Manzoni, Alessandro

(born March 7, 1785, Milan, Italy—died May 22, 1873, Milan) Italian novelist and poet. After spending much of his childhood in religious schools, Manzoni wrote a series of religious poems, Sacred Hymns (1815), and later two historical tragedies influenced by William Shakespeare, Il conte di Carmagnola (1820) and Adelchi (performed 1822). He is best known for the novel The Betrothed, 3 vol. (1827), a masterpiece of world literature and the most famous Italian novel of its century, in which, prompted by a patriotic urge to forge a language accessible to a wide readership, he employed a clear, expressive prose that became a model for many subsequent Italian writers. Manzoni's advocacy of a united Italy made him a hero of the Risorgimento; his death prompted Giuseppe Verdi's great Requiem.

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica