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Alessandro Manzoni and the Oxford Movement: His Politics and Conversion in a New English Source

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

John Lindon
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , April 1994 , pp. 297 - 318
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 Gladstone's diary record of the visit was first published, together with the Gladstone-Manzoni correspondence, by Reynolds, B. in ‘W. E. Gladstone and Alessandro Manzoni’, Italian Studies vi (1951), 63–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and then republished in The Gladstone diaries, ed. Foot, M. R. D., ii, Oxford 1968, 414–15Google Scholar. The visit's significance is explored by Dionisotti, C. in ‘Manzoni and the Catholic revival’, Proceedings of the British Academy lix (1973), 341–53Google Scholar, and ‘Manzoni e Gladstone’, Attidel l'Accademia delle Scienze di Torino cvii (1972–1973), 757–82Google Scholar. The latter now appears in the author's Appunti sui moderni, Bologna 1988, 317–36Google Scholar. For an appreciation of Gladstone's Anglo-Catholic stance in 1838, Dionisotti's work is complemented by Butler, P., Gladstone: Church, State and Tractarianism: a study of his religious ideas and attitudes, 1809–1859, Oxford 1982Google Scholar.

2 See appendix.

3 J. H. Wynne, in his 1882 letter to Edward Moore (see appendix), twice refers to a letter from Hope, and T. W. Allies, in his report of the meeting (ibid.), confirms that Hope was mentioned. No such letter, however, is to be found among Manzoni's papers in Milan. Gladstone's introduction for Hope, dated 30 Jul. 1840, is published in Reynolds, , ‘W. E. Gladstone and Alessandro Manzoni’, 66–7Google Scholar. Hope's first visit took place on 18 Oct. On 6 Nov. he recorded the conversation of a second: Ornsby, R., Memoirs of J. R. Hope Scott of Abbotsford, London 1884, i. 235–6Google Scholar; and on 18 Nov., after a further visit, he reported at length to Gladstone: ibid. 244–5. Hope's companion, Rogers, Frederic, also recorded two of the conversations in a diary fragment published in Letters of Frederic Lord Blachford, ed. Marandin, G. E., London 1896, 67–70Google Scholar, and discussed in De Luca, G., Intorno al Manzoni, Rome 1974, 79–87Google Scholar. Hope later obtained some English books for Manzoni: Manzoni, A., Lettere, ed. Milan, C. Arieti 1970, ii. 189Google Scholar. For the visit in Nov. 1844 see Ornsby, , Memoirs off. R. Hope Scott, ii. 52Google Scholar. In May 1845 Manzoni reciprocated Gladstone's introduction for Hope with one for Trechi, S.: Reynolds, , ‘W. E. Gladstone and Alessandro Manzoni’, 67Google Scholar. Hope, dubbed by Gladstone ‘the most winning person of his day’, married Sir Walter Scott's grand-daughter in 1847, and on becoming owner of Abbotsford, in 1853, changed his name to Hope-Scott.

4 From ‘Le scimie milanesi’ in the 1858 verse collection Le lucciole by Nievo, I.: see his Poesie, Florence 1883, 70Google Scholar.

5 See De Gubernatis, A., Il Manzoni ed il Fauriel, Rome 1880, 63Google Scholar.

6 See Appendix. The letter introduces Revd Joseph Oldknow, leader of the High Church party in Birmingham, who over the years had campaigned against ‘secession’ to Roman Catholicism. Newman himself had planned to visit Manzoni on his way to Rome in 1846, and had armed himself with an introduction from Hope, : The letters and diaries of J. H. Newman, ed. Dessain, C. S., xi, London 1961, 219Google Scholar. However, though in Milan for nearly five weeks (from 20 Sept. to 23 Oct.), he had missed him: ibid. 262, 264, and xii, ed. C. S. Dessain, London 1962, 50. Manzoni was on villeggiatura at the time but, as the Newman letter published here reveals, sent a present of figs through Abate Giovanni Ghianda, a family friend of the Manzonis who acted as Newman's cicerone in Milan, , and in a letter to Ghianda, of 14 Oct. expressed his ‘immense consolation’ at the ‘great neophyte's’ conversion: Lettere, ii. 373Google Scholar.

