Napoleon 's death

1821 was a crucial year in terms of Manzoni’s considerable output of poetry, plays and narrative as well as the year of two events of great historical significance for both Europe and Italy and that influenced Manzoni’s poetry. On 5 May 1821, Napoleon died on St Helena. Manzoni read the news in the Gazzetta di Milano of 18 July, while sitting in his garden at Brusuglio. He later reported that the news had shaken him as if the world was suddenly lacking in something essential, and that he was seized by a need to talk about it, taking only three days to write the ode entitled Cinque Maggio. It is reported that during these three days he asked his wife Henriette to play the piano to encourage his inspiration. He was so anxious to make his ode known that he did not stop to revise and perfect his text (a highly unusual omission for such a meticulous author), but immediately sent a couple of copies to the Censors. The manuscript of his ode circulated among many readers with immediate success. It was first printed at Lugano, in 1822. Goethe also enthused about it, and translated it into German. In 1820-21, the first uprisings in the kingdom of Naples and Sabaudian Piedmont signalled the start of the long period of Italy’s Risorgimento. This historical moment was the focus of Manzoni’s ode Marzo 1821, probably written while the Lombard patriots, in contact with the Piedmontese rebels, hoped the latter would take action against Austria. The harsh repression that followed the defeat of the early revolutionary movement led to the sentencing, in the Milanese trials against the members of the Carboneria and the Federati (the Confederates), of intellectuals who were friends of Manzoni and whose ideals he shared, including journalists of the Conciliatore. Prior to this, Manzoni had dedicated two unfinished canzoni to contemporary historical-political events: Aprile 1814 and Il proclama di Rimini, linked to hopes for autonomy and independence shared by Manzoni and the Lombard liberals following the end of the Napoleonic regime.