18 h 47 minAudiobook9 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 18 h 47 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if your only wish is to marry, but a powerful man decides your future belongs to him?
In seventeenth-century Lombardy, Renzo Tramaglino and Lucia Mondella want a wedding, not a struggle with power. But the nobleman Don Rodrigo wants Lucia, and his threats frighten their priest, Don Abbondio, into refusing the marriage. In Alessandro Manzoni’s The Betrothed, a young couple’s simple hope meets a world where the law favours the strong and fear silences everyone else.
Lucia’s practical mother, Agnese, searches for a way forward, while Fra Cristoforo works to protect the poor from powerful men. Around them, hunger, war and disease threaten ordinary lives. Manzoni’s warm, wry narrator follows peasants, priests and nobles with a sharp eye for cowardice and pride, asking what faith and decency can do when injustice seems to hold every advantage.
What you’ll discover
- Love under threat Follow Renzo and Lucia as a blocked wedding puts their hopes and safety at risk.
- An evening by the lake Meet a frightened priest whose encounter with two armed men sets the story in motion.
- Quiet strength and practical courage Discover Lucia’s resolve, Agnese’s resourcefulness and a friar’s determination to stand beside the vulnerable.
- A society laid bare See how threats and favours serve the powerful while ordinary people struggle to be heard.
- A narrator with warmth Enjoy dry humour and thoughtful pauses that bring human weakness into clear, compassionate focus.
Who will love it
This book will delight readers who love a big, warm story of ordinary people against the mighty, and enjoy a narrator with wit and heart.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Two bravoes stop a frightened priest
- Renzo forces the truth and seeks a lawyer
- A friar with a violent past confronts Roderick
- A secret wedding fails in the dark
- Gertrude's forced vows shadow Lucy's refuge
- Hunger and wine send Renzo into danger
- A powerful outlaw takes up Roderick's cause
- Power escapes the laws that bind the weak
- Courage, faith and charity answer fear
- Manzoni tells the tale as a lively historian
Who’s who
- Renzo TramaglinoA young silk weaver, honest and quick to anger, who wants nothing more than to marry Lucy and is driven from home.
- Lucy MondellaA modest, devout village girl whose beauty draws the attention of a cruel lord and whose steady faith carries her through danger.
- AgnesLucy's shrewd, loving mother, who thinks she can outwit the curate and the world with a clever plan.
- Don AbbondioThe village curate, a timid man who dreads trouble above all and gives way when two bravoes threaten him.
- Don RoderickA proud local nobleman who wagers he can have Lucy and uses his hired thugs to get his way.
- Father ChristopherA Capuchin friar and former hot-tempered merchant's son, who defends Lucy and the poor with humble courage.
- The UnknownA feared outlaw lord, whose castle and band of bandits make him the most dreaded man in Lombardy.
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Die Verlobten
by Alessandro Manzoni · 1827
Two armed men block a curate's path in 1628, and a wedding between two villagers is suddenly forbidden.
Challenging10–20 hours to readDeutsch
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In short
What happens when a quiet priest is told, at dusk on a lonely path, that he must not marry two young villagers? On November 7, 1628, Don Abbondio walks home beside Lake Como, reciting his prayers, when he encounters two armed bravoes waiting by a chapel.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Two bravoes stop a frightened priest
Don Abbondio, the curate of a small village, walks home at dusk in the autumn of 1628. At a fork in the lane, beside a little chapel, two bravoes wait for him. These hired thugs wear green hairnets, long mustaches, pistols and swords, and everyone knows what they are.
They tell the curate that the marriage of Renzo Tramaglino and Lucy Mondella must not take place. When he stammers, they name their patron, Don Roderick, and warn him to say nothing. Don Abbondio promises obedience without quite knowing what he has promised. They leave singing a rude song while he stands frozen on the path.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 9 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1827
- Language
- Deutsch
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Manzoni, Alessandro. The Betrothed. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-betrothed.
Manzoni, A. (2026). The betrothed. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-betrothed (Original work published 1827)
Manzoni, Alessandro. The Betrothed. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-betrothed.
@book{manzoni2026betrothed,
author = {Manzoni, Alessandro},
title = {The Betrothed},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-betrothed},
note = {First published 1827}
}
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What is The Betrothed about?
It follows Renzo and Lucy, two villagers in Lombardy in 1628, whose wedding is blocked by a powerful lord. The novel traces their separation and their trials, showing how fear, hunger, war and faith shape ordinary lives.
Is The Betrothed a true story?
Invented characters share a real historical setting with figures drawn from history. Manzoni uses actual decrees, the Milan bread riot of 1628, the war over Mantua and the real Cardinal Federigo Borromeo. He presents the tale as a found manuscript.
Who is the Unknown in The Betrothed?
He is a feared outlaw lord in a cliff-top castle, whose name Manzoni withholds, saying the old historians would not give it. His reputation stretches across Lombardy, and Don Roderick asks for his help.
The author
Alessandro Manzoni
1785–1873 · Italian novelist and poet
Alessandro Manzoni was an Italian writer and poet born in Milan in 1785. He lived in Paris from 1805 to 1810, then returned to Milan. He wrote poems, plays, and the novel The Betrothed, published in 1827 and revised for publication in 1840–1842. He died in Milan in 1873.
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