7 Allies set out for England on 13 August leaving his companions to proceed from Venice to Bologna and Florence: Allies, T. W., Journal in France in 1845 and 1848, with letters from Italy in 1847 of things and persons concerning the Church and education, London 1849, 164Google Scholar. Pollen, J. H., in an obituary of Wynne, J. H. that appeared in Letters and notices xxii (1893–1894), 345–59Google Scholar, states that the trip ended prematurely because of a family misfortune that befell one of the party. For Allies's relations with Newman, see below. Pollen first met him in Dublin in 1854 but had heard him preach at St Mary's, Oxford, in his undergraduate days: Trevor, M., Newman: light in winter, London 1962, 60Google Scholar. In a letter of 25 Nov. 1884 Wynne, acknowledged his ‘deep gratitude for inestimable services which you have (unconsciously) rendered to me in former times [his Oxford days] when I was not personally known to you’: The letters and diaries of J. H. Newman, xxx, ed. Dessain, C. S. and Gornall, T., Oxford 1976, 439Google Scholar.

8 Letters and Notices, 349.

9 ‘Tendimus in Latium’ (Aeneid i, 205) is recorded as an ultra-Puseyite motto of the 1840s: Pattison, M., Memoirs, London 1885, 184Google Scholar.

10 The information on Wynne contained in this paragraph is drawn mainly from the above-mentioned obituary (which Fr Geoffrey Holt sj, of the Mount Street Archives, kindly drew to my attention) and from entries in Burke's landed gentry, ed. Pine, L. G., London 1952, 857–8Google Scholar, and The dictionary of Welsh biography down to 1940, ed. Lloyd, J. E. and Jenkins, R.T., London 1959, 288–9, 1104Google Scholar.

11 Burke's landed gentry, 857.

12 For Carlo Ludovico, see Spreti, V., Enciclopedia storico-nobiliare italiana, Milan 1931, iv. 450Google Scholar; and for his father, recalled after twenty-five years' service in London for presuming to take the part of Palmerston against his own reactionary superior, Count Solaro della Margarita, : Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, Rome 1960, i. 407–8Google Scholar. From Pollen's journal of the tour, quoted in Pollen, Anne, John Hungerford Pollen, 1820–1902, London 1912, it emerges (pp. 83–4)Google Scholar that he and Wynne rounded off the tour with a visit to the d'Aglié family, who on 17 Sept. took them to Moncalieri to meet the royal children.

13 Ibid. 224.

14 Letters and Notices, 347.

15 The Letters and diaries of J. H. Newman, ed. Dessain, C. S., xiii, London 1963, 267–8Google Scholar.

16 The dictionary of national biography, 1901–1911 Supplement, London 1912, iii. 122–4Google Scholar; Burke's peerage, ed. Townend, P., London 1970, 2136–7Google Scholar; Pollen, John Hungerford Pollen.

17 Ibid. The party had dined with De Fresne on 6 and 8 Jul.: Allies, , Journal, 112, 116Google Scholar.

18 For Allies, , see DNB 1901–1911, 37–8Google Scholar; Allies, Mary H., Thomas William Allies, London 1907Google Scholar; and his own A life's decision, London 1880Google Scholar.

19 For these judgements, see ibid. 101–3.

20 Letters and Notices, 351.

21 Allies, , A Life's Decision, 141–2Google Scholar.

22 Letter from the Earl of Shrewsbury to Ambrose Lisle Phillipps, Esq., descriptive of the Estatica of Caldaro and the Addolorata of Capriana, London 1841Google Scholar. The letter had had a second edition in 1842 and had been attacked in the Church of England Quarterly Review (1843) in a piece entitled ‘Lord Shrewsbury's miraculous virgins’.

23 See Allies's correspondence with Wilberforce, , in A life's decision, 178ffGoogle Scholar.

24 See Purcell, E. S., Life of Cardinal Manning, London 1895, i. 559Google Scholar, letter of 5 Sept. 1850 from Allies to Manning.

25 Cf. ibid. 559, 699–701. Manning resigned his preferments in autumn 1850 and abjured with Hope on 6 April 1851.

26 Allies, , A life's decision, 220ffGoogle Scholar.

27 Patterson, J. L., Journal of a tour in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Greece, London 1852Google Scholar. They went in search of ‘a Catholicity different from that of Rome at the present day’: p. 211. According to Pollen, Anne, John Hungerford Pollen, 163Google Scholar, they were seriously considering a submission to the Greek church under the influence of Revd William Palmer, but their contacts with Eastern Christendom proved a disappointment: Patterson, , Journal of a tour, 213–14Google Scholar . In Aug. and Sept. 1849 Wynne had received letters arguing the case for papal supremacy from another Oxonian, J. B. (‘Jack’) Morris, then studying at the English College in Rome. I am grateful to Fr Geoffrey Holt for allowing me to see these missives, which are kept at the Mount Street archives.

