Title: Manzoni and the aesthetics of the Lombard Seicento
First published: 1998
Description: This well-illustrated study proposes an interdisciplinary reading of the nineteenth-century historical novel by the Italian author Alessandro Manzoni, I promessi sposi [The betrothed]. It is based on the premise that the author successfully identified artistic and dramatic icons typical of the seventeenth century he was recreating, that those icons were used by the author as historical documents, and that they consequently effect an aesthetic influence on his narrative.

Recognizing the importance of the moral and religious convictions that invest the novel, Pierce approaches the text not from the traditional perspective that has dominated Manzoni studies - of interpretation of the personal religious and intellectual convictions alone having inspired it - but rather on the various ways in which period art and theater, also imbued with deep religious motivation, make their way stylistically into Manzoni's realistic narrative style.

Aligning these historical treatises with what little Manzoni said about art in his critical treatises, justifies a methodology that combines elements of ekphrasis and a comparison of the variants from the first to the final version of the novel. Such methodology allows us to identify how both dramatic and pictorial influences common in seventeenth-century Lombard art manifest themselves in Manzoni's narrative constructs.
Subjects: History and criticism, Italian literature, Aesthetics, Baroque literature, Italian literature, history and criticism, Manzoni, alessandro, 1785-1873, Baroque literature, history and criticism
People: Alessandro Manzoni (1785-1873)
Time periods: 17th century
LC classification: PQ4713.P5 P54 1998