'' A controversy between classicists and romantics broke out in January 1816, the date on which Italian Romanticism is usually officially begun, when the French writer
Madame de Staël published in Milan, on the magazine
Biblioteca Italiana, her article
On the manner and utility of translations, in which she invited Italians to know and translate
foreign literatures as a means of renewing their own culture. Young intellectuals such as
Pietro Borsieri (1788–1852),
Giovanni Berchet (1783–1851),
Ludovico di Breme (1780–1820), firmly sided with the romantic renewal advocated by Staël, while others such as
Pietro Giordani remained faithful to the principles of classicism. Berchet wrote a pamphlet entitled ''Grisostom's Semi-Serious Letter to His Son
, considered the manifesto of Italian Romanticism, for which true poetry springs from the popular spirit. Di Breme defined Romanticism as «the liberation of the soul from the constraints of old forms and as a creative impulse»; he was among the founders of a new liberal magazine, Il Conciliatore'', organ of romantic school established in 1818 at Milan, whose members included, in addition to Borsieri, Berchet, di Breme,
Silvio Pellico,
Tommaso Grossi,
Maroncelli,
Scalvini,
Confalonieri,
Lambertenghi,
Romagnosi, but their activity was nipped in the bud by Austrian
censorship, which imprisoned many of them or forced them into
exile. The experience of the
Conciliatore, which was addressed to the most progressive
bourgeoisie and aimed to involve
italian people in the diffusion of romantic sentiment and patriotic ideals, was taken up in
Florence by the journal ''
L'Antologia'' (1821–1833), founded by
Giovan Pietro Vieusseux and
Gino Capponi; in
Naples by
Giuseppe Ricciardi's
Il Progresso (1832–1847), which
Baldacchini and
Cagnazzi collaborated on. Meanwhile, the uprisings of the Risorgimento following the Restoration of
Conservative Order were already spreading across the peninsula, and to these tensions Italian Romantic literature would prove closely linked. More than any other form of literature, Romanticism was committed to the construction of a
national identity. At least in the first half of the nineteenth century, it was less concerned with defining strategies of struggle and institutional forms of government, and more focused on
moralistic,
humanitarian, and
pedagogical aims. The idea of the historical novel came to him from
Sir Walter Scott, but he succeeded in something more than an
historical novel in the narrow meaning of that word; he created an eminently realistic work of art. So
The Betrothed is generally ranked among the masterpieces of
world literature. The novel is also a symbol of the Italian
Risorgimento, both for its patriotic message In it, Manzoni dives down into the innermost recesses of the human heart, and draws thence the most subtle psychological reality. In this his greatness lies, which was recognized first by his companion in genius,
Goethe. As a poet too he had gleams of genius, especially in the Napoleonic ode,
The Fifth of May, and where he describes human affections, as in some stanzas of the
Hymns and in the chorus of the
Adelchi. But it is on the
Bethored alone that his fame now rests. by
Stanislao Ferrazzi The great poet of the age was
Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837), born thirteen years after Manzoni at
Recanati, of a patrician family, bigoted and avaricious. He became so familiar with
Greek authors that he used afterwards to say that the
Greek mode of thought was more clear and living to his mind than the
Latin or even the
Italian. Solitude, sickness, domestic tyranny, prepared him for profound
melancholy. From this he passed into complete religious scepticism, from which he sought rest in art. Everything is terrible and grand in his poems, but besides being the greatest poet of
nature and of
sorrow, he was also an admirable
prose writer. In his
Operette morali (
Small Moral Works), dialogues and discourses marked by a cold and bitter smile at human destinies that freezes the reader, the clearness of style, the simplicity of language and the depth of conception are such that perhaps he is not only the greatest lyrical poet since Dante, but also one of the most perfect writers of prose that
Italian literature has had. He is widely seen as one of the most radical and challenging thinkers of the 19th century Although he was educated in the
Enlightenment culture, he highlights its negative and destructive aspects, and despite his
pessimistic materialism he maintains a paradoxical relationship with
Platonism, which does not cancel but rather exalts the «eternal mystery/ of our being», reaching an unconscious harmony with
German Romanticism, even though he has nothing in common with
Idealism.
Patriotic and political literature Manzoni's pedagogical realism inspired the spread of the
historical novel, which included works by
Massimo d'Azeglio (
Ettore Fieramosca),
Tommaso Grossi (
Marco Visconti),
Cesare Cantù (
Margherita Pusterla),
Giovanni Ruffini (
Doctor Antonio),
Silvio Pellico,
Luigi Capranica,
Niccolò Tommaseo and others. Their novels conveyed patriotic ideals behind events set in the distant past, especially the
Middle Ages, to circumvent Austrian censorship. defended the moral supremacy of
Italy as a «princely nation». But after 1840, even
history returned to its spirit of learned research, from the manner of
Botta and
Colletta, as is shown in such works as the
Archivio storico italiano, established at Florence by
Giovan Pietro Vieusseux (a continuation of his
Antologia, which was suppressed in 1833 owing to the action of the Austrian government), the
History of Italy in the Middle Ages by
Carlo Troya, a remarkable treatise by Manzoni himself (
On Some Points of Lombard History in Italy), and the fine history of the
Sicilian Vespers by
Michele Amari. The literary movement that preceded and was contemporary with the
political revolution of 1848 may be said to be represented by four writers:
Giuseppe Giusti (1809–1850),
Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi (1804–1873),
Vincenzo Gioberti (1801–1852) and
Cesare Balbo (1789–1853). Giusti wrote
epigrammatic satires in popular language. Guerrazzi had a great reputation and great influence, but his historical novels, though avidly read before 1848, were soon forgotten. Gioberti was a powerful
polemical writer; his
Moral and civil Primacy of Italians will last as an important document of the times, manifesto of
Neo-Guelphism which recalling the medieval
Guelphs outlined the goal of a national
federation of the various
Italian states, of which
Catholic universalism would be the religion that defined
Italian identity, since «Italy is the most
cosmopolitan of nations». Like Gioberti in his early years, Balbo was zealous for a civil
papacy and a federation of Italian states, but presided over by the
House of Savoy; his
Summary of the History of Italy is an excellent example. By contrast, Giusti and Guerrazzi called themselves neo-
Ghibellines, personified also by
Pepe,
Cattaneo,
Ferrari,
Sismondi,
La Farina, and the playwright
Giovanni Battista Niccolini (1782–1861). Patriotic literature was still expressed in the novel
Confessions of an Italian by
Ippolito Nievo (1831–1861), about the exploits of
Giuseppe Garibaldi's
Thousand. Late Romanticism was represented, among others, by
Francesco Dall'Ongaro,
Giovanni Prati,
Aleardo Aleardi. ==Philosophical spiritualism and historicism==