SOURCE: “Beyond Time and Space in Manzoni's Tragedies,” in Rivista di Studi Italiani, Vol. 3, No. 2, December, 1985, pp. 68-87.

In the following essay, Radcliff-Umstead describes Manzoni's tragedies Il conte di Carmagnola and Adelchi as dramas of Christian salvation and transcendence.

Alessandro Manzoni structured his tragedies Il Conte di Carmagnola and Adelchi on a dialectic between history and eternity, excessive evaluation of time and transcendence of territorial ambitions. This author aimed at creating Christian tragedies that would represent man's earthly battle for sovereign might and the final realization of the vanity involved in the struggle for control over the world. Following the example of Shakespeare as an historical dramatist, Manzoni sought to understand the centuries-old tragedy of Italy by going back to the records of the internecine warfare of city-states during the Renaissance and the imperial expansionism of the Longobard realm in the eighth century. The Italian writer hoped to...