## Silvio Pellico's *Le mie prigioni*: Autobiography versus Religion

Antonio Pagliaro

## **Abstract:**

The popularity of Pellico's account among some categories of his contemporaries depends on the nature of his self depiction which nevertheless alienated both Italian patriots and supporters of the status quo. This was a necessary result of the narrator's representation of a religious conversion. The author's literary ambitions remain evident even within this context.

**Keywords:** Autobiography, Narrator, Pellico, Prison, Religion

Discussion of Silvio Pellico's memoirs *Le mie prigioni*<sup>1</sup> , has focused principally on its religious and, for some at least, political mission. After publication in 1832 it certainly became a politically unwelcome work for the Austrian government and for reactionaries on the Italian peninsula. As the work was also rejected by the patriotic press, the fact of its public acceptance reflected the profound division in Italian society at that time and foreshadows the two principal and enduring divisions which would fracture la *Nuova Italia* between Church and State and between State and the popular classes.

The publication in 1832 of Silvio Pellico's *Le mie prigioni*, met with immediate success. More than fifty editions had been printed in Italian by the end of 1842. The popularity of the work spread through Europe and the Americas. Parenti's 1952 bibliography identifies forty-eight editions in French for the years 1833- 1851 and fourteen English language editions in the same period.

The success may not have been a surprise to the Turin publisher Botta who paid Pellico the considerable sum of nine hundred Piedmontese new lire for the rights2 . However, Pellico claims the publisher's contract denied him the right to


Antonio Pagliaro, La Trobe University, Australia, a.pagliaro@latrobe.edu.au, 0000-0003-3298-6575 Referee List (DOI 10.36253/fup\_referee\_list)

FUP Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (DOI 10.36253/fup\_best\_practice)

Antonio Pagliaro, *Silvio Pellico's* Le mie prigioni*: Autobiography versus Religion*, © Author(s), CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.36253/978-88-5518-597-4.13, in Samuele Grassi, Brian Zuccala (edited by), *Rewriting and Rereading the XIX and XX-Century Canons: Offerings for Annamaria Pagliaro*, pp. 163-172, 2022, published by Firenze University Press, ISBN 978-88-5518-597-4, DOI 10.36253/978-88-5518-597-4

free copies for the harm this would do to sales. In fact, Botta had good reasons to be confident. Pellico's imprisonment at Spielberg had only served to enhance the fame gained previously from his tragedy *Francesca da Rimini*. First performed in 1815, the tragedy was reprinted fifteen times during the years Pellico spent in jail (1820-1830)3 . Contemporary observers suggested that Pellico's success owed much to the appeal of his work to a female audience. Di Breme's prefatory "Avvertenza" to the 1818 edition of the play confirms the success which the sentimental aspects of *Francesca da Rimini* had among the female spectators4 :

[…] gli uditori , e meglio ancora le amabili uditrici di Milano, di Torino e di Firenze, che cogli occhi lagrimosi chiesero la ripetizione della Francesca […] penseranno coll'Editore della medesima, che l'Amore manterrà i diritti suoi sul teatro, finché non verrà in disuso nel gran dramma della vita; finché palpiteranno dei cuori […]. (Pellico 1968, 350)

In brief, the imprisonment of Pellico, the sentimental interpreter of tragic love, only served to bring together Life and Art and to make his destiny no less worthy of tears of compassion than the fate of Paolo and Francesca. The image of Pellico as a romantic hero, sensitive and suffering in solitude clearly preceded the publication of *Le mie prigioni* but was confirmed by it. The existence of these elements, so particularly consonant with the tastes of Romanticism and the fact that Pellico's imprisonment could arouse people of different classes and political beliefs, ensured extensive public interest and literary success. Massano observes that the fortune of Pellico's "Memorie" was enhanced to varying degrees by "correnti laiche e liberali come dai cattolici neoguelfi" (1986, 403).

