Alessandro Manzoni The Betrothed

Giuseppe Verdi once wrote that Alessandro Manzoni's novel The Betrothed was "a gift to humanity." Verdi was not alone in praising the author, who in Italy ranks second only to Dante in Italian literary history. Manzoni's contemporaries Goethe and Stendhal celebrated his genius as well. The Betrothed tells the story of two young lovers, Renzo and Lucia, prevented from marrying by the petty tyrant Don Rodrigo, who desires Lucia for himself. Set in Lombardy during the Spanish occupation of the...