The unknown source of Paolina Leopardi’s Mozart identified

Abstract

Giacomo Leopardi's sister, Paolina, penned a booklet entitled Mozart, printed in Bologna as a wedding gift. Many scholars wondered what her sources were. As this research clarifies, it is a translation of a 1834 work of the same name, authored by French writer François-Adolphe Loève-Veimars, mostly known as a French translator of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s. Contrary to earlier guessing, Paolina draws on a single source and translates it almost in its entirety. However, she was not the only one to do so; an earlier translation had come out in several installments on a periodical, L’Eco, in the same year as the original. Leopardi’s own is dated 1837, few months after her brother's death. Comparisons were made to establish text variants, as well as to identify the censorship cuts the Countess hinted at in a letter to the Brighenti sisters.