Editing Alessandro Manzoni (section)

==1808–1821==
In 1808, Manzoni married Henriette Blondel, daughter of a [[Genevese]] banker. She came from a [[Calvinist]] family, but in 1810 she became a [[Roman Catholic]].<ref>[https://archive.org/stream/americancatholic13philuoft#page/736/mode/2up ''"Alessandro Manzoni,"''] The American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. XIII, 1888.</ref> Her conversion profoundly influenced her husband.<ref>Professor J. D. M. Ford. [http://www.bartleby.com/60/165.html "Manzoni"]</ref> That same year he experienced a religious crisis which led him from [[Jansenism]] to an austere form of Catholicism.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Alessandro Manzoni {{!}} Italian Novelist, Poet & Patriot {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alessandro-Manzoni |access-date=2024-02-02 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> Manzoni's marriage proved a happy one, and he led for many years a retired domestic life, divided between literature and the picturesque husbandry of [[Lombardy]].

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, ''[[Francesco Bussone da Carmagnola|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 [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|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.<ref>{{cite book|first=Adam|last=Zamoyski|title=Napoleon: The Man Behind The Myth|publisher=[[HarperCollins]]|location=[[Great Britain]]|date=2018|isbn=978-0-00-811607-1}}</ref> 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.