Manzoni’s Report on the Unity of the Language and the Means of Promoting It

The edition was presented by the Dante Alighieri Society on April 28, 2025, in a meeting attended by Andrea Riccardi, President of the Dante Alighieri Society, with remarks by Claudio Marazzini, President Emeritus of the Accademia della Crusca, and Lucilla Pizzoli, a linguist at the University of International Studies in Rome.

Then there is a curious and extraordinarily immediate fact: Alessandro Manzoni wrote this report the way many of us wrote our Italian essays at school, folding the paper in half and using only the right side, leaving the left side free for corrections and additions.

In this simple gesture we can grasp an authentic trait of Manzoni’s greatness: a hard-working, concrete, almost familiar humility, capable even today of bringing back memories of our youth.

This edition includes

the artisanal facsimile of Alessandro Manzoni’s manuscript report, On the unity of language and the means of spreading it

• the authoritative commentary of the President of the Accademia della Crusca
• the certificate of authenticity with specimen number
• the 60-month warranty certificate
• a concise 10-point guide to help you navigate the work
• an extended study dedicated to the context, contents and historical relevance
• access to dedicated multimedia content
• the personalized olive tree adoption certificate in Salento

Technical data

• Author: Alessandro Manzoni
• Title of the work: On the unity of language and the means of spreading it
• Volume dimensions: approximately 23 × 34 × 3 cm
• Weight: approximately 1 kg
• Publishing type: luxury edition
• Covering: velvet cover with metal finishing
• Case: velvet container
• Cultural field: Italian language, literature, cultural history, bibliophilia
• Sale price: €999.00
• Warranty: 60 mounth
• Right of withdrawal: 30 days
• Added value Antiquus: donation of the olive tree

Description

Following the unification of Italy, the issue of unifying the Italian language arose urgently. In January 1868, the Minister of Education, Emilio Broglio, appointed a commission divided into a Milanese and a Florentine section, charged with “researching and proposing all measures and methods to promote and make more universal knowledge of the good language and good pronunciation among all classes of the people.” He appointed Alessandro Manzoni to head the Milanese subcommission.

Manzoni starts from the observation that the Italian language, in a fully national sense, does not yet exist either in the spoken form, occupied by the various dialects, or in the written form, since the literary language is not sufficient to satisfy all the needs of civil communication.

From this premise arise the two fundamental objectives of his presentation: to demonstrate that the most effective means of replacing dialects with a common language consists in the adoption of a truly living idiom, identified in the Florentine dialect, ennobled by the great authors of the tradition and endowed with particular expressive efficacy; and to indicate, as a concrete tool for achieving this goal, the drafting of a normative vocabulary capable of serving as a common reference.

Organized in an argumentative form, through the progressive affirmation of theses and the response to possible objections, the Report is not only a theoretical text, but a true proposal for linguistic policy, as well as one of the most significant documents of Manzoni’s public activity and his relationship with the institutions of the new unitary State.

To learn more about the historical, cultural, and linguistic context in which this work was created, you can also read the article on Alessandro Manzoni and the report on the unity of the Italian language, which analyzes its significance and importance during the Risorgimento.

With extraordinary modernity, Manzoni conceives of language not as a simple literary instrument, but as a means of communication for an entire nation. He himself makes this clear at the end, observing that “the Minister has replaced the social and national question with a bundle of literary questions.”

Manzoni personally prepared the report, without the direct collaboration of the other commissioners, who approved it in March 1868, making only marginal additions.

Conclusion

This work is not only an extraordinarily lucid linguistic reflection, but also lies at the very heart of the Italian Risorgimento, when the building of the nation also involved the search for a common, living, shared language capable of uniting what history had long kept divided. In Alessandro Manzoni’s vision, language is not simply a tool of expression, but civil conscience, collective identity, and cultural destiny.

From this perspective, the connection with Dante Alighieri appears profound and natural. If Dante had shown Italy the lofty horizon of a language worthy of its civilization, Manzoni took up his legacy in the era of the modern nation, transforming the question of language into a concrete project of unity and diffusion. Between the poet who first understood the spiritual power of the vernacular and the writer who sought its affirmation as the common language of a united Italy, an ideal continuity of exceptional value emerges.

Owning this volume means preserving not only an eminent page of Manzoni’s thought, but also a living testimony to the cultural journey that leads from Dante to the Risorgimento, and from the Risorgimento to the very idea of ​​Italy.

A work that unites Dante, Manzoni, and the Italian Risorgimento in a testimony of high cultural value, designed to be preserved, studied, and passed down.

Questions and answers about the manuscript “Manzoni’s Report on the Unity of Language and the Means of Spreading It”

Want more information about this product? Click here and fill out the form to be contacted by one of our curators.