troops in person; yet the greater part
of his public life was spent in arranging and directing wars.
The first was with Sweden, whose king Charles X. found a useful
ally in the prince of Transylvania, George II. Rakocky, a rebellious
vassal of the Hungarian crown. This war, a legacy of
the last reign, was waged by Leopold as the ally of Poland until
peace was made at Oliva in 1660. A more dangerous foe next
entered the lists. The Turks interfered in the affairs of Transylvania,
always an unruly district, and this interference brought
on a war with the Empire, which after some desultory operations
really began in 1663. By a personal appeal to the diet at Regensburg
Leopold induced the princes to send assistance for the
campaign; troops were also sent by France, and in August 1664
the great imperialist general, Montecucculi, gained a notable
victory at St Gotthard. By the peace of Vasvar the emperor
made a twenty years’ truce with the sultan, granting more
generous terms than his recent victory seemed to render
necessary.
After a few years of peace began the first of three wars between France and the Empire. The aggressive policy pursued by Louis XIV. towards Holland had aroused the serious attention of Europe, and steps had been taken to check it. Although the French king had sought the alliance of several German princes and encouraged the Turks in their attacks on Austria the emperor at first took no part in this movement. He was on friendly terms with Louis, to whom he was closely related and with whom he had already discussed the partition of the lands of the Spanish monarchy; moreover, in 1671 he arranged with him a treaty of neutrality. In 1672, however, he was forced to take action. He entered into an alliance for the defence of Holland and war broke out; then, after this league had collapsed owing to the defection of the elector of Brandenburg, another and more durable alliance was formed for the same purpose, including, besides the emperor, the king of Spain and several German princes, and the war was renewed. At this time, twenty-five years after the peace of Westphalia, the Empire was virtually a confederation of independent princes, and it was very difficult for its head to conduct any war with vigour and success, some of its members being in alliance with the enemy and others being only lukewarm in their support of the imperial interests. Thus this struggle, which lasted until the end of 1678, was on the whole unfavourable to Germany, and the advantages of the treaty of Nijmwegen (February 1679) were with France.
Almost immediately after the conclusion of peace Louis renewed his aggressions on the German frontier. Engaged in a serious struggle with Turkey, the emperor was again slow to move, and although he joined a league against France in 1682 he was glad to make a truce at Regensburg two years later. In 1686 the league of Augsburg was formed by the emperor and the imperial princes, to preserve the terms of the treaties of Westphalia and of Nijmwegen. The whole European position was now bound up with events in England, and the tension lasted until 1688, when William of Orange won the English crown and Louis invaded Germany. In May 1689 the grand alliance was formed, including the emperor, the kings of England, Spain and Denmark, the elector of Brandenburg and others, and a fierce struggle against France was waged throughout almost the whole of western Europe. In general the several campaigns were favourable to the allies, and in September 1697 England and Holland made peace with Louis at Ryswick.
