At our next Theology Book Club session, we will be thinking about Alessandro Manzoni’s novel The Betrothed. This will take place at 7.30 pm on Tuesday 24th November by Zoom.
Set in Lombardy during the Spanish occupation of the late 1620s, The Betrothed tells the story of two young lovers, Renzo and Lucia, prevented from marrying by the petty tyrant Don Rodrigo, who desires Lucia for himself.
The novel includes some of the most famous descriptions of the Great Milanese Plague of 1630, and heroically portrays the Church’s response to a time of pestilential trial.
Forced to flee from their home, Renzo and Lucia are then cruelly separated, and must face many dangers including plague, famine and imprisonment, and confront a variety of strange characters – the mysterious Nun of Monza, the fiery Father Cristoforo and the sinister ‘Unnamed’ – in their struggle to be reunited. A vigorous portrayal of enduring passion, The Betrothed’s exploration of love, power and faith presents a whirling panorama of seventeenth-century Italian life and is one of the greatest European historical novels.
Zoom link for The Betrothed here.
