Let's say it openly: despite the many celebrations of these days for the 150th anniversary of his death, for many of us Alessandro Manzoni is linked to not exactly exciting memories. Remember, in fact, mornings at school, hours of study, the fear of questions.
In this perspective, " The Betrothed " ultimately boils down to one subject to be studied among others, a little out of fashion with this story of two common people of the seventeenth century who are unable to get married. «But why don't they go live together instead of dragging it so much for the long?!» today's kids ask themselves, and it's not easy to explain to them that in the seventeenth century things went differently, between women and men. Not easy without being told: "But why are we reading this brick, if it tells of a world so distant our?".
A first piece of advice that can be given when faced with questions like these is that you need to give yourself the opportunity to tackle Manzoni's masterpiece away from classrooms and professors , perhaps in the very lively reading that Paolo Poli makes of it in the audiobook available from the beginning of May (Emons, 2023, also in download).
By listening to or reading or re-reading the novel, you will discover that even if so much has changed since that November 1628 in which Manzoni's narration begins, The Betrothed have maintained much of their relevance in helping us understand Italy and the Italians . This seventeenth-century Milanese story, as Manzoni himself defines it, has, in fact, the universality of masterpieces and allows you to easily identify yourself even if you have never seen, not even on a postcard, "that branch of Lake Como, which turns towards noon ”, theater of the events of Renzo and Lucia.
This is because the Milanese writer tells of a time and a place where the state and institutions are fragile, unable to give certainties and protections to their citizens. It tells of bigwigs swollen with arrogance and lacking the slightest sense of responsibility even if they hold important positions and are government officials. Mammasantissima who put their advantage and their reputation above all else in what appears to be a mirror of power mirroring that of Italy today. How not to recognize yourself, at least a little!
To make the picture even more familiar, there are also tyrants, some of father's sons, because they are of noble birth, a little mafia, like Don Rodrigo, with his bravoes who tyrannize the neighborhood with gang methods. After all, what is the famous "this wedding is not to be done, neither tomorrow nor ever" said to Don Abbondio in the tone of one who does not allow replies except an ante litteram warning in Mafia style?
Just as very current - and very Italian - is the behavior of those who suffer the abuses . First of all the curate who does not report to the proper authorities because he is afraid and decides to bow his head. As well as the two betrothed who are careful not to resort to the authorities, which also exist.
Even in the village of Renzo and Lucia there is a consul to maintain order, in Lecco there is a podestà, the mayor of the time, yet they are not trusted as so many of us still maintain today, rightly or wrongly, an ancestral, deeply rooted distrust for established authority.
Better to do it yourself, follow the "art of getting by" also because the laws, the famous "cries" that play such a large part in the novel, are so many and so bombastic as to often be in contradiction with each other and in fact inapplicable.
So to understand something you need, not a lawyer but even a scammer , a troublemaker in the murky used to moving in the marshes of justice and injustice . One whose specialty, however, is to save evildoers from the rigors of the law , not to help the victims . If this isn't a piece of Italy today, what is? And don't you think there is enough to continue to frequent Manzoni and his Betrothed also in the next one hundred and fifty years and more?