On the other hand, the criticism of *Le mie prigioni* by contemporary writers is not surprising. Their judgements particularly regard the accuracy of Pellico's account and the light it throws on his character. *Le mie prigioni* was seen by revolutionaries and by Catholic conservatives alternatively as political sell-out and religious hypocrisy, or calumnies disguised as religion.

The accusation of dishonesty, for example, is to be found in the meticulous refutations of 1833 attributed to Metternich and published by Narciso Nada (1973, 110-114). They go from the terminology (the term "state prisoners" did not exist), to the materials of the prisoners' clothes, their rations, the location and size of their cells, their permitted outdoor promenades, the availability of medical care, the existence of certain characters and the particular competencies of officials (*ibidem*). One would need to be naïve to believe that regulations and their practice coincide in any prison system. Nevertheless, the description

<sup>3</sup> The calculation is based on Parenti's catalogue. For information about two surviving manuscripts and an unauthorised edition, see Chiattone (1901), Rinieri (1898-1901, vol. 1, 268-273).

<sup>4</sup> The "Avvertenza" is reproduced in Pellico (1968, 349-350) Curto notes "Dell'edizione anteriore voluta dal conte Porro, colla falsa data di Londra. Non è da tener conto perché stampata senza consenso del Pellico" (ivi, 347).

of imprisonment at the Spielberg by Gabriele Rosa has suggested to one critic at least that there was some exaggeration on the part of Pellico5 .

Pellico's fear of seeming a *bacchettone* is evident at various stages of *Le mie prigioni.* The issue clearly continued to disturb him: even four years after publication he writes to his friend Confalonieri, "Gli uomini m'han detto […] che sono bigotto; ma tu non porrai mente alle loro derisioni. Cerco di esser vero cristiano, e se m'è difficile averne le virtù, ho pur già la grazia della fede"6 (Pellico 1864, 568).

In more recent times, hostility to Pellico's embrace of religion has certainly not faded. Consider for example the judgement of Attilio Marinari for whom the Bible becomes in Pellico's account: "strumento dichiarato di repressione ideologica e politica, vangelo di accettazione passiva e di gesuitica giustificazione di ogni forma d'oppressione" (1977, 364).

The criticism of reactionaries also pursued Pellico from the time of the earliest editions. In his correspondence he makes repeated reference to the attacks from the press, notably the *Voce della verità* from Modena and the *Voce della ragione* of Pesaro. The latter, which belonged to Monaldo Leopardi, alleged he was a "jacobin masqué, et que les Autrichiens auraient mieux fait de me pendre"7 (Pellico 1864, 565).

Whatever the personal reasons for his change of heart, Pellico, who had already rejected the revolution in 18198 , clearly regarded his prior link with the Carbonari as a mistake and absolutely abhorred the rising current of revolutionary patriotism which was to have Mazzini as its greatest exponent:

La crisi in cui ci siamo perduti era sì straordinaria, che tutti i cuori generosi ci compatiscono; nessuno di questi ci confonderà mai colla genía de' democratici sanguinari. Genía davvero esecrabile!9 (Pellico 1864, 591)

*Le mie prigioni, memorie di Silvio Pellico*, as it was titled in its original edition has been considered as the prototype of Risorgimento *memorialistica* and a work of religious edification. Riccardo Massano objects to this categorisation, which appears to him to denote marginality:


<sup>5</sup> See Grimaldi (1971, 21).

Il pericolo di etichettare e chiudere il libro nello scaffale letterario delle "Memorie" liquidandolo sbrigativamente come "opera di edificazione religiosa" continua più che mai a sussistere (si può dire che una vera rilettura a fondo, al di fuori delle linee imposte dalla critica romantico-risorgimentale perdurata fino a tutta l'età del metodo storico, non si è più avuta) e costituisce, a nostro parere, un pericolo da evitarsi. (1986, 403-404)

The implication is that the classification *memorie* is a negation of literary worth. Massano opposes it by emphasising how many elements of Pellico's work are characteristic of the Milanese literary world in which the author was particularly active before his imprisonment.

