Fr. Monaldo Leopardi…a great-grandson of Leopardi, almost a Jesuit
Among the 3,005 papers that make up the series of Jesuits that belonged to the Roman Province between 1814 and 1978, there is also that of one of the members of the Leopardi family. Monaldo Leopardi, a priest who lived in the second half of the nineteenth century and great-grandson of the famous Giacomo Leopardi, was very close to the Society of Jesus.
The biography
Baptized with the same name as the father of the scholar of Recanati, Fr. Monaldo was born in Recanati on 29 April 1871.
Since childhood Monaldo knew Ignatian spirituality closely.
He was in fact enrolled, at the behest of his parents, at the Mondragone College in Frascati – run by the Society of Jesus- from which he often had to leave due to health problems; then expressed the desire to enter the Company and was a novice at the novitiate of Castel Gandolfo from 1888 to 1891.
Even during the novitiate years the health problems required some interruptions of the path, in fact several times the parents turned to the Provincial to ask to be able to return Monaldo home to treat his person.
For his studies in philosophy he was sent to the Gregorian University in Rome, but his poor health led the Society to stop the young man from taking the Ignatian spiritual path.
Resignation and recent years
Monaldo officially resigned from the Society in 1893, while maintaining a strong spiritual bond with it, as witnessed by the letter written by Fr. Nannerini to the Provincial, to communicate his death and preserved in his personal file. In a newspaper of the time, The True Rome, which reported the news of his death, he is still mentioned as belonging to the Society, despite not being part of it anymore.
Monaldo became a diocesan priest in Recanati, died at the age of 26 in the family home in the arms of his mother.
In our historical archive there are some letters written in memory of the religious by some Jesuits, a note signed by Leopardi’s parents and intended for the Provincial and other documents; you can also check his entry to the Mondragone College and in the novitiate thanks to the registers.
Maria Macchi