28 Pollen, J. H., Narrative of five years at St. Saviour's, Leeds, Oxford 1851Google Scholar. Pollen was inhibited, together with fellow clergy, by Bishop Longley of Ripon, in the ‘No Popery’ agitation (Nov. 1850) that followed the so-called ‘Papal aggression’, when Pius IX declared a new territorial division of England as the basis for a Roman Catholic hierarchy. The occasion for Pollen's inhibition was a sermon teaching the existence of seven sacraments in contravention of the Twenty-Fifth Article.

29 Wynne was reordained in 1854 after studying theology at the Accademia Ecclesiastica with Henry James Coleridge, great-nephew of the poet. He attended lectures at the Collegio Romano until 1857, when he and Coleridge entered the Jesuit novitiate.

30 Letters and notices, 354.

31 Bezzola, G., Giulia Manzoni Beccaria, Milan 1985, 144Google Scholar.

32 See, for instance, Alberti, G., ‘Alessandro Manzoni’, in Cecchi, E. and Sapegno, N. (eds), Storia della letteratura italiana, Milan 1965–1969, vii. 644Google Scholar.

33 Fossi, P., La conversione di Alessandro Manzoni, 2nd edn, Florence 1974, 45–6Google Scholar.

34 , S. S., Alessandro Manzoni, la sua famiglia, i suoi amici: appunti e memorie, Milan 1885, 31Google Scholar.

35 Magenta, C., Monsignor Luigi Tosi e Alessandro Manzoni: notizie e documenti inediti, Pavia 1876, 21Google Scholar.

36 Arrivabene, G., Memorie della mia vita, 1795–1859, Florence 1879, 81Google Scholar.

37 Norsa, D., Pensieri d' un cattolico, Prato 1850, 6Google Scholar; Garcano, G., Storia della letteratura italiana dalla metà del Settecento ai giomi nostri, Milan 1880, 219Google Scholar; Zanella, G., Vita di Alessandro Manzoni, Milan 1873, 11Google Scholar.

38 Fabris, C., Memorie manzoniane, Milan 1901, 42–3, 99–100Google Scholar.

39 Venosta, G. Visconti, Ricordi di gioventù: cose vedute o sapute, 1847–1860, Milan 1904, 592Google Scholar.

40 Cantù, C., Alessandro Manzoni: reminiscenze, Milan 1882, ii. 163Google Scholar.

41 De Gubernatis, A., Alessandro Manzoni: studio biografico, Florence 1879, 122Google Scholar.

42 Barbiera, R., Il salotto della Contessa Maffei, Milan 1895, 268Google Scholar.

43 Fossi, , La conversione, 44–5Google Scholar.

44 Bezzola, , Giulia Manzoni Beccaria, 142Google Scholar.

45 , S. S., Alessandro Manzoni, 31Google Scholar.

46 G. Giorgini, Manzoni's son-in-law, reports the statement in a letter of 1876 to Carlo Magenta: Scherillo, M., Manzoni intimo, Milan 1923, ii. 257Google Scholar.

47 Manzoni, A., Carteggio, ed. Sforza, G. and Gallavresi, G., Milan 1912, pt I, 256Google Scholar, Pierre-Jean Agier to Eustachio Degola, 24 Dec. 1810.

48 Letters of Frederic Lord Blachford, 69.

49 De Gubernatis, , Il Manzoni ed il Fauriel, 63Google Scholar.

50 I promessi sposi, ch. xxiii.

51 Ibid. ch. xxiv.

52 Manzoni, , Lettere, i. 98Google Scholar.

53 For the list of those signing as witnesses, see Manzoni, , Carleggio, pt 1, 202–5Google Scholar.

54 Manzoni, , Lettere, i. 108Google Scholar, letter to Fauriel of 21 Sept. 1810: ‘Je vous dirai done qu'avant tout je me suis occupé de l'objet le plus important en suivant les idées religieuses que Dieu m'a envoyées à Paris, et qu'à mesure que j'ai avancé mon coeur a toujours été plus content et mon esprit plus satisfait.' Late in life he is said to have told one intimate (the priest Ceroli) that his conversion was occasioned by that of his wife: , S. S., Alessandro Manzoni, 31Google Scholar.

