I Promessi Sposi

Manzoni, like Dante Aligheri hundreds of years earlier, believed in establishing the Tuscan dialect as the standard language of a unified Italy. With I promessi sposi (The betrothed), Manzoni helped realize that ambition and earned prominence as one of the great Italian literary figures of the nineteenth century. The story is considered a masterpiece of romance and was held in high regard by Sir Walter Scott. The story of two poor lovers is set in seventeenth-century Lombardy, and Manzoni draws detailed portraits of men and women and the harsh life under Spanish occupation.