Alessandro Manzoni

It is well known that Alessandro Manzoni (1785–1873) came to Tuscany to “rinse clothes in the Arno”.

As reported by Juliet, the eldest 20-year-old daughter, in her diary, from 10 to 25 July 1827, the complete family, made up of thirteen people, including servants — moving with two carriages, one of which during the journey ended in an escarpment — came to Livorno.

During his stay in Genoa, where he had taken sea baths, Manzoni had been warned about the “outrageous” heat of our city and certain mosquitoes that gave a fever and ruined the skin, for which he arrived already prevented. An organizational misunderstanding for which he was tossed about from one hotel to another did not contribute to ingratiate him. He then stopped in via Ferdinanda, that is, via Grande.

Writing to his friend Tommaso Grossi, he complains of the confusion:

“Such is the crowd, the going, the coming, the entering, the going out, the shouting, the talking.”

Although the windows of the hotel room faced the back, they looked out onto a cloister that belonged to the Caffè Greco, then the first in Livorno, and the cackling took the whole family off sleep.

We know that on the journey Manzoni had brought several copies of the novel, recently printed in a draft prior to the linguistic revision. The book, in fact, had been successful but was not easily available in Tuscany. He sold almost all of them.