From 1816, the literary debate taking place in Milan involved many intellectuals in the Romantic polemic against the classicists. Prior to the Conciliatore, a select group of literary friends who promoted the new Romantic culture took up the habit of meeting at the home of Milanese dialectal poet Carlo Porta, on the via del Monte Napoleone. The group included, among others, Tommaso Grossi, future author of the historical novel Marco Visconti, Ermes Visconti, theorist of Romanticism, who annotated and corrected Manzoni’s manuscript of Fermo e Lucia, Luigi Rossari, who collaborated with Manzoni on the revision of the Vocabolario milanese-italiano by Francesco Cherubini (also a group member), Gaetano Cattaneo, painter and coin engraver, who provided Manzoni with bibliographic information and books for his novel, Giovanni Torti, whose poetry was honoured by being quoted in the Promessi Sposi (Chapter XXIX). Far cameretta was a Milanese expression meaning “chat group”, or “discussion meeting”: in these meetings the group of friends discussed literature, reading and commenting on each others’ work, discussing important issues in contemporary Milanese culture in a relaxed atmosphere of friendship (as testified by the frequent letters among the group members). In 1816 they met weekly, on Sundays, and from 1817, twice weekly, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. In this coterie, Manzoni was undoubtedly the most outstanding figure. When Porta died, after briefly using Grossi’s home as their meeting place, this close-knit group of friends switched to Manzoni’s home on the via del Morone, contributing, via teamwork, to the creation of his great novel.

Detail from a letter written by Manzoni to  Grossi referring to Porta [in Immagini della vita e dei tempi di Alessandro Manzoni, collected and illustrated by Marino Parenti, Florence, Sansoni, 1973, p. 109]