Novelist and poet, born in Milan, N Italy. He published his first poems in 1806. Anticlerical at first, he converted to Catholicism in 1810, soon marrying Enrichetta Blondel, and spent the next few years writing sacred lyrics and a treatise on the religious basis of morality. The work which gave him European fame is his historical novel, I promessi sposi (18257, The Betrothed), one of the most notable works of fiction in Italian literature, where for the first time the humble and down-trodden are the protagonists of a major work. Running through the novel is a strong faith in the powers of God. A strong advocate of a united Italy, he became a senator of the kingdom in 1860, and was given a state funeral when he died. Verdi composed his Requiem in Manzoni's honour.
Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Manzoni (March 7, 1785–May 22, 1873) was an Italian poet and novelist.
He was born in Milan. Upon the death of his father in 1805, he joined his mother at Auteuil, and spent two years mixing with the literary set of the so-called "ideologues," philosophers of the 18th century school, among whom he made many friends, notably Claude Charles Fauriel.
In 1806-1807, while at Auteuil, he first appeared before the public as a poet, with two pieces, 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, thenceforward his principal residence.
Manzoni's marriage in 1808 to Henriette Blondel, daughter of a Genevese banker, proved a most happy one, and he led for many years a retired domestic life, divided between literature and the picturesque husbandry of Lombardy.
In 1819 Manzoni published his first tragedy, Il Conte di Carmagnola, which, boldly violating all classical conventions, excited a lively controversy. The death of Napoleon in 1821 inspired Manzoni's powerful stanzas Il Cinque maggio, one of the most popular lyrics in the Italian language. 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.
Round the episode of the Innominato, historically identified with Bernardino Visconti, the novel The Betrothed (in Italian I Promessi sposi) began to grow into shape, and was completed in September 1822. The work when published, after revision by friends in 1825-1827, at the rate of a volume a year, at once raised its author to the first rank of literary fame. In 1822, Manzoni published his second tragedy, Adelchi, turning on the overthrow by Charlemagne of the Lombard domination in Italy, and containing many veiled allusions to the existing Austrian rule. But he laboriously revised The Betrothed in the Tuscan idiom, and in 1840 republished it in that form, with a historical essay, La Storia della Colonna infame, on details of the XVII century plague in Milan so important in the novel.
The death of Manzoni's wife in 1833 was followed by those of several of his children, and of his mother. In 1837 he married again, to Teresa Born, widow of Count Stampa, whom he also survived, while of nine children born to him in his two marriages all but two pre-deceased him. His country mourned him with almost royal pomp, and his remains, after lying in state for some days, were followed to the Cimitero Monumentale in Milan by a vast cortege, including the royal princes and all the great officers of state.
Biographical sketches of Manzoni have been published by Cesare Cantù (1885), Angelo de Gubernatis (1879), Arturo Graf (1898).
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