Leigh Hunt, The Liberal e Pisa: incontri, impressioni e incroci culturali romantici.

This chapter explores a lesser-known aspect of Leigh Hunt’s long literary career. In particular, it will focus on his stay in Italy during the 1820s, when Hunt lived in close contact with English writers and intellectuals exiled in Italy, forming the famous “Pisan Circle”, which included figures such as P.B. Shelley and Lord Byron. During this period, Hunt played a crucial role as editor and principal contributor to the Italo-English periodical The Liberal. A critical reading of the letter published in the journal and dedicated to the city of Pisa reveals how a personal travel experience becomes essential in redefining a crucial moment in British literary history – one that openly engages with European political and cultural issues, using literature as a medium for dialogue and comparison. Not without contradictions or ambivalences, Hunt positions himself at the center of the political and cultural debates sparked by his encounter with Italian culture, demonstrating how his literary identity could be influenced and hybridized through contact, assimilation, and the reinterpretation of a literary experience that challenges the traditional meanings of Romantic poetic imagination.