ROMANTICART

WHAT'S BEYOND THE HORIZON?

18 06 2026

Concept by Mara Cipriano Senior Art Curator

L'Infinito

Giacomo Leopardi

Translated by Jonathan Galassi

This lonely hill was always dear to me,

and this hedgerow, which cuts off the view of so much of the last horizon.

But sitting here and gazing, I can see

beyond, in my mind’s eye, unending spaces, and superhuman silences, and depthless calm,

till what I feel

is almost fear. And when I hear

the wind stir in these branches, I begin

comparing that endless stillness with this noise;

and the eternal comes to mind,

and the dead seasons, and the present living one, and how it sounds.

So my mind sinks in this immensity:

and foundering is sweet in such a sea.

Leopardi plays with an elegant and profound paradox: it is the limit that makes the limitless possible. Take away the visible world, and the mind begins to travel. The dark hedge is not an obstacle; it is the key that opens an elsewhere. He was a true rebel: a boy who read everything, who devoured ancient languages as if they were sweets, who observed the world with an intelligence too vast not to suffer. His physical and family condition kept him on the margins, but from that very margin he could see farther than others.

His infinity is the desire to cross his own boundaries. What is your Infinity?