Alessandro Manzoni
Victor Emmanuel II | |
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Personal details | |
Born | Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Manzoni 7 March 1785 Milan, Duchy of Milan |
Died | 22 May 1873 Milan, Italy | (aged 88)
Resting place | Monumental Cemetery of Milan |
Nationality | Italian |
Spouse(s) |
Enrichetta Blondel
(m. 1808; died 1833)Teresa Borri
(m. 1837; died 1861) |
Children | Giulia Claudia (1808–1834) Pietro Luigi (1813–1873) Cristina (1815–1841) Sofia (1817–1845) Enrico (1819–1881) Clara (1821–1823) Vittoria (1822–1892) Filippo (1826–1868) Matilde (1830–1856) |
Parent(s) | Pietro Manzoni and Giulia Beccaria |
Relatives | Cesare Beccaria (grandfather) Massimo d'Azeglio (son-in-law) |
Occupation | Writer, poet, dramatist |
Writing career | |
Period | 19th century |
Genre | Historical fiction, tragedy, poetry |
Subject | Religion, politics, history |
Literary movement | Enlightenment Romanticism |
Years active | 1801–1873 |
Notable works |
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Signature | |
Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Antonio Manzoni (
Early life
Manzoni was born in Milan, Italy, on 7 March 1785. Pietro, his father, aged about fifty, belonged to an old family of Lecco, originally feudal lords of Barzio, in the Valsassina. The poet's maternal grandfather, Cesare Beccaria, was a well-known author and philosopher, and his mother Giulia had literary talent as well.[1] The young Alessandro spent his first two years in cascina Costa in Galbiate and he was wet-nursed by Caterina Panzeri, as attested by a memorial tablet affixed in the place. In 1792 his parents broke their marriage[3] and his mother began a relationship with the writer Carlo Imbonati, moving to England and later to Paris. For this reason, Alessandro was brought up in several religious institutions.
Manzoni was a slow developer, and at the various colleges he attended he was considered a
In 1806–1807, while at Auteuil, he first appeared before the public as a poet, with two works, one entitled Urania, in the classical style, of which he became later the most conspicuous adversary, the other an elegy in blank verse, on the death of Count Carlo Imbonati, from whom, through his mother, he inherited considerable property, including the villa of Brusuglio, thenceforth his principal residence.
1808–1821
In 1808, Manzoni married Henriette Blondel, daughter of a
His intellectual energy in this period of his life was devoted to the composition of the Inni sacri, a series of sacred lyrics, and of a treatise on Catholic morality, Osservazioni sulla morale cattolica, a task undertaken under religious guidance, in reparation for his early lapse from faith. In 1818 he had to sell his paternal inheritance, as his money had been lost to a dishonest agent. His characteristic generosity was shown at this time in his dealings with his peasants, who were heavily indebted to him. He not only cancelled on the spot the record of all sums owed to him, but bade them keep for themselves the whole of the coming maize harvest.
In 1819, Manzoni published his first tragedy, Il Conte di Carmagnola, which, boldly violating all classical conventions, excited a lively controversy. It was severely criticized in a Quarterly Review article to which Goethe replied in its defence, "one genius," as Count de Gubernatis remarks, "having divined the other." The death of Napoleon in 1821 inspired Manzoni's powerful stanzas Il Cinque maggio (The Fifth of May), one of the most popular lyrics in the Italian language.[12] The political events of that year, and the imprisonment of many of his friends, weighed much on Manzoni's mind, and the historical studies in which he sought distraction during his subsequent retirement at Brusuglio suggested his great work.
