Manzoni's children

A pencil and sanguine drawing by Ernesta Bisi depicts the family group around 1825, with Alessandro, his mother Giulia and his wife Henriette, and almost all of the children. In the middle, beneath the parents, are the three oldest, namely, Giulia (1808-1834), Pietro (1813-1873) and Cristina (1815-1841), with Sofia (1817-1845), Enrico (1819-1881), Clara (1821-1823) and Vittoria (1822-1892) at the foot of the drawing. The two children born later are not there: Filippo (1826-1868) and Matilde (1830-1856). An oil painting of 1832 by Massimo d’Azeglio shows a view of the villa at Brusuglio, and includes among the various figures in the scene Enrico, the young Matilde who is holding hands with her sisters Cristina and Sofia, and Giulietta who is strolling arm in arm with her husband, D’Azeglio. Among Manzoni’s various poems there is also a “family portrait” in verse (Non è ver che sia Pierino / il peggior de’ miei ragazzi, / tutti e sette sono pazzi, / dalla Giulia al Filippino). Excepting Luigia Maria, who was born in 1811 and died the same year, and Clara, who lived only for two years, Alessandro had eight children during his first marriage, with Vittoria and Filippo as the only two who survived him. His firstborn, Giulia Claudia, known as “Giulietta”, enjoyed reading history books and writing letters, especially to her godfather Fauriel, with whom she may have been infatuated. She separated from her husband and died shortly after her mother. Pietro Luigi, Manzoni’s first son, received a good literary education and helped his father in his work as a writer, especially in the illustrated edition of the novel. He took care of his siblings after his mother’s death, and attended to administrative matters in the family after the death of his grandmother, Giulia Beccaria. Relations between the father and the other two sons were difficult. Henry’s financial disasters reduced his family to poverty, and Filippo led a life of expedients, and also landed in prison. Vittoria was the one who lived longest, marrying Giovan Battista Giorgini, a politician of the Tuscan Risorgimento and Manzoni’s collaborator in connection with the issue of the unified language.