3694 Leopardi and Recanati

Recanati is the birth place of Giacomo Lepardi, generally considered, along with such figures as Dante, Ariosto and Tasso, to be among Italy's greatest poets and also one of its greatest thinkers in general.
It is possible to visit his house in Recanati (he was a count, so his house is actually a "palace"), and his statue in the main and beautiful square.
Here's one of his most famous poems:

L'infinito
Sempre caro mi fu quest'ermo colle,
e questa siepe, che da tanta parte
dell'ultimo orizzonte il guardo esclude.
Ma sedendo e mirando, interminati
spazi di là da quella, e sovrumani 5
silenzi, e profondissima quiete
io nel pensier mi fingo; ove per poco
il cor non si spaura. E come il vento
odo stormir tra queste piante, io quello
infinito silenzio a questa voce 10
vo comparando: e mi sovvien l'eterno,
e le morte stagioni, e la presente
e viva, e il suon di lei. Così tra questa
immensità s'annega il pensier mio:
e il naufragar m'è dolce in questo mare.

translation by Gilbert Wesley Purdy
This solitary hill has always been dear to me,
And this hedgerow, which closes in the view
So well that one need hardly look upon the west.
But sitting and reflecting, from out of the endless
Expanse of night sky, and the supernatural
Silences and so profound stillnesses,
It comes to me here how I beguile myself;
For a moment, then, the heart no longer fears.
And, like the wind I hear whisper among these leaves,
I hear within that infinite silence a voice:
It overwhelms me with the eternal,
And the seasons passed away, and that present
And living, and with its own sound. Thus within
This immensity my thoughts are drowned...
And it is sweet to be shipwrecked in this sea.

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacomo_Leopardi[/url]