The Betrothed
Manzoni started work on the novel in 1821,[13] but he began the actual composition of Fermo e Lucia on 24 April 1821, after reading the novels of Walter Scott, mainly in French translations. [14] Round the episode of the Innominato, historically identified with Bernardino Visconti, the first manuscript of the novel The Betrothed (in Italian I promessi sposi) began to grow into shape, and was completed in September 1823. The work was published, after being deeply reshaped by the author and revised by friends in 1825–1827, at the rate of a volume a year; it at once raised its author to the first rank of literary fame. It is generally agreed to be his greatest work, and the paradigm of modern Italian language. The Penguin Companion to European Literature notes that 'the book's real greatness lies in its delineation of character...in the heroine, Lucia, in Padre Cristoforo, the Capuchin friar, and the saintly cardinal (
Politics and economics
Manzoni favored the Italian unification and was even a member of the Italian Senate.[15] Before and after his embracing an austere Catholicism upon marrying Henriett Blondel, Manzoni's politics can be broadly described as liberal. Since his French trip, Manzoni's liberalism included a profound understanding of economics. He was well acquainted with authors such as Jean-Baptiste Say and Adam Smith and left numerous notes on the economic treatises and essays he was reading.
His understanding of economics came to surface in his grand historical novel The Betrothed, particularly in Chapter 12, where he deals with the famine in Lombardy. Economist and President of the Italian Republic Luigi Einaudi praised the chapter and the whole of The Betrothed as "one of the best treatises on political economy ever written".[8] Economic historian Deirdre N. McCloskey likewise described it as "a lecture in Economics 101".[16]
Family, death and legacy
The death of Manzoni's wife in 1833 was preceded and followed by those of several of his children, and of his mother. In the mid-1830s he attended the "Salotto Maffei", a
His Osservazioni sulla morale cattolica was quoted by Pope Pius XI in his encyclical on Christian Education Divini Illius Magistri:
"20. It is worthy of note how a layman, an excellent writer and at the same time a profound and conscientious thinker, has been able to understand well and express exactly this fundamental Catholic doctrine: 'The Church does not say that morality belongs purely, in the sense of exclusively, to her; but that it belongs wholly to her. She has never maintained that outside her fold and apart from her teaching, man cannot arrive at any moral truth; she has on the contrary more than once condemned this opinion because it has appeared under more forms than one. She does however say, has said, and will ever say, that because of her institution by Jesus Christ, because of the Holy Ghost sent her in His name by the Father, she alone possesses what she has had immediately from God and can never lose, the whole of moral truth, omnem veritatem, in which all individual moral truths are included, as well those which man may learn by the help of reason, as those which form part of revelation or which may be deduced from it'".[19]
See also
References
- ^ a b public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Manzoni, Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Antonio". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 626–627. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ^ Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. .
- ^ a b c "Alessandro Manzoni | Italian author". Encyclopedia Britannica.
- ^ "I Promessi sposi or The Betrothed". Archived from the original on 18 July 2011.
- ISBN 9780415238359.
- ^ DiScala, Spencer M. (2018). Italy: From Revolution to Republic, 1700 to the Present, Fourth Edition. Routledge.
- ISBN 0253200946.
- ^ ISSN 1086-1653.
- ^ "Alessandro Manzoni," The American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. XIII, 1888.
- ^ Professor J. D. M. Ford. "Manzoni"
- ^ "Alessandro Manzoni | Italian Novelist, Poet & Patriot | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2 February 2024.
- ISBN 978-0-00-811607-1.
- ^ This appears from his letter to Fauriel of 3 November 1821, in which he discussed Walter Scott and his approach to the historical novel
.Tonelli
— p. 242 - ^
.Tonelli
— p. 242 - ^ "Alessandro Manzoni". Senato della Repubblica. Archived from the original on 10 April 2018.
- ISBN 9780226527932.
- ^ "Scheda senatore MANZONI Alessandro". notes9.senato.it.
- ^ "LIFE OF MANZONI". www.casadelmanzoni.it. Archived from the original on 5 December 2022.
- ^ "Divini Illius Magistri (December 31, 1929) – PIUS XI". www.vatican.va.
External links
- Media related to Alessandro Manzoni at Wikimedia Commons
- Quotations related to Alessandro Manzoni at Wikiquote
- Works by Alessandro Manzoni at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Alessandro Manzoni at Internet Archive
- Works by Alessandro Manzoni at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)