Alessandro Manzoni

Italian poet and novelist, b. at Milan, 7 March, 1785; d. 22 May, 1873. He was

the son of Pietro Manzoni, the representative of an old feudal family of provincial

landowners with estates near Lecco, and his wife Giulia, the daughter of Cesare

Beccaria, the famous writer on political economy. Donna Giulia was separated

from her husband in 1792. After his school days under the Somaschi and the

Barnabites, and a short stay at the University of Pavia, the poet grew up at Milan

in mingled study and dissipation. In 1805, he joined his mother at Paris, where

he imbibed Voltairean principles, and became intimate with Fauriel and others.

At Milan, in 1808, he married Henriette-Louise Blondel, the daughter of a Swiss

banker, who was a Protestant, and when, in 1810, she became a Catholic at

Paris, Manzoni followed her back into the Church. Thenceforth his life was

consecrated to religion, patriotism, and literature. He settled at Milan, the

neighborhood of which he practically never left, save for a visit to Tuscany in 1827

for the purpose of making himself better acquainted with what he regarded as the

ideal form of the Italian language. His creative work was all done between 1812

and 1827, after which he was mainly absorbed in linguistic studies. Among his

chief friends were the Milanese romantic writer, Tommaso Grossi, the

Piedmontese novelist and statesman, Massimo d'Azeglio, who married his

daughter, and the philosopher Antonio Rosmini, with whom he was closely

associated from 1827 until the latter's death in 1855. An ardent patriot, Manzoni

was in the fullest sympathy with the movement for the liberation and unification of

Italy. After the occupation of Rome in 1870, he was made a Roman citizen; but,

whether from old age or the religious difficulty, he never went to the Eternal City

to take his seat as a senator.

Manzoni's earliest poem "Il Trionfo della Libertˆ" (1801), an allegorical vision in

the Petrarchian manner of liberty triumphing over tyranny and superstition, is

markedly influenced by Vincenzo Monti, whom he claims as his master and hails

as the greatest poet of the age. This and the poems that followed, "In morte di

Carlo Imbonati" (1806) and "Urania" (1809), belong to the classical school of

which Monti was the recognized head, and show the influence likewise of Parini

and Alfieri. After his conversion, Manzoni's art changed no less than his life, and

he became the chief representative of the romantic school, the principles of

which he defended later in his letter "Sul Romanticismo" (1823 and 1871). At the

same time he desired to make his work a literary defence of the Catholic faith.

He began a series of twelve "Inni Sacri" to celebrate the chief feasts of the

Church, of which only five were written: "La Resurrezione" (1812), "Il Nome di

Maria" and "Il Natale" (1813), "La Passione" (1815), "La Pentecoste" (1822). In

these he brought back the old medieval simplicity into Italian religious poetry,

freeing it from the conventionalities that had become traditional since the

Renaissance. Two patriotic lyrics, celebrating the Milanese insurrection of 1814

and Murat's proclamation of Italian nationality at Rimini in 1815, belong to the

same epoch. His two tragedies, "Il Conte di Carmagnola" (1820) and "L'Adelchi"

(1822), are noble works, but somewhat lacking in true dramatic qualities; inspired

in part by Schiller and Goethe, they give expression to the national aspirations of

the Italians at a time when these seemed far off from realization. This poetic

period closes with "Il Cinque Maggio" (1822), an ode on the death of Napoleon,

which remains the most popular Italian lyric of the nineteenth century.

"I Promessi Sposi", Manzoni's great masterpiece, was written between 1821 and

1825, and rewritten in 1840. Sir Walter Scott was not alone in regarding it as the

greatest romance of modern times. Against the historical background of the

Spanish oppression in Milan and the war of the Mantuan succession

(1628-1630), we have the story of the love and fortunes of two young peasants,

and a whole series of inimitable portraits of men and women painted with the art

of a realist in the highest sense of the word. Earnestness of purpose is combined

with a peculiarly delicate humour, and the author's moral intention, the

application of Catholic morality to the study of life and history, is harmonized with

his artistic instincts, and in no wise obtrudes itself upon the reader. Among

Manzoni's minor prose works are the "Osservazioni sulla morale cattolica"

(1819), a defence of Catholicism against the attacks of Sismondi; the "Storia

della Colonna infame" (1840), an historical appendix to his romance; the dialogue

"Dell' Invenzione" (1845); and an essay on the unity of the Italian language

(1868). In his private life, Manzoni was under every aspect most admirable and

exemplary; as a public character, he is the noblest figure in the Italian literature

of the nineteenth century.

Opere di Alessandro Manzoni, ed. SCHERILLO AND SFORZA, (Milan, 1905, etc.); Opere inedite o

rare di Alessandro Manzoni, ed. BONGHI (Milan, 1883-1898); SFORZA, Scritti postumi di

Alessandro Manzoni (Milan, 1900); BONOLA, Carteggio fra Alessandro Manzoni e Antonio Rosmini

(Milan, 1901); PRINA, Alessandro Manzoni (Milan, 1874); GUBERNATIS, Alessandro Manzoni,

studio biografico (Florence, 1879); STOPPANI, I primi anni di Alessandro Manzoni (new ed., Milan,

1894); PETROCCHI, I Promessi Sposi raffrontati sulle due edizioni del 1825 e 1840 (Florence, —);

FORNACIARI, Disegno storico della letteratura italiana (Florence, 1898).

EDMUND G. GARDNER

Transcribed by Gerald Rossi

Dedicated to the Memory of My Parents, Luigi Rossi and Angelina Sciullo Rossi

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IX

Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, Censor

Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org