https://doi.org/10.4081/nhs.2024.730
[The plants of I Promessi Sposi recount Alessandro Manzoni]
Submitted: 31 October 2023
Accepted: 5 March 2024
Published: 25 July 2024
Accepted: 5 March 2024
Abstract Views: 3161
PDF: 18
Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Authors
If we focus on the wild plants described by Alessandro Manzoni in the novel I Promessi Sposi, it is possible to explore two important dimensions that have received little attention, namely the imaginary but realistic reconstruction of a 17th-century plant landscape and the writer’s knowledge of wild flora. Manzoni’s botanical expertise was enhanced in the management of the estate in Brusuglio (Milan), where his duties as a farmer put him in daily contact with plants and weeds of all kinds, good or bad for the progress of the estate, which the writer observed with curiosity and attention. Benefiting from this experience, the writer transposed 22 among the different wild species known to him into his novel to give each of them a setting and landscape role in the scenarios of the story’s events. These plants today tell us about him.
[Article in Italian]
APG IV, 2016 – An update of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification for the orders and families of Flowering Plants. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 181: 1-20.
Balogh L., Juhász M., 2008 – American and Chinese pokeweed (Phytolacca americana L., Ph. esculenta Van Houtte). In: The most important invasive plants in Hungary. Botta-Dukát Z., Balogh L. (eds.). Institute of Ecology and Botany, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Vácrátót, Hungary, 35–46.
Banfi E., 1987 – La Siloteca Cormio. Natura, 78: 1-24.
Banfi E. & Galasso G., 2010 – Flora esotica lombarda. Museo di Storia Naturale di Milano, Regione Lombardia Sistemi Verdi e Paesaggio. < https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gabriele-Galasso-2/publication/256491911_La_flora_esotica_lombarda/links/0c9605231648542ce8000000/La-flora-esotica-lombarda.pdf>
Bartolucci F., Peruzzi L., Galasso G., Albano A., Alessandrini A., Ardenghi N. M. G., Astuti G., Bacchetta G., Ballelli S., Banfi E., Barberis G., Bernardo L., Bouvet D., Bovio M., Cecchi L., Di Pietro R., Domina G., Fascetti S., Fenu G., Festi F., Foggi B., Gallo L., Gottschlich G., Gubellini L., Iamonico D., Iberite M., Jiménez-Mejías P., Lattanzi E., Marchetti D., Martinetto E., Masin R. R., Medagli P., Passalacqua N. G., Peccenini S., Pennesi R., Pierini B., Poldini L., Prosser F., Raimondo F .M., Roma-Marzio F., Rosati L., Santangelo A., Scoppola A., Scortegagna S., Selvaggi A., Selvi F., Soldano A., Stinca A., Wagensommer R. P., Wilhalm T & Conti F., 2018 – An updated checklist of the vascular flora native to Italy. Plant Biosystems - An International Journal Dealing with all Aspects of Plant Biology, 152: 179-303.
Corgnati M. & Corgnati L., 1984 – Alessandro Manzoni fattore a Brusuglio. Ugo Mursia Editore, Milano.
Diao X. & Jia G., 2016. Origin and domestication of Foxtail Millet. In: Genetics and Genomics of Setaria. Doust A. N. & Diao X. (eds.). Springer, Berlin: 61-72. <https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45105-3_4>
Ferlinghetti R., 2005 – Ambiti significativi del pianalto lombardo: storia, dinamiche, criticità, potenzialità. In: Pagani L. (a cura di), Vegetazione e Paesaggio, valori, potenzialità e funzioni del verde per un paesaggio di qualità nell’alta pianura lombarda. Quaderni, Università degli Studi di Bergamo, Centro Studi sul Territorio, Bergamo University Press: 73-94.
Galasso G., Conti F., Peruzzi L., Ardenghi N. M. G., Banfi E., Celesti-Grapow L., Albano A., Alessandrini A., Bacchetta G., Ballelli S., Bandini Mazzanti M., Barberis G., Bernardo L., Blasi C., Bouvet D., Bovio M., Cecchi L., Del Guacchio E., Domina G., Fascetti S., Gallo L., Gubellini L., Guiggi A., Iamonico, Iberite D., Jiménez-Mejías P., Lattanzi E., Marchetti D. M., Martinetto E., Masin R. R., Medagli P., Passalacqua N. G., Peccenini S., Pennesi R., Pierini B., Podda L., Poldini L., Prosser F., Raimondo F. M., F. Roma-Marzio, L. Rosati, A. Santangelo A., Scoppola A., Scortegagna S., Selvaggi A., Selvi F., Soldano A., Stinca A., Wagensommer R. P., Wilhalm T. & Bartolucci F., (2018) – An updated checklist of the vascular flora alien to Italy. Plant Biosystems - An International Journal Dealing with all Aspects of Plant Biology. <https://doi.org/10.1080/11263504.2018.1441197>
Kimata M., 2016 – Domestication and dispersal of Panicum miliaceum L. (Poaceae) in Eurasia. Ethnobotanical Notes, 9: 52-65.
