Giulia Beccaria with little Alessandro
Alessandro Manzoni was born in Milan on 7 March 1785 from the wedding of Giulia Beccaria, daughter of the famous Cesare, and Peter, belonging to one of the noblest families of the city, but not a few sources seriously question the aforementioned authorship:let's see why.
To heal the poor economic conditions of the family to which she belongs, the twenty-year-old Giulia, on 20 October 1782, had agreed to marry the widower Pietro, although she was in love with the youngest of the Verri brothers , John; the union, probably due to irremediable differences due to profound character differences, as well as to a clear absence of feelings at least on the female side, turned out to be, as expected, bankruptcy under the human aspect, to the point that, at the beginning of 1792 , it came to the separation.
The marriage, of pure facade, had never represented for Giulia an impediment to the continuation of the relationship with Giovanni Verri, almost certainly biological father of her son, perhaps clear evidence to Pietro himself, to whom the child was entrusted, however, also given the lack of interest of the mother in her.
Pietro Manzoni, Alessandro's “official” father
In an era of arranged marriages, it was natural and generally accepted by both spouses that true love was sought and lived outside of it, only the children who, if illegitimate, had to suffer heavy legal restrictions and enduring inevitable prejudices that ended up influencing social life not a little.
For this reason, an attempt was made to avoid this condition for innocent offspring and often pretended to be non-existent paternities to protect it, a trick generously adopted also by Pietro Manzoni, who as far as we know, was a loving and affectionate parent for the little Alessandro, to the point of appointing him universal heir of all his possessions.
A nobility of soul repaid with immortality, as if it is certain that the artistic vein was a legacy of the natural paternal progeny, including the Verri among the most influential writers of their time, it is equally true that the greatest Italian writer contemporary is known by the name of Alessandro Manzoni and so it will be from here to eternity.