Abstract

This paper inquires into the existence of an «anthropological system», understood as a stadial plan of human development, in Giacomo Leopardi’s thought. The article is developed through the analysis of Leopardi’s works and his intellectual relationships with those eighteenth-century thinkers who are recognized as the pioneers of the auroral stage of anthropological theories. By means of this analysis, on one hand, a complex «anthropological system», in which elements of degenerationism are inserted in an evolutionistic structure, emerges; on the other hand, it is possible to reveal Leopardi’s anthropological interests and his involvement in the coeval cultural climate concerning the study of mankind.