Manzoni’s early output is characterized by considerable experimentation in form and content. The four cantos in blank verse of the Trionfo della libertà (1801) are skilfully modelled on Monti and Dante and express the abstract libertarianism that he had learned from books and that had been intensified by the rebellious spirit of his school years. The poem is in keeping with the “vision” genre of the time (as in Monti’s Bassvilliana): the poet imagines seeing the Goddess Liberty triumph over the allied monsters of Tyranny and Religion, and meeting the ancient and modern heroes who sacrificed themselves for amor di Libertade, “love of Liberty”. Mixed with the pre-Romantic taste for the bleak and the macabre is an echo of the bloody repression of the Neapolitan revolution, which the young Manzoni had learned about through the Neapolitan exiles. From 1802-1803, he also composed several poems that were fully neoclassical in inspiration, such as the ode Qual su le Cinzie cime, the sonnets Alla Musa and Alla sua donna and the idyll Adda, dedicated to Monti. He then changed genre once more, switching from the sophisticated and stylized late-Arcadian genre to a satirical genre inspired by Horace and composing four Sermoni between 1803 and 1804. In these he reconsiders the role of poetry and the poet, inspired by a sense of rejection and even disdain for the empty and “useless” nature of classicist poetry, and by the need for a more serious commitment on the part of the poet. This re-thinking culminates in his Carme for Imbonati (1806). In his sonnet entitled Autoritratto (1801), he had provided a modest and mocking self-portrait which was rather different from the self-portraits by Alfieri and Foscolo. Urania, which appeared in 1809, marked a temporary return to mythological poetry, modelled on Monti’s Musogonia (later picked up by Foscolo in Grazie). Following a famous classical theme, this poem exalts the civilizing function of poetry, represented by the Muses sent to earth by Jupiter to urge humanity out of its feral condition.

Alessandro Manzoni in 1805, oil on canvas by unknown English artist [in Immagini di casa Manzoni, edited by J. Riva, Milan, Centro Nazionale Studi Manzoniani, 1999, n. 14]