The Betrothed

Summary

Young lovers Renzo and Lucia try to marry in seventeenth century Lombardy but are kept apart by a cowardly priest, a tyrannical nobleman, war, famine, and a devastating outbreak of plague. Manzoni follows their separate struggles to survive and reunite, weaving in vivid historical research about Italian life under Spanish rule. The novel is considered the first modern Italian novel and helped standardize the Italian language itself.