Author

Alessandro Manzoni(1785–1873)

Alessandro Manzoni is documented in Fuller’s letters, books, published essays, journals, and manuscripts (1835–1848). 6 distinct works are named, most often in Woman in the Nineteenth Century, and the most intensive engagement recorded is “excerpted”.

Engagement: ExcerptedAnalyzedQuotedReadMentioned
Present in: Letters · Books · Essays · Journals · Manuscripts
Documented: 1835–1848

Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

Totals count documented engagements, once at the earliest witness. How we count →

Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this author is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →

Confirmed reading

Passages where the evidence goes beyond allusion to indicate that Fuller had Alessandro Manzoni’s work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.

Dated
1835AdelchiDemonstrated
“Dedication of Adelchi Alla diletta e venerata sua moglie E. L. Blondel...”
Manuscripts (Houghton Library, Margaret Fuller Family Papers) · 1835 Nov-
Manuscript notebook copying the dedication text of Manzoni's Adelchi, consistent with reading-notebook excerpting practice.
1835Il Conte di CarmagnolaDemonstrated
“Tolga il ciel che alcuno Piu altamente di me pensi ch'io stesso. — Carmagnola / What author beside Manzoni would have ventured on such a sentiment...”
Manuscripts (Houghton Library, Margaret Fuller Family Papers) · 1835 Nov-
Manuscript notebook entry copying a substantial Italian passage with accompanying commentary from Manzoni's play.

In Fuller’s words

“Dedication of Adelchi / Alla diletta e venerata sua moglie E. L. Blondel, / la quale insieme con le affezioni coniugali e con la sapienza materna poté serbare un animo verginale / consacra questo Adelchi / L'Autore. ... Adelchi is not a splendid monument notwithstanding the lyric beauty of parts _ As a drama it wants life _ the plot has no interest and the hero is too nobly beyond the time and scene to have the interest of nature!”

Adelchi · Poems, Others · 1835

When Fuller engaged with Alessandro Manzoni

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed3records

IV. Transcendentalist3records

V. New York2records

VI. Europe4records

✦. Memoirs (1852)1record

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.

Manzoni in Fuller’s reading world

Documentary evidence

Selected passages from Fuller’s own writings, in chronological order.

1835—

Letter to James F. Clarke

p220

analyzed · read

“Have I ever asked you whether you had read Manzoni's Lucia and which of his two priests you prefer.”

Fuller, Margaret. "To James F. Clarke, 1 February 1835." In The Letters of Margaret Fuller, Vol. I: 1817–1838, edited by Robert N. Hudspeth, 219–222. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.

Inferred Fuller names the author (Manzoni) and principal characters (Lucia, Borromeo, the curate) from Manzoni's I promessi sposi; Fuller identifies Borromeo as her favorite character and says she has "become rather intimate with Manzoni," threatening to "persecute you with extracts" and confirming sustained, deep engagement.

1835—

Poems, Others

pp8–9, 29

excerpted · analyzed · quoted · read2 selected passagesManuscript page

“Tolga il ciel che alcuno / Più altamente di me pensi ch'io stesso. — Carmagnola" ...”

“Dedication of Adelchi / Alla diletta e venerata sua moglie E. L.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Poems, Others." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086.

1839—

Journal April 1839

p27

excerpted · readManuscript page

“Beautiful passages from Manzoni. / 'Che dolermi dovea? Forse il partirmi / Da questa terra, ov'è il ben far portento...' ...”

Fuller, Margaret. "Journal April 1839." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (Box A); Box 5 (99).

Inferred The first (p. 27) is from an unnamed work; the Italian text ('Che dolermi dovea? Forse il partirmi / Da questa terra, ov'è il ben far portento / E somma lode il non aver peccato?...') is from Manzoni's poetry, likely his Adelchi (1822) or one of the Inni sacri — the specific poem has not been identified but the attribution to Manzoni is explicit. Fuller copies multiple stanzas in Italian, beginning 'Ei fu: siccome immobile...' Fuller's attribution and the opening of the ode ('Ei fu.') confirm this identification beyond doubt.

Forse il partirmi / Da questa terra, ov'è il ben far portento / E somma lode il non aver peccato?...') is from Manzoni's poetry, likely his Adelchi (1822) or one of the Inni sacri — the specific poem has not been identified but the attribution to Manzoni is explicit. Fuller copies multiple stanzas in Italian, beginning 'Ei fu: siccome immobile...' Fuller's attribution and the opening of the ode ('Ei fu.') confirm this identification beyond doubt.

