Napoleon’s death undoubtedly had a profound impact throughout Europe, on account of the myth that grew around his role as victorious general, able politician and statesman, and major player at an exceptional moment in history: in short, uomo fatale (“fateful man”), as Manzoni called him in Il Cinque Maggio, an ode that he composed upon hearing the news of Napoleon’s death. Written a few months after the ardent stanzas of his other civic ode, Marzo 1821, this poem is nonetheless closer to Ermengarda’s chorus in the Adelchi, which was written a few months later. Following the same metrical structure as the chorus, the civic ode also develops one of Manzoni’s favourite themes, the “passion-resurrection”, and depicts Napoleon’s destiny as a voyage from worldly suffering to consolation in the afterlife, as is Ermengarda’s experience. At the start, the ode focuses on people’s astonishment upon hearing the news of Napoleon’s death (lines 1-12). The poet then distinguishes his song from the many encomiastic celebrations or offensive criticisms that ensued from the events of Napoleon’s life. It is in fact the moment of Napoleon’s death (the sùbito sparir di tanto raggio – “such great light suddenly extinguished”) that moves him to offer a song for his funeral, un cantico / che forse non morrà, “a song that perhaps will not die” (lines 13-24). Rapid and incisive images Napoleon’s actions follow: their grandiose nature, for good or bad, is a mark of the Creator’s power: tutto ei provò: la gloria / maggior dopo il periglio, / la fuga e la vittoria, / la reggia e il tristo esiglio: / due volte nella polvere, / due volte sull’altar, “he experienced all: the glory after the danger, the flight and the victory, the throne and sorrowful exile, twice in the dust, twice on the altar” (lines 25-54). The final stanzas present Napoleon in the period following his final defeat, in exile on St Helena. All his magnificent accomplishments and political power are now only an anguished memory. Like all worldly things, his greatness is now over. In his moment of greatest despair, however, divine mercy comes to comfort the wretched mortal he has become, in an afterlife that the poet describes in intensely lyrical terms, as in his account of Ermengarda’s death.

Manuscript of “Cinque Maggio” [in Immagini della vita e dei tempi di Alessandro Manzoni, collected and illustrated by Marino Parenti, Florence, Sansoni, 1973, p. 111]