Manzoni e i dintorni della 'Tirannide'

This essay shows that Manzoni is greatly indebted to Alfieri’s works written between 1777 and 1779 (in particular, Della tirannide, Virginia, Congiura de’ Pazzi). Not only does Manzoni owe to Alfieri single expressions, but also cultural and ideological issues. Indeed, Manzoni’s knowledge of Alfieri’s texts was deep, and not episodic. Actually, Manzoni continued to consider Alfieri very important, even after being deluded by Opere Postume. Alfieri’s influence on Manzoni can be traced in the latter’s early works, in the tragedies, and also in his civil poems and in the novel. This relationship, however, after the adolescent infatuation with Trionfo della Libertà and the subsequent admiration for Alfieri as a model of virtue, becomes a close comparison with Alfieri’s ideology and political thought: as time goes by, Manzoni questions, contextualizes in a general different context, and corrects his model’s ideas.