1839—

Notes on Balzac, George Sand, De Vigny, and Béranger

p34, p50

readManuscript page

“the unfolding of his interior life are done with the spiritual beauty of Manzoni! [...] the sentiment is as grand as Manzoni's, though not sustained by the same majestic sweep of diction.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Notes on Balzac, George Sand, De Vigny, and Béranger." Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Inferred Fuller names Manzoni twice: once in comparison to De Vigny's handling of Captain Renaud ('the spiritual beauty of Manzoni'), once comparing Béranger's 'Le Cinq Mai' to 'Manzoni's.' No specific work is named in either instance, but the context of the second reference — Napoleon's death on 5 May 1821 — points specifically to Manzoni's ode 'Il Cinque Maggio' (1821).

1840—

Journal 1840

p10

readManuscript page

“Lucia and Renzo, the best of bright and dark— I have all the letters ready to my hand, only the connecting links are to be supplied by me.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Journal 1840." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (85); Box 5 (85).

Inferred The title is named implicitly through the unique character pair Lucia and Renzo,

1845—

Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Act II Chorus

excerpted · analyzed · quoted · read3 selected passages

“Tutti fatti a sembianza d'an Solo, / Figli tutti d'un solo riscatto, / In qual'ora, in qual parte del suolo / Trascorriamo quest' aura vital, / Siam fratelli, siam stretti ad un patto /: / Maladetto colui clie loinfrangc, / Che s'innalza sul fiacco che piange / Che contrista uno spirto immortal.”

The footnote reads '* Manzoni.' (source line 1226).

“Manzoni thus dedicates his "Adelchi." To his beloved and venerated wife, Enrichetta Liugia Blondel, who, with conjugal affection and maternal wisdom, has preserved a virgin mind, the author dedicates this "Adelchi”

“Not Manzoni alone would celebrate in his wife the virgin mind with the maternal wisdom and conjugal affections.”

Inferred Named in closing argument — 'Not Manzoni alone would celebrate in his wife the virgin mind'; refers back to the Adelchi dedication in §5. Refers back to the Adelchi dedication discussed earlier

Fuller, Margaret. Woman in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Greeley & McElrath, 1845.

1846—

New-York Daily Tribune

“Philip Van Artevelde” · 1845

analyzed · read

“We would compare Mr. Taylor with the most applauded of living dramatists, the Italian Alessandro Manzoni. [...] 'Carmagnola, Adelchis die,' ?”

Fuller, Margaret. Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1860. · p140

1847—

Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson

p281

analyzed · read

“Manzoni has spiritual efficacy in his looks; his eyes glow still with delicate tenderness, as when he first saw Lucia, or felt them fill at the image of Father Cristaforo.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. IV. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.

Hudspeth identified Manzoni was "best known for his I promessi sposi." The two named characters are unique to this novel

1847—

Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . XVI.

“Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . XVI.”

analyzed · quoted · read3 selected passages

“I think my last letter was from Milan, and written after I had seen Manzoni. This was to me a great pleasure.”

“But among the few who, through depth of spiritual experience and the beauty of form in which it is expressed, belong not only to Italy, but to the world. Manzoni takes a high rank.”

“Young Italy rejects Manzoni, though not irreverently; Young Italy prizes his works, but feels that the doctrine of “Pray and wait” is not for her at this moment”

Fuller, Margaret. "Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . XVI." New-York Daily Tribune, 25 December 1847.

1848—

Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . XIX.

“Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . XIX.”

mentioned

“Next day was the feast of the Milanese saint, whose life has been made known to some Americans by Manzoni”

Fuller, Margaret. "Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . XIX." New-York Daily Tribune, 29 January 1848. · 29 January 1848

Undated

Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.

n.d.—

On Pain

analyzed · quoted · readManuscript page

“I keep thinking of the lines by the purified Manzoni.”

Fuller, Margaret. "On Pain." Boston Public Library Archives & Special Collections; MS Am. 1450; Box: 2, Folder: 93.

n.d.—

Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . XIV.

“Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . XIV.”

mentioned

“Among the speeches that of the Marquis d’Azeglio, a man of literary note in Italy, and son-in-law of Manzoni, contained this passage”

Fuller, Margaret. "Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . XIV." New-York Daily Tribune, .

Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

Passages surviving only in the posthumous Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, compiled by Emerson, Channing, and Clarke.

1820—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

quoted · read

“She quoted from Manzoni's Carmagnola, the lines: — 'Tolga il ciel che alcuno Piu altamente di me pensi ch'io stesso.' 'God forbid that any one should conceive more highly of me than I myself.”

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.

This entry identifies a quotation from Alessandro Manzoni's tragedy, Il Conte di Carmagnola (1820).