Editing Alessandro Manzoni (section)

==''The Betrothed''==
[[File:I promessi sposi-008.jpg|thumb|left|Frontispiece of ''[[The Betrothed (Manzoni novel)|The Betrothed]]'' in the second definitive edition of 1840–1842]]
Manzoni started work on the novel in 1821,<ref>This appears from his letter to Fauriel of 3 November 1821, in which he discussed Walter Scott and his approach to the historical novel {{harv|Tonelli|1984|p=242}}.</ref> 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.<ref name=":18">{{cite book|first=Luigi|last=Tonelli|title=Manzoni|location=Milano|publisher=Dall'Oglio|year=1984|orig-date=1928|id=[[:it:Servizio bibliotecario nazionale|SBN]]&nbsp;[http://opac.sbn.it/bid/RLZ0035040 IT\ICCU\RLZ\0035040]|page=242}}</ref> 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 ([[Cardinal Carlo Borromeo|Borromeo]]) of Milan, he has created three living examples of that pure and wholehearted Christianity which is his ideal. But his psychological penetration extends also to those who fall short of this standard, whether through weakness or perversity, and the novel is rich in pictures of ordinary men and women, seen with a delightful irony and disenchantment which always stops short of cynicism, and which provides a perfect balance for the evangelical fervour of his ideal'. 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. With these works Manzoni's literary career was practically closed. But he laboriously revised ''The Betrothed'' in Tuscan-Italian, and in 1840 republished it in that form, with a historical essay, ''Storia della colonna infame'', on details of the 17th-century plague in Milan so important in the novel. He also wrote a small treatise on the Italian language.