Mino Milani sees a similar starting point, arguing that the work has been "strappato alla Letteratura cui per primo appartiene" (1984, 31) and is "idealmente conteso dalla Fede e dalla Patria" (*ibidem*). Milani emphasises the "bookish" nature of the work, specifically as regards characters such as Schiller, Zanze, the Duke of Normandy and Giuliano, (perhaps Giuliano represents "Pellico che si guarda in uno specchio scuro" (ivi, 39) or otherwise "rappresenta il male, o addirittura il demoniaco" (*ibidem*), but beyond any interpretation "esso è un personaggio realmente da libro, da romanzo" (*ibidem*).

However, in Milani's opinion, the work is political. Whatever Pellico says in his preface about wanting to write a work of religious and philosophical edification, the effect of this book on its readers is *sdegno* for the treatment of prisoners by the Austrian government.

Milani suggests that the author is making an instrumental use of mercy, pardon, and Christian acceptance of suffering, of the mass, prayer, and the sacraments, although he denies that this affects the sincerity of the prisoner's conversion. A conclusion which merges identity between the author and the character and justifies a moral rather than literary assessment of Pellico. For Milani, Pellico's imprisonment is both a conclusion and a prologue "il Pellico non approda del tutto alla fede in carcere: si avvicina faticosamente ad essa, e nemmeno è detto che la raggiunga scrivendo le mie prigioni" (Milani 1984, 36). He doesn't speak of his battle, he chooses to write a book not a pamphlet (ivi, 34 and 37) and it is the eloquent silence which mocks the censor. For this reason *Le mie prigioni* would be as patriotic as it is religious. While Pellico may have made use of *bigottismo* he still dreams of a national government (ivi, 36).

The suggestion is that "la politica che lo ha motivato, e che ne ha suggerito il titolo, dovrà essere cercata tra le righe ed anche, o soprattutto, nel silenzio" (ivi, 35). This is taken to another level by Charles Klopp, who gives instances of messages which are not explicit, messages which remain as unarticulated desires in the narrator's imagination: "One of the most important hidden or unreadable texts in *Le mie prigioni* is the text of politics" (1991, 196). Klopp notes that even the literary genre, autobiography, is, according to Pellico at least, missing:

Of all the occluded texts described in *Le mie prigioni*, the writing that Pellico inscribes on his table in the Piombi is the one that can best serve as a mastertext exemplifying his writing practice in general: in this work, not only Pellico's politics, but also his position on what kind of work he is composing and thus how it should be read […] If Pellico, the poet and former political conspirator, sometimes manages to uncover complete, or decode the many hidden, cryptic, or partial messages that he encounters – and produces – in his prison journey, he does not share the messages he finds with his reader. (Ivi, 201-202)

For Alejandro Patat, Pellico's text represents a definite break from the sensibilities of Illuminismo and the influence of Rousseau. As Klopp had done previously, Patat notes that, "essenziale nell'economia del testo è il punto di vista del carcerato, che occlude la narrazione, la limita a ciò che è […] pensabile" (2015, 33). As a consequence

si tratta di una narrazione a posteriori che ricostruisce un percorso interiore, presentificandolo, rendendolo vivo attraverso i dialoghi e la costruzione dell'intreccio secondo un ordine cronologico e logico uguale a quello del carcerato. (*Ibidem*)

For Patat, Pellico has a primary objective which is to "[…] narrare la conversione e la trasformazione di un intellettuale ai fini politici educativi e morali" (ivi, 36). Patat dwells in particular on the new and old *io,* as presented in chapter 25 of *Le mie prigioni*, when Pellico writes of the effect which reading the Bible, and effectively rediscovering it, had upon him: "quell'io che sì difficilmente piango, proruppe in lagrime" (ivi, 34).

Geoffrey Harpham suggests that autobiography, is a discourse of conversion. Drawing on Hannah Arendt, he defines conversion as consisting of two stages.

