... Every one felt
our hopes palpitating under the medieval robe; the least allusion, the
remotest meanings, were caught by the public, which was in the closest
accord with the writers. The middle ages were no longer treated with
historical and positive intention; they became the garments of our
ideals, the transparent expression of our hopes."
It is this fact which is especially palpable in Manzoni's work, and
Manzoni was the chief poet of the Romantic School in that land where
it found the most realistic development, and set itself seriously to
interpret the emotions and desires of the nation. When these were
fulfilled, even the form of Romanticism ceased to be.
III
ALESSANDRO MANZONI was born at Milan in 1784, and inherited from his
father the title of Count, which he always refused to wear; from his
mother, who was the daughter of Beccaria, the famous and humane writer
on Crimes and Punishments, he may have received the nobility which his
whole life has shown.
[Illustration: Alessandro Manzoni.]
In his youth he was a liberal thinker in matters of religion; the
stricter sort of Catholics used to class him with the Voltaireans,
and there seems to have been some ground for their distrust of his
orthodoxy. But in 1808 he married Mlle.
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