Alessandro Manzoni: Italian Writer of The Betrothed

Alessandro Manzoni is an Italian poet and novelist best known for his lyric poem Il Cinque Maggio, which is an ode on the death of Napoleon, and his novel I promessi sposi or translated as The Betrothed.

Manzoni was born in Milan on March 7, 1785 to Pietro Manzoni and Donna Giulia. His father Pietro was a fifty-year-old rich landowner with an estate near Lecco and his mother Giulia was a 26-year-old daughter of a famous Italian writer Cesare Beccaria.

Alessandro's parents separated in 1792 and Alessandro stayed with his father and grew up in Milan. He went to the University of Pavia for a short time but in most of the school Manzoni attended he was considered a dunce until when at 15 he became passionate about poetry. In 1805 after his father's death, Manzoni went to Paris to live with his mother. Here he spent two years talking with 18th century literary idealists and became friends with Claude Charles Fauriel. He also became acquainted with the anti-catholic creed of Volitarianism and adhered to its ideals.

In 1806 Manzoni wrote In morte di Carlo Imbonati translated this poem is entitled On the Death of Count Carlo Imbonati. This elegy is in blank verse. Manzoni and his mother gained a large property as a result of the death of Count Carlo Imbonati. This property included the villa of Brusuglio, which became Manzoni's principal residence. In 1808 Manzoni married Henrietta-Louise Blondel, whose father was a Swiss banker. Blondel was Protestant, but joined the Catholic Church in 1810 shortly after the marriage to Manzoni. Manzoni joined the Catholic Church as well and his writings began to exhibit the ideals of Catholicism, and patriotism. Manzoni and his wife settled down in Milan, where Manzoni stayed for the rest of his life. He took only one visit outside of Milan to Tuscany in 1827 to study Tuscan Italian.

In 1818 Manzoni had to sell his father's estate near Lecco because much of his money had been lost to a dishonest agent. Manzoni who is considered characteristically generous cancelled all of his peasant's heavy debts to him on the spot and even told them to keep the income from the coming maize harvest.