The first conversion is marked by an epistemological certainty that heralds a sense of true self-knowledge; the second confirms or actualizes this certainty in a narrative of the self. (Harpham 1988, 42)

In contrast with the just-quoted identification by Pellico of the moment of his conversion, Harpham, referring to St Augustine, denies that

conversion can be pinpointed in time. On the contrary, conversion is a ceaseless process which cannot be assigned to a definite temporal moment and the subject can never "achieve a "post-conversional" condition. (Ivi, 48)

The selective and restrictive elements of *Le mie prigioni*, seem particularly to fit in with the following:

the writing of autobiography is an act of imitation in which the writer confirms and enacts his own conversion, away from a sense of his or her being, and to a knowledge of its tropological and imitative – and imitable – nature. (Ivi, 45)

Pellico's autobiographical illustrations his choice of episodes and the shaping of their form reveal an almost obsessive concern with the reader's reception of the text and his/her assessment of the narrator and of future imitation.

As far as *fini educativi e morali* are concerned, *Le mie prigioni* owes a large part of its sales, in France at least, to its being embraced by the Church. Jean-Claude Vimont indicates that between 70,000 and 100,000 copies were published in France between 1831 and 1845, largely thanks to the Church's being involved in publishing and distributing the work "dans son entreprise d'édification morale de la jeunesse" (1997, 138). Beyond this there was a price to be paid: Vimont illustrates another form of censorship, the removal by translators of amorous references. Even the well-known metaphor of chapter 1 ("Simile ad un amante maltrattato dalla sua bella, e dignitosamente risoluto di tenerle broncio, lascio la politica ov'ella sta, e parlo d'altro", Pellico 1953, 37) was interpreted as a threat to the chasteness of adolescents.

To what extent was he aware of political effects. In a cautious letter to his brother, Pellico writes that he certainly did not intend to make *Le mie prigioni* a political work but we can read between the lines a degree of satisfaction that it had become one.

Pellico's "Capitoli aggiunti", first published in the 1843 French edition10 are a continuation of the self-defence evident both within the original *Prigioni* and in the correspondence which followed the publication. Here, he describes at length the doubts that assailed him before writing the work and the polarised reactions of those whose advice he had sought. This plea that he had not undertaken the task lightly, constitutes a defence of the historical Pellico against accusations made against both the writer and the protagonist of *Le mie prigioni.* Beyond this, the successful outcome of *Le mie prigioni*, in the sense that it had led to at least one religious conversion, demonstrated for the writer the correctness of his decision to write an account which was "salutare per il prossimo" (Pellico 1968, 610). Pellico claims that the engraver Karl Woigt was stimulated by *Le mie prigioni* to embrace Catholicism. He dedicates an entire chapter to the conversion of the engraver Karl Woigt which had derived from his reading of *Le mie prigioni* (Pellico 1953, 224-225).

Mi era invece serbata una viva gioia per la conversione del signor Woigt, uno di più abili artisti della Baviera: ed ebbi la sorte che il mio libro non fosse senza influenza in quella conversione. (Ivi, 224)

Ultimately, Patat concludes that the new Pellico, in his role as the *io nuovo*, the narrator converted by the Bible, is a

<sup>10</sup> See Parenti 1952, 340. The first transcription of the original Italian version sent to the French translator Latour on 7 November 1837 was published by Henri Bédarida in *Convivium* (1932). Pellico's accompanying note indicates that the chapters were part of the separate autobiography of which otherwise few pages survive. He describes them as "Quoique très peu signifiants, quelques chapitres de ma Vie pourraient avoir une espèce d'intérêt dans une nouvelle édition de *Mie Prigioni*" (Pellico 1864, 584). The self-referentiality of the final sentence of the chapters takes on a certain irony: "Talora prendo la penna, e non sentendomi voglia di fare altro, scrivo la mia propria Vita" (Bédarida 1932, 739). The "additional chapters" did not appear in Italian until the Le Monnier edition, nine years later. The version printed was a re-translation into Italian from the printed French translation. It would appear that Pellico had no wish to print them in his own country.

