Montaigne was for Nietzsche an object of admiring and profound
reflection. The continuous study of the Essais is in fact documented from the
beginning of 1870 until 1888, the concluding moment of Nietzsche’s speculation
and the year before his psychic breakdown. In this period, the influence
of Montaigne proves fundamental because it corresponds to the departure
from Schopenhauerian and Wagnerian positions that will lead, through the
deconstruction of Romantic ideals, to the theoretical proposal of the Übermensch
and the eternal recurrence of the same. Nietzsche, moreover, appreciates
Montaigne’s style and his predilection for Latin authors, sharing his criticism of
Platonic prose. Finally, he sees embodied by the French thinker a free, honest
and joyful thought, opposed to any absolutization of the truth. This last element
will represent one of the fundamental starting points for the reflection on the
freie Geister (“free spirits”) as a model of critical and philosophical freedom.