The Manzoni Family

  Giulia died in the night between the 7th and 8th of July. She was buried at Brusuglio. Manzoni and his family went to Verano to stay with the Trottis.

  Manzoni wrote this epitaph for his mother’s tomb:

  ‘To Giulia Manzoni / daughter of Cesare Beccaria / a matron revered / for her lofty intellect / her liberality to the poor /her profound and active piety / commended / to the mercy of the Lord / and all the prayers of the faithful / by her inconsolable son / and all her sorrowing family.’

  Teresa Borri II

  Giulia had made a will on 10 January 1837, that is a few days after this new marriage of her son’s. She left everything to her grandchildren, with a life interest in everything to her son. In favour of her grandchildren she had raised a mortgage of a hundred and ninety thousand lire on the estate at Brusuglio: she had overvalued it, because years later the estate was valued at only three hundred and ninety-five thousand lire. Obviously she already distrusted Teresa; and her son seemed to her, from a practical point of view, improvident. The will was judged by many to be lacking in sagacity, and to be the cause of the serious financial troubles which were to occur. But it is difficult to say if this was really the case.

  So after Giulia’s death the whole family spent a few days at the Trotti villa. Stefano was at Torriggia to supervise the building of a boat; then he went to Lesa, where Teresa and Alessandro joined him, and they stayed there until the beginning of October.

  In August Pietro, Enrico, Filippo and don Giovanni Ghianda were in Milan in via del Morone. Sofia went to Pré-Saint-Didier with her older boy, Tonino, who needed the mountain air; she left her second child, Sandrino, with the nurse at via del Morone. From Pré-Saint-Didier she wrote to Enrico, who had sent news to her; Enrico was her favourite brother. She usually wrote in French, and when she wrote in Italian, she made mistakes in spelling, and sometimes in syntax.

  ‘First of all I must thank you with all my heart for getting my Alessandro to write me a few words. . . Poor Sandrino, I can’t wait to see him. You did make me laugh when you said he was shaking, I could just imagine him like a wobbly blancmanger. . . I will simply say I am most grateful, as I know you are more annoyed than otherwise by salamelech (dialect for clumsy salutations). I can just hear you saying Oh, what a bore!. . . But I wish your letters were a bit more detailed, especially about your brothers. . . Do you not know how long Papa intends to stay away? and where will he go when he returns? when is don Giovanni leaving? how is Filippo behaving? what will happen when don Giovanni isn’t there?’ In fact the tutor had expressed his intention of going away. ‘Tell Nanny that my Tonino is completely better, and I think he has started putting on weight again. As for his big tummy, my Cousin Trotti who knows about children assures me it’s caused by that touch of rickets, which makes him twist his legs a bit, and that it will all pass as he gets stronger. I make him take the baths which I am assured will do him a lot of good: he stays in a half an hour with me, and thoroughly enjoys it, I don’t know what’s come over him because you will remember it was impossible to get him in the water in Milan. Forgive these tedious details, but they are for Nanny, and they come with lots and lots of love to her. I say nothing about my health, because I’m really well. Of my state of mind, I have made it a rule to speak as little as possible, because I bore other people, and do myself no good, so glissons (let’s pass over that), which will be better for everyone. We’ll be almost alone here soon, as the company is all leaving bit by bit. . . We will stay a bit longer so that I can take at least 20 baths. We went by mule to the Piccolo San Bernardo, which I enjoyed, and I continue to go on various excursions.’

  When she returned to Milan to collect her little boy, she felt sorry for Filippo on his own, bored and sad, and she took him with her to Balbianello, to the Arconati villa. Before leaving Filippo wrote to his father:

  ‘Dearest Papa! I am truly most grateful to you for the pleasure you have afforded me by allowing me to go to Balbianello: but gratitude is shown more by deeds than words, so I shall try to repay your kindness by the best possible behaviour, and by attending to my studies. . .’

  And Sofia to her father, from Balbianello:

  ‘Filippo has been here since yesterday, he is so happy, poor little chap, I really felt sorry for him cooped up in Milan all alone, with no company and no amusement, and in the holidays! His letters were pitiful, you could see he was dying of boredom. How long do you think he can stay here? Tell me, dear Papa, and I’ll send him home whenever you think. . .’