[…] patriota sacrificatosi per la patria, non più sulla base dei principi rivoluzionari filo-francesi, bensì aderente alla nuova ideologia romantica di stampo cristiano che in Europa sta gettando radici ben solide: nell'esilio e nel dolore cristiano si trova l'essenza dolce e malinconica del romanticismo. (2015, 37)

As Fausto Montanari notes, Pellico's correspondence, both from jail and after his release,

Ci fa vedere come il mite Pellico delle *Mie prigioni*, che evita ogni parola forte, si sia formato specialmente dopo la scarcerazione, quando si accorse che al suo giusto sdegno si sarebbe dato un significato diverso da quello che gli dava lui, e per impedire travisamenti, soppresse ogni espressione che vi potesse dare appiglio. (1935, 147)

This preoccupation to suppress information, certainly understandable where dangers or inconvenience might result to others, extends to Pellico's correspondence with others. Preoccupied about the potential indiscretions of his former cell mate Maroncelli, Pellico writes on 9 May 1831: "Inoltre bada che non tutto della vita Spielbergica può dirsi; se trasparissero certe passate clandestinità, il male potrebbe essere grande" (Pellico 1964, 222).

An aspect of autobiography to be borne in mind is the aspect of the author's perception of self. It has been described as existing on two non-synchronous planes: that of simple blind perception and that of comprehension. The first evidently belongs to the character in the past, the second is the sense which the biographer now makes of that past. The sense that Pellico makes is primarily religious and moral. Religious autobiography implies a very close awareness of the reader on the part of the writer and indeed the structuring of the autobiography to create a "moral" effect upon the reader. The reader's convictions need to be formed or strengthened. The reader becomes a sort of shadow image of the autobiographical subject. The subject's temptations are the reader's. The *personaggio* Pellico must have a certain degree of success in his struggle because the reader needs to achieve the same result. Certainly, the character is not represented as perfect, but is, one could say, morally enhanced. He yields only temporarily to temptation and manages to draw a moral from contrary fortune. Beyond this, there is a clear sensitivity to the potential harm his work could have on the lives of others. From this there stems a considerable willingness to suppress or alter events in accordance with the very narrow parameters which the author has set himself. Whereas the subject's life (as he believes he lived it) needs to be told truthfully, on the other hand his experience needs to be restricted, indeed expurgated, so that the work is endowed with the specific qualities by which the subject's life also becomes an *exemplum*, and the reader's life is the target of a conversion attempt by the narrator.

The narrative is to some extent compromised by Pellico's attempts to forestall anticipated accusations of *bigottismo*. His clear attempt to address a second category of readers as well as those who "need" his instruction, could be interpreted as aiming to meet this concern. But as a devotee of literature, Pellico is also well aware of the Italian literary context and via intertextual references makes very evident attempts to ensure *Le mie prigioni* has the *addentellati* to fit within it. The numerical structure and the beginning *in medias res*, which recall Dante, the quotations of Pellico's fame as writer of the by now famous play *Francesca da Rimini*, the evident contrast with Alfieri's *Vita* are all indications that, in taking up religion, Pellico has not relinquished literary ambition11.

