Alessandro Manzoni lived in the town in his youth and was inspired by it for his famous novel
The opening to The Betrothed is one of Italian literature’s best known. In fact, Alessandro Manzoni wanted his novel to begin with a photo of the Lecco branch of Lake Como, ‘with its bays and gulfs’, the two mountains protecting it, San Martino and Resegone, and ‘the many hills lined up which in actual fact, make it look like a saw.’ There are so many references to the area in the novel that a full-blown tour of these is possible.
Stages of the tour
It is in Lecco that Renzo and Lucia’s trials and tribulations begin. You can get here on the water using boats setting off from Bellagio or by train. It’s located on the Milan-Colico-Tirano line and can also be reached thanks to the special Trenord packages “Primo Bacino di Lecco” and “Il sentiero del Viandante,” which, at a discounted price, allow you to arrive in Lecco by train and from there set off to discover the beauty of the lake by boat.
Once you get to Lecco, the Manzoni tour begins in the Pescarenico district – ‘a small group of houses mainly inhabited by fisherfolk and draped here and there with nets of various types stretched out to dry’, as Manzoni described it, where you can visit the Fra Cristoforo monastery which now contains polychrome wax compositions dating to the 16th century depicting scenes from the lives of Christ, the Virgin Mary and saints Francis and Chiara.
On the opposite side of the city you can visit the Acquate and Olate districts, rivals for the location of Lucia’s house. Chiesa dei Santi Vitale e Valeria, probably Don Abbondio’s parish, is here. The Zucco promontory, where Don Rodrigo lived, is also near here. The house was commissioned in the 16th century by the aristocratic Arrigoni di Introbio family and is now called Villa Guzzi. It was near here that the two bravi utter the novel’s famous phrase to Don Abbondio ‘this wedding will not happen, not tomorrow, not ever.’
Visitors to Lecco should not miss out on a walk through Chiuso district, the location of the house Lucia is taken into when she escapes from the Innominato castle on its crag in nearby Vercurago. The last stage of the itinerary is the house belonging to the Manzoni family (Via Don Guanella, 1), where he spent his childhood, teenage years and youth, as he himself mentions in the introduction to Il Fermo e Lucia, the novel’s first name.
The house is now a museum containing manuscripts, books and memorabilia belonging to the famous author.
