Pietro Manzoni (1736-1807) and Giulia Beccaria (1762-1841) were married in Milan in September 1782, at a time when Milan was under the control of Joseph II of the House of Habsburg. Arranged as a marriage of convenience (since Giulia was not wealthy) by Giulia’s father, Marquis Cesare Beccaria, and by Count Pietro Verri, the union soon proved unhappy, more on account of incompatibility of character than the wide age gap. Don Pietro was of aristocratic descent, a widower without heirs who lived in a modest home on the Navigli with his seven unmarried sisters, one of whom was a former nun. He had a brother who was Canon at Milan Cathedral, and owned a villa in the Lecco countryside that he called Villa Caleotto. Solitary and melancholy by nature, he shunned the kind of social life enjoyed by Giulia, who was young, beautiful, intelligent, lively, strong-minded and accustomed to expressing her ideas freely. Married life with Pietro proved stifling for her, and did not prevent her from seeing the youngest of the Verri brother, Giovanni (thought to be Alessandro’s biological father). Alessandro was born three years into the marriage, on 7 March 1785, and sent to a wet nurse from a peasant family in Malgrate, in the Lecco area. He spent most of his early childhood there, rarely seeing his mother. After the birth of her son, Giulia returned to her intense social life and developed a relationship with Count Carlo Imbonati. She became increasingly dissatisfied with her marriage, which ended in February 1792. The melancholy Don Pietro went to live elsewhere, often staying at the Villa Caleotto, although rarely with the young Alessandro. In autumn 1796, Giulia went to Paris with Imbonati, a few months after the French had entered Milan under Napoleon’s command.

Andrea Appiani, Portrait of Giulia Beccaria with her six-year-old son Alessandro, Villa di Brusuglio [in Immagini di casa Manzoni, edited by J. Riva, Milan, Centro Nazionale Studi Manzoniani, 1999, n. 8]