As Aldo Mola observes, *Le mie prigioni* is an *itinerarium mentis in Deum* (2005, 14). Inevitably one must look to the *Divina Commedia* as the prime model. Just as the *personaggio* of the *Divina Commedia*, by acquiring knowledge of sin and sinners, is tried in the struggle between *ragione* and *talento*, so too the subject Pellico is depicted in the struggle between *ragione* and *immaginazione*. He resists the temptation to see evil in others, he is tempted to lie ("ogni perdita è più onorevole del mentire", Pellico 1953, 71), he ceases to pray and doubts in God's justice. He reads the Bible and repents: "Oh come un ritorno sincero alla religione consola ed eleva lo spirito!" (Pellico 1864, 20). In this tale the protagonist oppressed by confinement, psychological torment and temptations, who witnesses and learns of the nature of good and evil, is assisted in his conversion by recourse to philosophy, as Dante was by Virgil. The *Divina Commedia* was read in those years in "chiave iniziatica e profetica" (Mola 2005, 148) and *Le mie prigioni* responds to these desiderata: Pellico like Carlo Alberto of Sardinia, perceives "segni arcani" in the experience imposed on him by Divine Providence (*ibidem*) and proceeds to underline them in the text with its ninety nine chapters and what Mola sees as a persistent recourse to ternary structure to be seen, for example, in the three places of imprisonment: Milan, Venice and Brün and the narration of many episodes. Most significant perhaps is his perception of an effective structural division of *Le mie prigioni* into three *cantiche*, the first one terminating at the 33rd chapter, the second at the 66th. These features, beyond their roots at the dawn of Italian literature, also accommodate freemasonry's interest in numerological explorations with which, as an initiated carbonaro Pellico was familiar (ivi,148-150)12.

In terms of form Mola considers that

[…] quelle Memorie non sarebbero né diario, né autobiografia, bensì "un libro" – vale a dire sapiente dosaggio di verità storica irrefutabile e di creazione letteraria, come poi dichiarò a Cesare Cantù nell'aprile 1843. (Ivi, 148)

<sup>11</sup> While Pellico expresses reservations about some of Alfieri's works, his theatre clearly holds a high place in Pellico's estimation. As he writes in chapter 12 of the "capitoli aggiunti" to *Le mie prigioni* "Nella mia gioventù m'era follemente lusingato di poter un giorno occupare un seggio non molto lungi dall'Alfieri; ma coll'andar del tempo mi sono ricreduto di questa illusione,

nonostante gli applausi che talvolta mi toccarono in sorte" (Pellico Pellico 1953, 226). 12 Mola suggests that an intentional attempt may have been made to hide the symbolic total of 99 chapters: Pellico's copy of the manuscript consigned to the Regia Commissione di revisione, erroneously titled the 57th chapter as the 50th and as a consequence thefinal number of chapters in this copy is 92 instead of 99 (2005, 154), certainly a number which would not attract a censor's attention.

I would draw attention to the opening of the letter in question:

[…] ebbi di mira di raccontare, raccontar semplicemente, non tutto al certo, ma tutto vero. Mentirei a me stesso , se negassi di aver anche avuto intenzione di fare un libro; ma lasciatemi ripeterlo, non ho voluto far una vendetta. (Pellico 1864, 629)

In the emphasis on truth, Pellico is denying an intent to creation of events and facts within the text, but acknowledging selectivity. For Mola this implies literary creation, but he also rejects the terms diary or autobiography as if these were incompatible with literary value. The rejection of the term is inevitably problematic: "what is autobiography to one observer is history or philosophy, psychology or lyric poetry, sociology or metaphysics to another" (Olney 1980, 5).

This could be seen as of little moment in the presentation of the narrator who in such self writing, whatever we call it, proposes an autobiographical subject. In any case, the author's intentions are not the final word on the completed work. As the the German scholar George Gusdorf writes:

Every autobiography is a work of art and at the same time a work of enlightenment; it does not show us the individual seen from outside in his visible actions but the person in his inner privacy, not as he was, not as he is, but as he believes and wishes himself to be and to have been. (1980, 45)

The story of Pellico, the political prisoner, written in a tumultuous period of nationalistic struggles, inevitably raised political passions and encountered enormous public interest, leading to a major publishing success. An intentional political presence, when critics have seen it in the narrative, appears to have offered literary merit and compensation for the religious content. Nevertheless it is the latter and the narrative of conversion, based upon Dante's unattainable model, which ultimately predominate.

## References

