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The Betrothed

Alessandro Manzoni

HistoryEnglish
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In 1628, in a village near Lake Como, the young silk weaver Renzo and the gentle Lucia are about to marry when the village priest, Don Abbondio, is…

Catalogue details

Author
Alessandro Manzoni
Category
History
Language
English
Source
Project Gutenberg

About this book

In 1628, in a village near Lake Como, the young silk weaver Renzo and the gentle Lucia are about to marry when the village priest, Don Abbondio, is threatened by the thugs of a powerful nobleman, Don Rodrigo, who has made a bet that he will have Lucia, and the wedding is called off. The lovers flee and are separated: Lucia takes refuge in a convent under the protection of a mysterious nun, while Renzo is caught up in the bread riots of Milan, and both must survive famine, war and the great plague of 1630.

Context and significance

Alessandro Manzoni (1785–1873) published the novel in 1827 and revised it in 1840, rewriting it in the Florentine Italian that became the model for the modern language. It is the most widely read novel in Italian, studied by every Italian schoolchild, and its account of the plague is unforgettable. Compare Scott's Ivanhoe and Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year.

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