“We embrace, in our soul, two cities, one great and truly belonging to all, in which are found gods and men; in which we concern ourselves not in the affairs of this or that small corner of the earth, for the limits of our city are measured by the farthest corners reached by the sun. The other city is that which is ascribed to us by the circumstances of our birth. Athens for some, Cartage for others or still other cities, for other people, whose administration is the concern not of all human beings, but of those who happen to live there.”

We are all immigrants of the cities we happen to be born to. Immigrants, migrated there, from the greater city, the city of reason, built by reason, fostered by humanity in which humans meet the gods they forged: peace, conversation, exchange, emulation.

Leopardi develops further the geometry of cosmopolitan morality. He writes:

“Quando tutto il mondo fu cittadino Romano, Roma non ebbe più cittadini; e quando cittadino Romano fu lo stesso che cosmopolita, non si amò né Roma né il mondo: l’amor patrio di Roma divenuto cosmopolita, divenne indifferente, inattivo e nullo: e quando Roma fu lo stesso che il mondo, non fu più patria di nessuno, e i cittadini romani, avendo per patria il mondo, non ebbero nessuna patria, e lo mostrarono col fatto”.