  Sofia to Enrico from Balbianello:

  ‘I see that Mr Enrico will not break the ice, so I will – why do you never write? you may think you can say the same of me – but it’s quite a different matter, I have so many letters to write, three or four every day – I’m in the country, I spend a lot of time walking and going for trips on the lake, and my little boys take up a tremendous amount of time – But what are you doing? there is not a soul in Milan at this season! – I wrote to Pietro quite a while ago and I’ve had no reply, so one way and another there seems no way of getting news of you. . . What will you do this autumn? if you came to spend a little time on this beautiful lake, I promise you you’d see what a good time can be had in the country at this lovely time of year. It’s not too hot and you can go for long walks, there are so many people out of doors you’d think you were in Milan. . . Filippo seems to be enjoying himself, Lodovico has asked the younger of the Tegia brothers, who is more or less Filippo’s age, to spend some time here. . .’ The Beccarias, Uncle Giulio and the ‘zietta’, were staying nearby in their villa of Sala Comacina, but Sofia was not keen to go there because Cantú was staying with them. Manzoni and Cantú had not been on very good terms for about a year. Manzoni was writing La Storia della Colonna Infame, about the ‘untori’ or plague-spreaders, which he intended to publish with I promessi sposi in the new revised and illustrated edition of which the first instalments had appeared. Suddenly a book by Cantú came out, Il processo degli untori, on the same theme. Cantú had not mentioned it to Manzoni, although he knew what he was working on. Manzoni felt bitterly about it, and had to make cuts in la Colonna Infame. Moreover, it was said that Cantú had become the lover of the ‘zietta’, the young wife of elderly Uncle Giulio Beccaria. So when Sofia and Vittoria called on their uncle and aunt, they had the impression that ‘someone’ was hastily ‘imprisoned’, that is, that Cantú was obliged to remain shut in a room and requested not to show himself, and that the ‘zietta’ was ‘gênée’. However, Sofia and Vittoria often went to see d’Azeglio, who had bought a house at Loveno. But it was a rather inconvenient house. Sofia to Enrico: ‘Today we were supposed to go to lunch with Azeglio at Loveno, but it is drizzling, so we’ll stay home; we’ve already been to see him, and I must say I don’t know what possessed him to buy that house on the top of the mountain, there’s such a poor road to get there, and the house is in a dreadful state and he’s having to build to make it habitable, so it would have been just as well to build on the shore of the lake. . .’

  Teresa and Alessandro went back to Milan, Stefano stayed at Lesa; Teresa had been reading d’Azeglio’s novel, Niccolò de’ Lapi, which had come out that year; she did not like it at all, and wrote to Stefano: ‘At last I’ve finished the Lapo, Lapone, Lapaggione de’ Lapitti. With all due respect to you, that’s not love of the fatherland, it’s love of the municipality! Does he call that a novel? It’s just history, almost all history taken up here and set down there, mixed in with the possible captivity of Troilus and with endless male and female genuflections, such as to nauseate the most beautiful Helen, let alone Niccolò, if he had some sense in place of his 91 years. But what an eternal babbler! what a bore! what a foolish fellow! He thinks he is talking of the fatherland, and he’s always talking about the city of Florence, like Massimo, as if it were the only Italian fatherland! And those congresses he constructs with no threads or glue to hold them together! And it’s all so disconnected, the true and the false! Oh dear me! people will never, never be int
erested in all the confused tangle about that wild woman, which is more romantic and impossible than the love stories of Don Quichotte! oh, I could go on like this! Don’t be cross!’ But Stefano’s worship of d’Azeglio could not be dented by any words of his mother’s.

  Teresa to Stefano:

  ‘Gonin has arrived, and now they’re working full speed ahead at the vignettes of la Colonna Infame which Papa hopes to finish by the end of July. So be it! It will make a great stir. . .’