55 Fossi, , La conversione, 60Google Scholar.

56 De Gubernatis, Il Manzoni ed il Fauriel.

57 Manzoni, , Carteggio, pt I, 208–9Google Scholar.

58 Idem, Lettere, i. 106.

59 Ibid. 107.

60 Manzoni, , Carteggio, pt I, 236–7Google Scholar.

61 Bondioli, P., Manzoni e gli ‘Amici della Verità’, Milan 1936, 18Google Scholar.

62 Ibid.

63 Manzoni, , Lettere, i. 100–1Google Scholar, letter of 12 June 1810.

64 Ibid. 103–4, letter of 20 Jul. 1810. On their arrival at Turin on 27 June, their friend G. B. Somis, who had played a major part in Henriette's conversion, reported to Degola: ‘Poveretti! Han dovuto rimanersi per quindici giorni a Lione pressoché tutti ammalati e voi dovete figurarvi con quanto disagio. Ma Iddio riserva agli eletti suoi pruove maggiori’: Manzoni, , Carteggio, pt I, 211Google Scholar, letter of 28 June 1810 to E. Degola.

65 Cf. Manzoni's words to Gaetano Giudici: ‘Ella […] avrà […] saputo, o preveduto certamente che i parenti suoi [scil. di Enrichetta] ne hanno concepita una smoderatissima collera’: Manzoni, , Lettere, i. 102Google Scholar, letter of 29 June 1810.

66 G. B. Somis to E. Degola, 28 June 1810: Manzoni, , Carteggio, 211Google Scholar.

67 Ginzburg, N., La famiglia Manzoni, Turin 1983, 31Google Scholar.

68 See Manzoni, , Carteggio, pt I, 184–5Google Scholar. For Petit, , see Nouvelle biographie générale, xxxix. 717–18Google Scholar.

69 See Manzoni, , Lettere, i. 100–1, 103–4, letters to Fauriel of 12 June and 20 Jul. 1810.Google Scholar

70 Abbé Pavy, L. A., Les Cordeliers de I' Observance à Lyon, ou I'église et le couvent de ce nom, depuis la fondation jusqu' à nos jours, Lyons 1836, 66–7Google Scholar.

71 Milan, Biblioteca Braidense, BXXXI 84/5. The envelope is addressed to ‘Don Alessandro Manzoni/via del Morone/Milano’ and pencilled ‘Da M. Defresne’ and ‘Musae Etonenses, Eton College’. With the letter are the travellers’ visiting cards, two of them pencilled with their Milan address: ‘Albergo Bella Venezia/Piazza S. Fidele [sic]’.

72 From Allies, , Journal, 122–4Google Scholar.

73 Milan, Biblioteca Braidense, BXXIX 27, addressed ‘al Chiarissimo Signore/Alessandro Manzoni/Milano’, and headed ‘dal Collegio dei Morti/Università di Oxford/il 2ndo. di Julio 1848’.

74 Ibid. BXXV 12, headed ‘L'Oratorio/di S. Filippo Neri/Birmingham/Inghilterra/April. 12. 1860’, and preserved together with the original envelope (addressed ‘A sua Eccellenza/Signor Alessandro Manzoni’) and Oldknow's visiting card (pencilled ‘Albergo Reale’).

75 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Eng. misc. e. 84, fos 129–32, headed ‘St Beuno's College, St Asaph, 9 Dec. 1882’.

76 Clearly the letter reproduced as item III in the appendix to this article.

77 Manzoni's reduced circumstances were due partly to the death of his mother in 1841 and partly to the commercial failure of the 1840–2 illustrated edition of I promessi sposi.

78 Hope had not yet married Scott's grand-daughter but the union was imminent (19 Aug. 1847).

79 Colquhoun, A., Manzoni and his times, London 1954, 189Google Scholar, thinks that this anecdote probably originated with Cesare Cantù. The alleged meeting is discounted as ‘most unlikely chronologically’. According to Teresa Stampa, Scott made the remark to Antonio Panizzi in London.

80 Wynne is evidently referring to Clarke, Ellen M., ‘Alessandro Manzoni and his works’, The Dublin Review xci (07–10 1882), 281Google Scholar, where, however, the St-Roch story is actually discounted: ‘The story told is that on going into the church of St. Roque, attracted by the music, conviction came to him like a sudden inspiration, in answer to a brief ejaculation. This version of the event does not however seem to rest on any good foundation, and Manzoni always maintained a strict reserve on the subject.’

81 The controversial Rosmini (1797–1855) had been attacked by the Jesuits during his lifetime, and two of his books condemned by the Congregation of the Index (1849). In the 1870s controversy had flared up again. This led eventually to Leo XIII's condemnation in 1887 of forty propositions taken from his writings.