The Manzoni Family (53 page)

NICCOLINI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA with Cioni, advised on the language of
I promessi sposi.

PAGANI, GIANBATTISTA schoolfriend of Manzoni, and responsible for his losing his faith at that time, Manzoni wrote him the
Sermoni,
verse letters, in 1803; because of their attacks on Napoleon and the French occupation, his mother destroyed all but four.

PARINI, GIUSEPPE tutor to Imbonati, author of
Il Giorno,
a satire on fashionable life in Milan; combined the theories of Rousseau with â broad form of Christianity. Much admired by Manzoni.

PIUS IX, Pope began as a reformer but became a stern conservative; after 1860 papal territory was to a great extent incorporated into the Italian state, which the Pope refused to recognize. Once his power was no longer secured by the French garrison, he lived as a voluntary ‘prisoner' in the Vatican.

RADETZKY, COUNT JOHANN JOSEPH Commander-in-Chief in Lombardy from 1831. In March 1848, after the news from Vienna of the students' revolt, the republicans of Milan took to the streets in the revolution known as the ‘Cinque Giornate'. With a population of 156,000, few trained soldiers and about 650 firearms, they opposed Radetzky's garrison of about 12,000 men and thirty field guns, and succeeded in driving them from Milan. Radetzky held Verona and Mantua for the Hapsburgs; a few months later, after a decisive victory at Custozza, he reentered Milan. In 1849 he nearly destroyed the Sardinian army at Novara, forced Venice to surrender, and resumed his iron rule over Lombardy and the Veneto.

ROSMINI, ANTONIO a philosopher priest, his most important work was his
New
Essay
on the
Origin
of Ideas
(1830); his political ideal was a confederacy of Italian states under the presidency of the Pope. When two of his books were put on the Index in 1848, he retired from public activity to Stresa, and spent the rest of his life in devotion and developing his philosophy. His friendship with Manzoni became very close in these years of mutually stimulating interchange.

SOMIS DE CHAVRIE, COUNT a Catholic and a liberal, friend to Enrichetta during her conversion.

TOMMASEO, NICCOLO author of
Colloqui con Manzoni,
compiled a Tuscan Dictionary of Synonyms; confidant of Rosmini.

TOSI, MONSIGNOR LUIGI the Manzonis' confessor in Milan for many years; less of a radical than Abbé Degola who had recommended him; Bishop of Pavia for the last twenty years of his life. Perhaps a model for Cardinal Federigo in
I promessi sposi.

TRECHI, SIGISMONDO known to the Manzonis as ‘the legendary baron'; member of the Lombard reform group, well known in the salons of London and Paris.

VERRI, COUNT ALESSANDRO Pietro's younger brother, early Italian novelist.

VERRI, COUNT PIETRO friend of Beccaria; arranged the marriage of his dowerless daughter to Don Pietro Manzoni. Founder of
Il
Caffé,
short-lived but strongly influential journal for reform. VERRI, DON GIOVANNI the youngest of the Verris, Donna Giulia's lover, and rumoured to be the actual father of Manzoni.

VICTOR EMMANUEL II King of Italy. Became King of Sardinia and Piedmont in 1849; appointed Cavour as his chief minister. In 1859 the Austrians demanded the disarmament of Sardinia and were refused. The French aided the Sardinians when the Austrians attacked and they defeated the Austrians in the battles of Montebello, Magenta, and Solferino. Lombardy was ceded to Sardinia via the French; in 1860 Modena, Parma, the Romagna and Tuscany were peacefully annexed. Savoy and Nice were ceded to France when Sicily and Naples were added to Sardinia by Garibaldi. In 1861 Victor Emmanuel was proclaimed King of Italy in Turin, and the capital was transferred to Florence. In 1866 the end of the Austro-Prussian war (in which Italy was allied to Prussia) gave Venetia to Italy. After the fall of the Empire in 1870, the French ended their occupation of Rome, and the province was added to the kingdom of Italy.

VISCONTI DI SAN VITO, MARCHESE ERMES one of Manzoni's greatest friends; wrote in
II Conciliatore
and works on the philosophy of aesthetics; in the small group who came to talk with Manzoni in the evenings in later life.