[German Version]

(Mar 7, 1785, Milan – May 22, 1873, Brusuglio near Milan), Italian poet. Owing to the early separation of his parents Count Pietro Manzoni and Giulia Beccaria (daughter of Cesare Beccaria), Manzoni was raised and educated in religious boarding schools until 1800, where he developed a liberal anticlericalism. From 1805 to 1810, Manzoni lived in Paris, where he came into contact with the progressive Idéologues. His marriage to Enrichetta Blondel (1808), a Calvinist from Geneva, was followed by her conversion to Catholicism, and very soon (1810) also by his. From ¶ then on…