*The Betrothed* (Alessandro Manzoni, 1827) is considered Italy's "national novel"; a founding masterpiece of its culture; "a classic that has never ceased shaping reality in Italy" (Italo Calvino); and "a gift to humanity" (Verdi). For its descriptions, history, characters, wit, and expansiveness, it draws comparisons to Tolstoy, Scott, Dickens, Thackery, and Melville. It is not only "the most famous and widely read novel in the Italian language," but also "the most inspirational novel of the Risorgimento."

It is set in early 17th-century Lombardy amid Spanish occupation and the extremes of famine, war, and plague. But its basic theme transcends "a given, concrete, historical crisis" to speak not only to "the Italian people as a whole," but to universal themes of love, faith, and justice.

The central protagonists are two peasant-born lovers who find themselves opposed by a corrupt local tyrant. Just as the titular lovers are emblematic of Italy's resistance to foreign domination, the setting--teeming with numerous characters and points-of-view, filtered through an omniscient narrator--evokes its fragmented polity and sense of Providential unity.

*The Betrothed* helped establish a common literary language across Italy's diverse regional dialects. Tackling a philological debate known as the *questione della lingua*, Manzoni spent nearly two decades reworking the novel's idiom, producing a hybrid Florentine dialect, both formal and vernacular, that endeavored to do for the nation linguistically what the Risorgimento would do for it politically.

Schedule:

* **Week 1 (September 21): Introduction-Chapter 8**
* Week 2 (October 5): Chapters 9-23
* Week 3 (October 19): Chapters 24-38

The Betrothed (1844 translation):

* [Google books](https://www.google.com/books/edition/I_Promessi_Sposi/Tm2-lUx8mX4C?hl=en&gbpv=0) volume 1
* [Google books](https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Betrothed/2ysaAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0) volume 2
* [Librivox](https://librivox.org/the-betrothed-by-alessandro-manzoni/) 29h11m

The Betrothed (1924 translation):

* [Google books](https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Betrothed/obVMAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0)

The Betrothed (2022 translation):

* [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/Betrothed-Novel-Alessandro-Manzoni-ebook/dp/B08N6SQRG5)

**NOTE**: there is also a heavily-edited 1834 translation not listed here. It is about half the complete length (rendered as a 15h48m "dramatic reading" version on Librivox).

Supplemental:

* [The Betrothed Classroom - Archdiocese of San Francisco](https://sfarchdiocese.org/the-betrothed-classroom/)
* [Opening Lines, The Betrothed - Episode 1](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001s53p) BBC Radio
* [Opening Lines, The Betrothed - Episode 2](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001sczv) BBC Radio
* [The Pope Francis Summer Reading List](https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2021/06/02/pope-francis-favorite-books-240778) America Magazine
* [The Betrothed](Ponchielli) opera by Ponchielli (in Italian)
* [The Betrothed](https://youtu.be/gB-iw5VWUuk?si=lGSncrdzaatHNjwx) (1941) movie adaptation (in Italian)
* [The Betrothed Ducks](https://questionediclasseblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/i-promessi-paperi.pdf) Walt Disney adaptation (in Italian)

Extracts:

* "... of all the bullies, and braggarts, and bravoes, and free-booters, and Hectors, and fish-at-arms, and knight-errants, and moss-troopers, and assassins, and foot-pads, and gallant soldiers, and immortal heroes that swim the seas, the Indian Sword fish is by far the most remarkable..." (*Mardi*, 1.32)
* "... with one mad lounge thrusting his Andrea Ferrara clean through and through; not seldom breaking it short off at the haft, like a bravo leaving his poignard in the vitals of his foe." (*Mardi*, 1.32)
* "... if some brainless bravo be Captain of a frigate in action, he may fight her against invincible odds, and seek to crown himself with the glory of the shambles, by permitting his hopeless crew to be butchered before his eyes..." (*White-Jacket*, 74)
* "These words of bravado were not spoken in the tone of a bravo, but a prophet." (*Israel Potter*, 10)
* "... he then, the better to disguise the truth, devised many expedients, in some of them uniting deceit and defense; that of this sort was the device of the six Ashantees before named, who were his bravoes..." ("Benito Cereno")
* "... he gaffles his four animals, and makes murderers of them; out of cowards fitly manufacturing bravos." ("The Encantadas")
* "Suggest it—how politeness ended: / Let lurk in shade of rearward wall / Three bravoes by the arras splendid." ("Marquis de Grandvin at the Hostelry")

This meetup is part of the series [The Risorgimento](https://www.meetup.com/wisdom-and-woe/events/304318119/).

Chad Beck

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