  In the spring of 1842 Enrico got married. He was twenty-three. His wife was called Emilia Redaelli. She was noble and extremely rich. She brought a dowry of three hundred thousand lire and a magnificent villa at Renate. The two settled there. Sofia was delighted about the marriage; she liked her sister-in-law very much; but the others were perplexed. Enrico was involved in business; he sold silk-worms; he had grandiose notions, and his wife seconded them. Neither Enrico nor his wife had any idea of the value of money, she probably because she was so rich, he by temperament. And it soon became clear that, instead of urging caution upon him, she encouraged him in imprudent ventures. Enrico immediately began to ask for advances on the legacy from Giulia, and his father and Pietro were not at all happy.

  In that summer of 1842 there was an eclipse of the sun; Teresa and Alessandro went specially to Brusuglio to see it; Teresa described it to Stefano:

  ‘So on the morning of 8th July 1842, having made our preparations the previous evening, we got up at 4.30. We saw the beginning of the eclipse from the avenue of plane trees: half and then the total eclipse from the hill. Papa had had a great swathe cut in the wood that surrounds the hill on the left, to see the Monte Rosa properly, which (if the sky had been clear) should have had its summit lit up even during the total eclipse: they massacred those poor dear tree-tops, amid general rejoicing: but the Monte Rosa and all that chain of mountains Se prirent à bouder la lune et le soleil et nous tous aussi; ils se drapèrent dans une écharpe de nuages, and goodbye mountains! [they began to sulk at the moon and the sun and all of us; they draped themselves in a scarf of cloud] – When total darkness fell, Alessandro shouted out without knowing it: Oh! great God, in light as in darkness! Then when the light reappeared, he began to clap and shout: Beautiful! Oh how beautiful! Oh, magnificent! – But he had no recollection of all this, it was so spontaneous: I say that Alessandro was the mouthpiece of a whole population, of Milan at least, some of whom had gone into the squares on foot, in carriages, on horseback; others were on the roof-loggias, on the campaniles, on the Cathedral, the roofs, which were full of men, women and children (just think, the roofs crowded with women and children!!). They all burst out shouting and clapping at the full eclipse and when the light returned. In the country people were on their knees, saying it was the end of the world. At Brusuglio the boys who were watching their cows, began to weep loudly, shouting: – It’s an earthquake!! an earthquake!! The black-cap went on singing, but the nightingale made the cruu-cruu that it does when it’s alarmed. I heard them; (give him my best regards, Manzoni had said to her in dialect, while she was writing – ) but it’s he who sends his regards! the dearest he!’

  That summer of 1842 Sofia’s health began to give cause for concern. She was bled. In August she had her third baby boy. The confinement went well, but anxiety continued. She had chronic pleurisy. Grossi’s wife had a son too. Teresa to Stefano: ‘Grossi had a fine fat boy this morning or last night. Anyway an excessively grosso Grossi has been born, fulfilling their wishes. The day before yesterday Sofia had another boy, not fulfilling their wishes. Sofia wanted a girl; Grossi wanted a boy. However, both got through it very well, I mean the two ladies, apart from the strong pains, which were short and sharp for both of them.’

  Emilia Luti was travelling with the Littas, and Manzoni was waiting for her to come back to do a last revision of the text with her; meanwhile he was working with intense concentration – that summer they did not move from Milan except on the day of the eclipse – and Teresa, in one of her little notebooks, was writing Milanese words with the corresponding Tuscan words alongside. Stefano was at Lesa, expecting Rossari. Teresa to Stefano: ‘Rossari needs a lot of cheering up! do see to it, and don’t drag him round all over the place. . . Try to guess what he wants, and don’t drag him off to do what you want, however much you fancy it’s for his good, his entertainment and his delight; believe me, my dear Stefanone, do as I say.’ Two of Sofia’s children, Tonino and Sandrino, were with them; Teresa to Stefano: ‘Tonino Trotti is with us here, and Sandrino has been with us for a while too; so Tonino put a kiss on the paper so that unca Tepa shall have a tissfront Ninon.’ Again, Teresa to Stefano, on the 19th August: ‘In four days la Colonna Infame will be finished!!! Ah!!! we can breathe again, expand our lungs and heart, what a delight!! a week or a fortnight of pagination and proof-reading, and it will all be finished! oh, che gust! che guston! che gustononon!’[A joking dialect expression of mounting joy.]

