Author:
Eleonora Mazzoni
Publishing house:
Einaudi
Date of publication:
11-04-2023
The Manzoni, always called by the article preceding his surname, whom we imagine as students is a perpetually middle-aged man with a grave and somewhat absent gaze, similar to the one portrayed by Francesco Hayez in one of his most famous paintings. A man who can hardly inspire sympathy, any more than his masterpiece, The Betrothed, which as listless adolescents we sip like a bitter medicine to swallow because “it’s good for you.” But, reading carefully the one thousand eight hundred letters he left us and the testimonies of family and friends, Manzoni turns out to be very different from that. A wry and affable conversationalist, in the forefront of everything, animated by a burning political fire, as a young man he was rebellious and libertine, remaining restless throughout his existence. Indeed, once he became a writer, Alexander, let’s call him by his name now, poured his own restlessness into his work as few others have been able to do. The Betrothed reflects, in fact, all the passions that stirred an adventurous life full of emotional turmoil: maternal abandonment, fatherlessness, spiritual travail, and the civil struggle for a united Italy free from the foreign oppressor. A great popular novel, shot through with an indomitable spirit, capable of penetrating human beings and their hearts. And to still shake our souls today.