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Manzoni, Alessandro 1785-1873
Italian novelist and poet

Born in Milan, of a noble family, he lived in Paris from 1805 to 1807, and published his first poems in 1806. Having married happily in 1810, he spent the next few years writing sacred lyrics and a treatise on the religious basis of morality. But the work which gave him European fame is his historical novel, I promessi sposi (1827, Eng trans The Betrothed Lovers, 1828), a Milanese story of the 17th century, and one of the most notable novels in Italian literature. Despite his Catholic devoutness, he was a strong advocate of a united Italy, and became a senator of the kingdom in 1860.

Bibliography: A Colquhoun, Manzoni and His Times (1954)