Welcome to a thematic walk, entirely dedicated to the world of literature. Milan is the emblematic city of the Milanese writer: Alessandro Manzoni. His linguistic uniqueness reached its highest with a famous work, the so-called “The Betrothed”, published between 1825 and 1827, laying the foundations of a new romance style in Italy.

Today, we aim to explore this city through a Manzonian lens, retracing bit by bit, the unfolding of the story’s events. Through the streets of the Lombard capital, we will rediscover places and themes closely connected with the most widely read novel among Italian classics. Let’s now clarify the context of the book, and embark on a journey where reality and literature are in harmony.

Here, in Via San Gregorio, next to Saint Nicholas’ Orthodox Church, you can see a stretch of a red brick wall, apparently meaningless and elusive to the untrained eye. However, this place stood outside the city’s ancient mediaeval walls, and this unique last remnant belonged to the so-called Lazzaretto of Milan.

The Lazzaretto, is a term identifying a hospital and isolation centre for epidemic patients, which, for safety reasons, was located outside the city. It played a fundamental role in 1630, during the Black Plague, also known as “Leprosy”. At the time, this disease struck and scourged the inhabitants of Italy and Europe, especially centres of high population density, such as large cities and extensive suburbs. It affected all social classes, especially the working class, the most exposed. The word “Lazzaretto”, can be traced back to the leper Lazarus in the Gospel, who was saved by Jesus, and so gave this hospital an auspicious meaning. Another theory recalls the Venetian island of Saint Mary of Nazareth, also called “Nazarethum”, from which derives the mispronunciation Lazzaretto. In fact, this island off the Venetian lagoon, was a perfect place to isolate incurable patients, or those suffering from contagious diseases. Moreover, it was the first place where people practised the so-called “quarantine”, which consisted of forty days of isolation, to prevent contagion outbreaks from ships headed to Venice’s harbour.

However, the Lazzaretto of Milan is closely linked to our writer Alessandro Manzoni, as it is one of the primary recurring references in his masterpiece.

The Lazzaretto was first mentioned in the book during Milan’s famine in 1628. The novel narrates a young love story, between Renzo and Lucia, during the 17th century in northern Italy. The two must face and overcome difficulties and complications in the context of wars, hunger, poverty, jealousy, and lust for power. Precisely, the adventure is narrated in the historical period between 1628 and 1630, in various places in the Lombardy countryside, including Milan, torn apart by the historical consequences of the Thirty Years’ War, that was characterising that period.

Some of the novel’s characters and plot are fictional, but what characterises this book, is the author’s skill in describing and setting the story in a natural context, following the course of events that truly plagued 17th-century Milan. Manzoni explains the deep reasons for the famine in Chapter XII, as he is about to describe the unrest in the city in which Renzo, the young lover, finds himself involved.

At that time, the Milanese territories were affected by bad weather, and above all, by failures and squandering regarding the succession war of the nearby kingdoms of Mantua and Monferrato. In addition, the State imposed unbearable taxes on the landowners, and the soldiers plundered fields and food reserves, which were already scarcer than usual. The Lazzaretto is a reference point in the story, and a characteristic destination that takes on an essential significance, despite today’s few visible traces. This place is an emblem of the binomial between the writer and his native city. A simple stretch of a red brick wall, can today hand down the memory of hardship and suffering, shared by all the Milanese of the time, well-illustrated in the novel.

Let’s now follow the marked path on the map, and reach the nearby Church of San Gregorio, connected to the ancient Lazzaretto, where we will better clarify the situation in the book.

Ptolemy

Essential Milan in one walk

Leonardo: the genius in Milan

Mediolanum

Secrets of Milan: hidden treasures in the heart of the city

Giuseppe Verdi in Milan

Biking along the ancient gateways of Milan

City Life, a step into the future

Traces of the Duchy of Milan

Discovering Milan’s green giants

Alla scoperta dei giganti verdi di Milano

Fragments of rebellion: the “Five Days of Milan”

The curious legend of Milan’s foundation

Behind San Satiro’s architectural secret

The writer’s church in Milan

The forgotten battleground in Milan

The dreadful “Lazzaretto”

The Devil Abode

The macabre statue in the dome of Milan

The 10 secret places you didn’t know about Milan

“Omenoni” House

The sarcophagus of Lambrate

“San Bernardino alle Ossa”: An Ossuary Chapel in the Centre of Milan

A stone with a curious irony