Bettoni 1806: tra i «Versi in morte di Carlo Imbonati» e i «Sepolcri»,

The essay investigates the relations between Versi a Carlo Imbonati and I Sepolcri, works that meet in Brescia, in Bettoni’s printing house, where Gianbattista Pagani is editing the third edition of the Versi, without the disputed dedication to Monti and Foscolo is proofreading I Sepolcri, where he quotes nine lines of the Imbonati, ackowledging the young talent of the author. This citation represents Foscolo’s extreme attempt at attracting young Manzoni into his inner circle, after he had refused to become a Monti’s follower. But Manzoni refuses the dedication of Zante’s poet, thus confirming the distance and the coldness he had already showed on the occasion of Foscolo’s previous visit to the Manzoni’s in Paris. This refusal involves the essence of the poetic and anthropological vision of the two artists. Actually, in Imbonati Manzoni questions one of tenets of Foscolo’s poetics, expressed in Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis and in his sonnets: the dichotomy between heart and reason; moreover, while Foscolo considers this condition a sort of plan for life, given the impossibility to change it, Manzoni views it as an imperfect situation that, althugh natural, belongs to the youth and must be corrected. It is, in the end, a comparison between two anthropological systems: the anthropology of division and stillness of Foscolo and the anthropology of the constant search for unity of Manzoni.