This epic novel, set in seventeenth century Lombardy, has many twists, turns, and historic digressions. The main story revolves around a young peasant couple thwarted in marriage by an unscrupulous nobleman with his own eye on the girl. Capuchin friars, silk weavers, snooping inn keepers, Milanese bakers, timorous village priests, smuggling fishermen, country lawyers, unbefitting nuns, blackguard bravoes, and nosy noblewomen all make appearances. The saintly historic figure, Cardinal Federigo Borromeo, plays a pivotal role in the story. There is even a character, based on a real-life noble, named “the Unnamed,” who is so sinister that his identity has been concealed by Manzoni for posterity. The narrator of the tale purports to have discovered and translated the original Milanese manuscript by an anonymous author and is retelling the story, with his own additional comments, historical asides, and certain embellishments. In reality, Manzoni wrote the novel from scratch in his native Tuscan tongue, with a light sprinkling of Latin, in the early nineteenth century.
The novel telescopes in and out between the travails of a core group of characters with ties to the betrothed couple and the larger historical events engulfing northern Italy in the seventeenth century. The quasi-war for control of Milan, between Spanish and French interests, fueled by German mercenaries and the Venetian Republic’s meddling, sets the background. The countryside was full of “Spanish soldiers, who gave lessons in modest deportment to the girls and women of the area, and who tickled the backs of the odd husband or father with a stick from time to time. They also never failed, at the end of summer, to spread out across the vineyards and thin out the grapes, so as to lighten the labours of the peasants at harvest-time.” The Spanish nobility, ensconced in their fortress palaces around Milan, make themselves equally reviled by the peasants, behaving haughtily above the law. “‘Yes, sir, it was worthy of a gentleman,’ shouted the count, ‘and let me tell you so, because I ought to know what befits a gentleman and what doesn’t. If it had been a matter of fists, now that would be quite different; but a cudgel doesn’t dirty your hands. What I don’t understand is why a couple of weals on a ruffian’s back should upset you so much.’” In these seasons of poor harvests and famine, the Spanish governors in charge also made matters even worse by issuing price controls and flour rationing edicts, which enflamed the Milanese locals, leading to bread riots. “Ferrer saw, as anyone could see, that it is highly desirable that there should be a fair price for bread. He also thought — and this was where he went wrong — that an order from him could do the trick…. Ferrer was behaving like a lady of a certain age, who thinks she can regain her youth by altering the date on her birth certificate.” Furthermore, as the novel culminates, black plague spreads from village to village and into the gates of Milan, to devastating effect. Faith and trust in God, as well as the honor of the clergy and the humbleness of the peasants are all recurring themes. “Troubles very often come because we have asked for them; but that the most prudent and innocent of conduct is not necessarily enough to keep them away; also that when they come, through our fault or otherwise, trust in God goes far to take away their sting, and makes them a useful preparation for a better life.”
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