Manzoni prima della conversione

Before his conversion, Manzoni's poetic production is little and almost all unpublished, but widely circulating among friends; similarities with some Foscolian texts, probably, prove the reading of these unpublished by Foscolo, more than on contrary, as is believed more often. The longest of the juvenile texts, Del Trionfo della Libertà, presents some key-themes (eg. Freedom) of Manzoni's thought, which he will resume in very late texts, although submitting them to a series of corrections (correctiones) which is the stylistic counterpart of the capital event of his life, the conversion – or, rather, the return - to Catholicism.