ABSTRACT
Alessandro Manzoni was an Italian writer and philosopher, whose novel The Betrothed is generally considered a masterpiece of Romantic literature. It is especially significant for Italian culture, offering one of the earliest examples of a unified Italian language and national identity. The book tells the story of the peasant, Renzo, and his betrothed Lucia, who has fallen into the hands of the village robber-baron Don Rodrigo. The plot follows Renzo as he pursues his love through a range of adventurous scenes, and conforms to a moral tale where the bad are punished, the virtuous rewarded and the church offers order in chaos. The scene excerpted below explores a moment of political unrest, where the crowd demand justice from their political leaders, believed to be hoarding food and selling it at a higher price, during a famine. Renzo is placed here as the hero, who nonetheless wishes to ensure that proper justice, not mob rule, is served.