  After her confinement, Sofia went back to Verano with her new baby Giulio and the other two; the Trottis sometimes stayed there even in winter; Vittoria, who had left school, was with them almost all the time. Sofia exchanged frequent visits and affectionate letters with her brother Enrico and her sister-in-law, who were living at Renate. Toys and sweets arrived at Verano from Renate for all the name-days and birthdays of the children; at Renate there was a park, an orchard and a big kitchen-garden, and Emilia sent Sofia strawberries, flowers and vegetables in season; once she sent a little lamb, a lambkin Sofia called it; the children acclaimed it joyfully and took it everywhere with them. Sofia to Emilia: ‘Tonino has taken advantage of a bright spell to go out in the garden with his lambkin; if you could see how he loves him; he follows him everywhere, even into the rooms.’ Sofia to Emilia: ‘I assure you I am quite confused by your kindness, and in spite of the pleasure your lovely strawberries give me, I am sorry to see you deprive yourself for me. You can be sure that they are very welcome, we all have a big helping, and the boys think they are a great treat.’ ‘My Tonino sends his Aunt Emilia a hug. I advise you to try the arrowroot in milk or in broth, because it’s really disgusting with water.’ Sofia to Enrico: ‘I haven’t the courage to send this ribbon to Emilia myself, I hope my impudence will be pardoned more readily by your intervention. I am sorry Vittoria sent it to me routé so that it’s all gaufré when you unroll it. I hope it will be all right if it’s ironed (with a lukewarm iron, otherwise you’ll lose the ribbing).’ When she went to Milan, Sofia busied herself with little errands for her sister-in-law, a hat, feathers, cuffs. But she was often very tired. Sofia to Emilia: ‘I haven’t been very well, I’ve had an abscess in my mouth that has been very painful. But I would have liked to have better news from Enrico, I am very sorry you are still not well, poor Emilia; have courage, what can we expect, everyone has their troubles in this world. . .’ Emilia was pregnant; she suffered from nausea, anxiety and low spirits. Her mother, who lived with her, donna Luigia Redaelli Martinez, had health problems and Emilia worried about her. Sofia suggested they call Doctor Piantanida. But, in fact, Emilia’s worries were chiefly financial; Enrico needed a lot of money to further his many complicated commercial enterprises; he was asking everyone for guarantees and loans: Sofia’s husband Lodovico, Uncle and Aunt Beccaria. Sofia to Enrico: ‘I’m sorry I can’t give you a definite answer from Pietro, but I have never been able to get anything out of him, and he says that if you don’t go to Milan to talk to him, he can say nothing. But he said it is only right and proper that you should reveal the state of your affairs even if it is not required of you, because you might regret it, and anyway a man of honour cannot do otherwise; however, do go to Milan yourself and talk to him; Pietro sends these accounts with a note of the expenses you have incurred, he advises you to keep accounts because you know how things go all too often.’ Sofia to Enrico: ‘I have spoken to Lodovico about that matter and he said that, if things stand as we agreed yesterday, he will be pleased to do this for you. I am very pleased I can give you this answer
, I was almost sure of it yesterday because I know from experience that my Lodovico is always ready to oblige. I hope you will soon be able to bring this matter to a close. Give my love to your dear Emilia and say I’m very sorry to hear she has headaches, I can sympathise all the more as unfortunately I know what it means. Goodbye, your affec. sister Sofia. I asked you to send me those books of the annuities and you forgot.’ Don Giovanni Ghianda was sent to ask Uncle Beccaria and his wife for money; but the ‘zietta’ categorically refused to help. Sofia to Enrico: ‘Egoists, all of them, and I advise you not to trust their fine words any more. I’m very sorry, dear Enrico, to have to give you this bad news, but you can believe I do it with the feelings of a truly affectionate sister: apart from this, I was very pleased to hear from Lodovico that Emilia was well yesterday, keep up her spirits, and do try to keep up your own strength. You can’t imagine how desperate I feel that I can’t be with you both.’