¹ The basic ingredients of our discussion exist in Gli Sposi Promessi, but without the same sense of cogency and coherence. Manzoni's elaboration of his first version gives greater artistic relevance to some of the details we shall be considering. For instance, “wall” and “devil” are not so much in evidence in the early version; the sun-cloud interplay is almost nonexistent, don Rodrigo's death does not have the metaphoric analogy of the skull, and in the end Renzo does not state the imprudence of “raising his elbow too much.” Note also that the division of the subject matter in the early version into four volumes or books is considerably different from its arrangement in the final version and from the esthetic meaning we give it.

² Giuseppe De Robertis, Primi Studi manzoniani (Firenze : Le Monnier, 1949), p. 107.

³ See L. Tonelli, Manzoni (Milano: Corbaccio, 1935).

⁴ Achille Pellizzari, Studi manzoniani: Estetica e religione di A. Manzoni, i(Napoli: Perrella, 1914), 199.

⁵ All quotations from I Promessi Sposi, identified by chapter and page (e.g., ix, 73), come from the edition of the Società Editrice Internazionale, Torino, 1933.

⁶ Giovanni Gentile, Dante e Manzoni (Firenze: Vallecchi, 1923), p. 119.

⁷ Mario Sansone, L'opera poetica di A. Manzoni (Milano-Messina: Principato, 1947), p. 238.

⁸ Several years later Stendhal too gives symbolic signifi-cance to “walls” in Le Rouge et le noir, particularly in the opening chapter. Stendhal's walls begin by pointing up social barriers and gradually assume psychological significance (by the door to Mme de Rênal's room, in the La MÔle library, the scaling into Mathilde's room, and the prison); Manzoni's assume primarily a broad philosophical (and esthetic) significance.

⁹ The opening paragraph of the novel is a brilliant and subdued préfiguration of the story: from the two chains of mountains and the two shores beneath them, which, like Renzo and Lucia, are destined not to meet; to the Adda river, which becomes a symbol of home, safety, and “return”; to the “walls” of Milan and the “vasta giogaia” of mountains and the oppressive connotation of this word, repeated almost immediately as “giogo” and its plural “gioghi,” thus hinting at the many complications that will stem from the original complication of the desired wedding; and finally to the nature of the original complication of don Rodrigo's dishonorable intentions concerning Lucia, subtly suggested through Manzoni's ironic presentation of the Spanish soldiers “che insegnavan la modestia aile fanciulle e aile donne del paese.”

¹⁰ Extra miles and the weather did induce him a little later, in Gorgonzola, to take some wine (almost in don Ab-bondio's sense, “like a medicine”), momentarily at least suppressing “quell'odio cosi estremo e fanatico” (xxvi, 206), but the manner was still one of caution, of “non alzar troppo il gomito.”

¹¹ See, e.g., how the word returns at the moment of the invasion and war, when the lanzichenecchi become “dia-voli,” “anticristi,” “diavoli in carne,” “indiavolati” (xxix, 367, and xxx, 384).

¹² Once more, the angel-devil duality, alluded to in the prologue where the theme is set. The duality is suggested in various ways, but every now and then by the direct use of the word-symbols, in juxtaposition as here, recalling the prologue. Another example is the Innominato's remark about Lucia: “Un qualche demonio, o … un qualche angelo … la protegge” (xxi, 262).

¹³ Mario Marcazzan, “II paesaggio dei Promessi Sposi,” Humanitas,3 (1948), 1199.

¹¹ The Adda is another thread of the tapestry, symbolizing peace and home. It figures in the important first paragraph of the novel, is fra Cristoforo's point of departure in Pescarenico (iv), is the goal of the fleeing Renzo (xvi), who listens for its “benedetta voce” and for whom it represents “il ritrovamento d'un amico, d'un fratello, d'un salvatore” (xvii, 215 and 217). And at the end of the novel, with renewed symbolic suggestiveness, Manzoni writes that Renzo, “sul finir [délia notte], si trovÔ alla riva dell'Adda” (xxxvii, 476).

¹⁵ Equally suggestive is the light in which the Innominato first sees her: “al lume d'una lucerna che ardeva sur un tavolino” (xxi, 262).

¹⁶ Attilio Momigliano, Alessandro Manzoni (Milano: Principato, 1966), pp. 212–13.

¹⁷ Studi manzoniani, I, 72.

¹⁸ “II paessaggio dei Promessi Sposi” p. 104.

¹⁹ Rocco Montano, Manzoni o del lieto fine (Napoli: Conte, 1950), p. 92.

²⁰ A telling image in this sense would seem to be that of fire. We note, as its “plot” unfolds, that the first references to it are associated with suffering and evil: the flames painted on the wall along which don Abbondio strolls to begin the tragic action of the novel (i, 7) and the fires set by the crowds during the bread riots (“c'era bensi de' diavoli che, per rubare, avrebbero dato fuoco anche al paradiso,” xvi, 211). Later references are associated with good: the wick of the lamp Lucia stares at her first night in the Innominato's castle: the wick appears almost like a votive candle flickering in the darkness, in a sense prefiguring Lucia's vow and in another sense reminding us of the candlelight that will bother don Rodrigo. Then there are the purifying fires that burned infected clothes and beds during the plague (xxxiv, 433), the fiery radiance of fra Cristoforo's personality (xxxv, 452 and 456), and the “buon fuoco” (xxxvii, 477) Renzo's friend lights for his comfort at the end of the last plane of the novel. The qualities of fire, then, parallel the dual essence of human nature, which can be identified in the characters: in fra Cristoforo, Renzo, the Innominato, don Abbondio, and even in the devilish mo-natti who perform a good and needed service. Hence Manzoni's indulgence for don Rodrigo too, whose cruelty conceals a process of self-destruction.

²¹ Manzoni's association of bread with good and wine with evil would seem to date back to the years immediately following his conversion. If we check the religious poems Inni sacri (1819), we note that the words appear only in the sacrificial poem “La passione”:

Sotto l'ombra dei pani mutati,

L'Ostia viva di pace e d'amor . . . (vv. 11–12)

verses relating to the “misteri beati” (v. 9) of the transub-stantiation through which bread becomes the body of Christ; in contrast with:

Come l'ebro desidera il vino,

Ne le offese quell'odio s'irrita . . . (vv. 53–54)

verses relating to the people's jeering at Christ's supreme sacrifice on the cross, which resulted from the “maggior dei delitti” (v. 55), Judas' betrayal of the “blood” of Jesus.