A Hope and a Warning: On the Interpretation of Alessandro Manzoni’s The Betrothed During the Pandemic in Italy

Abstract

After the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the Italian society saw analogies to this unexpected situation not only in Boccaccio’s Decameron. An equally important point of reference in these difficult times was Alessandro Manzoni’s romantic work The Betrothed. An important theme of this historical novel set in the 17th century is the plague that ravaged Milan at that time. In a situation where the first mass cases of infection in the country appeared in the capital of Lombardy, and as a result of the decisions taken by national and regional authorities to close institutions and workplaces, Italy saw a resurgence of interest in Manzoni’s work, whose optimistic ending – a healing rain sent from heaven in the name of the author’s belief in providence – gave readers hope. However, it soon became apparent that Manzoni’s message in the face of a pandemic could also be a bitter warning. In The Betrothed, the Italian author develops the theme of the unjust persecution of the so-called untori – anointers, people falsely accused of deliberately spreading the disease. At a time of growing social distrust towards all those suspected of spreading the infection – foreigners, neighbours, friends, family members – the writer’s work once again explained the mechanisms of exclusion and accusatory attitudes towards the innocent. In my analysis, I will interpret Manzoni’s text in the context of the convergence of its themes with the situation of the Italian society in 2020 and look at how Italians related to them during the coronavirus pandemic.