Alessandro Manzoni

Italy's greatest novel and a masterpiece of world literature, The Betrothed chronicles the unforgettable romance of Renzo and Lucia, who endure tyranny, war, famine, and plague to be together. Published in 1827 but set two centuries earlier, against the tumultuous backdrop of seventeenth-century Lombardy during the Thirty Years' War, The Betrothed is the story of two peasant lovers who want nothing more than to marry. Their region of northern Italy is under Spanish occupation, and when the vicious Spaniard Don Rodrigo blocks their union in an attempt to take Lucia for himself, the couple must struggle to persevere against his plots--which include false charges against Renzo and the kidnapping of Lucia by a robber baron called the Unnamed--while beset by the hazards of war, bread riots, and a terrifying outbreak of bubonic plague. First and foremost a love story, the novel also weaves issues of faith, justice, power, and truth into a sweeping epic in the tradition of Ivanhoe, Les Mis rables, and War and Peace. Groundbreakingly populist in its day and hugely influential to succeeding generations, Alessandro Manzoni's masterwork has long been considered one of Italy's national treasures. Translated by Archibald Colquhoun

Historien om skampålen handlar om processen mot människor som under pesten i Milano 1630 anklagades för att medvetet ha spridit smittan. Det är en kraftfull och inlevelsefull protest mot ett orättfärdigt övergrepp och en passionerad plädering för individens ansvar för sina handlingar. Texten ingick i den första utgåvan av I promessi sposi men inför den andra utgåvan 1840 beslöt författaren att bryta ut den till en egen volym som fick titeln Storia della colonna infame (Historien om skampålen). Alessandro Manzoni (1785–1873) anses allmänt som Italiens viktigaste romanförfattare under 1800-talet och Peter Brooks skrev nyligen i New York Review of Books att hans historiska roman I promessi sposi (De trolovade) är ”den mest originella och starkaste av europeiska historiska romaner i Walter Scotts tradition”. Scott menade själv att det var den bästa roman han inte hade skrivit. Den räknas till världslitteraturens främsta verk, i jämnhöjd med Kartusianklostret i Parma och Krig och fred.

Ristampa immutata dell'edizione originale del 1874.

Ristampa immutata dell'edizione originale del 1874.

Ristampa immutata dell'edizione originale del 1874.

Ristampa immutata dell'edizione originale del 1874.

Ristampa immutata dell'edizione originale del 1875.

Ristampa immutata dell'edizione originale del 1875.