Currently not on view
The Monatti, illustration to Alessandro Manzoni’s I Promessi Sposi,
ca. 1895–99
focuses on the romance of two Lombard peasants, Renzo and Lucia, but also includes detailed descriptions of famine and the plague of 1630, based on the author’s extensive research. Previati’s watercolor features two ghostlike monatti (corpse carriers) descending a flight of stairs in a constricted alleyway, their frames weighed down by the naked body, which casts a foreboding shadow.
More Context
Special Exhibition
The bubonic plague typically claimed its victims’ lives within three days. The high mortality rate of the disease led Italian cities to employ <em>monatti</em>, or corpse carriers, who went from home to home to remove the bodies of the deceased. Previati’s watercolor was printed as an illustration to the 1900 edition of Alessandro Manzoni’s historical novel <em>I promessi sposi</em> (<em>The Betrothed</em>), first published in 1827. Set in seventeenth-century Milan, this classic romance includes detailed descriptions of the famine and the plague of 1630. In this scene, the ghostlike <em>monatti </em>descend a flight of stairs in a constricted alleyway, their bodies weighed down by the naked corpse casting a foreboding shadow.
Information
ca. 1895–99
Ulrico Hoepli, Milan; Gallini collection, Milan; Nissman, Abromson, Ltd., Brookline, Massachusetts; purchased by the Art Museum, 2007. (See reference Bib. 5429);
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Alessandro Manzoni, <em>I promessi sposi: storia milanese del secolo XVII</em>, (Milano: Ulrico Hoepli, 1900)., Firestone Library has 1908 edition of same work also featuring the Previati illustrations.
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"Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2007," in "More than one: photographs in sequence," special issue, <em>Record of the Princeton University Art Museum</em> 67 (2008): p. 96-119.<br>, p. 118
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Laura Giles, Lia Markey, Claire Van Cleave, et. al., <em>Italian Master Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum</em>, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2014)., p. 246, app. no. 57 (illus.) (verso illus.)
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