Paolini P., 2004 – Note di botanica manzoniana. Italianistica, 33: 133-145.
Pirola A., 2012 – La botanica pratica di Alessandro Manzoni. <https://slideplayer.it/slide/191862/>.
PORTALE DELLA FLORA D’ITALIA, 2023 –
POWO, 2023 – Plants of the world online – facilitated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. <http://www.plantsoftheworldonline.org/>
Rinaldi G., 2009 – Alessandro Manzoni: aspetti dell’interesse per le piante, il giardino, il paesaggio vegetale. In: Brusuglio e la passione botanica di Alessandro Manzoni tra culto del bello e ricerca dell'utile. Atti del Convegno. Cormano, 24 Ottobre 2009. < https://cormano-api.municipiumapp.it/system/attachments/attachment/attachment/2/7/7/3/1/ATTI_CONVEGNO_2009_PASSIONE_BOTANICA.pdf>
Stefanaki A., Porck H., Grimaldi I. M., Thurn N., Pugliano V., Kardinaal A., Salemink J., Thijsse G., Chavannes-Mazel C., Kwakkel E. & van Andel T., 2019 – Breaking the silence of the 500-year-old smiling garden of everlasting flowers: The En Tibi book herbarium. PLoS One 14: e0217779.
Stella A. & Vitale M., 2000 – Manzoni Alessandro. Scritti linguistici inediti. I. Milano, Centro Nazionale Studi Manzoniani 17, p. 166.
Stevens P. F., 2001 onwards – Angiosperm phylogeny website. Version 14, July 2017 [and more or less continuously updated since]. <http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/research/APweb/>
How to Cite
Banfi, E. (2024). [The plants of <i>I Promessi Sposi</i> recount Alessandro Manzoni]. Natural History Sciences, 11(2). https://doi.org/10.4081/nhs.2024.730
Copyright (c) 2024 the Author(s)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
PAGEPress has chosen to apply the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) to all manuscripts to be published.
Similar Articles
- Giovanni Pasini, Alessandro Garassino, Anapagurus mamertinus n. sp. (Anomura, Paguroidea, Paguridae) from the Pliocene of S. Antonio, Capo Milazzo (Sicily, S Italy) , Natural History Sciences: Vol. 152 No. 1 (2011)
- Giovanni Pasini, Alessandro Garassino, Petrochirus sp. (Anomura, Paguroidea, Diogenidae) from the early Pleistocene of the Podere dell’Infrascato, Volterra (Pisa, Tuscany, central Italy) , Natural History Sciences: Vol. 3 No. 1 (2016)
- Fabrizio Bartolucci, Gabriele Galasso, Lorenzo Peruzzi, Fabio Conti, Report 2021 on plant biodiversity in Italy: native and alien vascular flora , Natural History Sciences: Vol. 10 No. 1 (2023)
- Giovanni Pasini, Alessandro Garassino, Ethusa sp. (Decapoda, Brachyura, Ethusidae) from the Pliocene of Valduggia (Vercelli, Piedmont, NW Italy) , Natural History Sciences: Vol. 3 No. 1 (2016)
- Alessandro Garassino, Giovanni Pasini, Amazighopsidae, a new family of decapod macruran astacideans from the late Cretaceous (Cenomanian-Turonian) of Gara Sbaa, Southeastern Morocco , Natural History Sciences: Vol. 5 No. 1 (2018)
- Giuseppe Bogliani, Fabio Casale, Claudio Celada, Luciano Crua, Romina Di Paolo, Massimiliano Ferrarato, Nicola Gilio, Federica Luoni, Matteo Massara, Tiziana Masuzzo, Massimo Soldarini, Davide Vietti, Le aree prioritarie per la biodiversità della provincia di Novara. Una proposta multidisciplinare , Natural History Sciences: Vol. 4 No. 2 (2017)
- Giovanni Pasini, Angela Baldanza, Lorenzo M. Gallo, Alessandro Garassino, Hiroaki Karasawa, Anomuran and brachyuran trackways and resting trace from the Pliocene of Valduggia (Piedmont, NW Italy): environmental, behavioural, and taphonomic implications , Natural History Sciences: Vol. 3 No. 1 (2016)
- Fabio Conti, Valeria Giacanelli, Contribution to the vascular flora of Ventotene and Santo Stefano islands (Pontine Islands, Lazio, Italy) with two taxa new to Lazio , Natural History Sciences: Vol. 10 No. 1 (2023)
- Fabio Conti, Francesco Falcinelli, Valeria Giacanelli, Bruno Santucci, Marinella Miglio, Aurelio Manzi, Fabrizio Bartolucci, New floristic data of vascular plants from central Italy , Natural History Sciences: Vol. 10 No. 1 (2023)
- Giovanni Pasini, Alessandro Garassino, Palaemon monsdamarum n. sp. (Crustacea, Decapoda, Palaemonidae) from the late Miocene of Mondaino (Rimini, Emilia-Romagna, Italy) , Natural History Sciences: Vol. 5 No. 1 (2018)
You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.
