Piazza Manzoni e monumento ad Alessandro Manzoni

Piazza Manzoni gathers the city's literary identity around a bronze figure: Alessandro Manzoni, seated with the manuscript of The Betrothed on his knees, watching the water and the mountains he turned into fiction.

Why it matters

Alessandro Manzoni is among the most influential novelists in Italian literature, and Lecco is the city most closely tied to The Betrothed (I promessi sposi), whose famous opening describes the point where Lake Como narrows into the river Adda. The monument at the centre of this square, put in place in 1891, was the city's public declaration of that bond. The monument is one of several places in and around Lecco associated with Manzoni, including the Manzonian literary geography and Villa Manzoni with its museum.

What to notice

The seated figure, just under three metres tall in bronze, shows the writer in a reflective pose, the manuscript resting on his lap. The Baveno granite base bears three bronze reliefs by the same sculptor, retelling the arc of the novel. Facing Pescarenico across the water is the abduction of Lucia, labelled in contemporary descriptions as "the guilt"; towards via Roma, the death of Don Rodrigo in the lazaretto, "the expiation"; towards viale della Costituzione, the wedding of the two betrothed, "innocence triumphant". The side turned towards the Resegone, the city's jagged mountain backdrop, bears the coats of arms of the Kingdom of Italy and of Lecco.

The statue, lake and mountain form a composition associated with the city's literary identity.

Context and history

After Manzoni's death in 1873, Lecco resolved to honour its most celebrated literary figure. A fundraising committee instituted in 1885 — chaired, with a certain symmetry, by the Lecco-born abbot and geologist Antonio Stoppani, who is himself commemorated on the same lakefront — collected the necessary funds. A competition among sculptors was won by Francesco Confalonieri, a Brianza sculptor, whose model prevailed among thirteen rivals; the composer Giuseppe Verdi was numbered among the contributors.

The inauguration in 1891 was a national occasion: Senator Gaetano Negri delivered the official address, the lakefront was illuminated, fireworks were launched over the water, and Giosuè Carducci used the celebration to deliver the speech remembered as the "discorso di Lecco". The statue has kept its original position on the square ever since, and it received a conservative restoration in 2016.