Quarto (275x184 mm); 864 pages. Text set within a double-line border. Illustrated frontispiece, frontispiece vignette, and headpieces finely engraved on wood; over 450 elegant woodcuts based on drawings by Francesco Gonin, Riccardi, Bisi, D’Azeglio, Boulanger, and Sogni. Editorial blue percallina binding with large gilded friezes, gold title on the spine, gold fleuron, and embossed floral motifs on the covers. This is the original “Quarantana” edition of the novel in its final version, published after the “rinsing of the cloths in the Arno,” as well as the first illustrated edition, expanded to include the original *Storia della colonna infame*. For the elegant binding and the refined illustrations, Manzoni—who closely supervised every stage of his work’s production—made careful selections. After initially collaborating with the famous painter Francesco Hayez, who was to handle the illustrations, the results of the first proofs were so disappointing that Hayez himself withdrew from the project; Manzoni then turned to the genius of the young Turin artist and family friend, Francesco Gonin: an eclectic illustrator capable of ranging from portraits of characters to landscapes, right down to the liveliest urban scenes; He created most of the more than 400 illustrations accompanying the text with the help of other artists: Paolo Riccardi, Giuseppe Sogni, Luigi Riccardi, Luigi Bisi, and Federico Moja. Manzoni was so pleased with the work that he called Gonin an “admirable translator” of his work. A group of prominent engravers also arrived from abroad to create the illustrations: the Frenchmen Berndard, Pollet, and Loyseau, and the Englishman Sheers. It was also necessary to import all the printing equipment, including the Stanhope press along with an expert press operator capable of operating it. Manzoni’s work concludes with the addition of the essay “The History of the Infamous Column.” An early draft of “The Column” dates back to 1823, around the time of “Fermo and Lucia,” but it was only with the Quarantana edition that this valuable piece of historical literature was published in its original edition. The work describes the misrule of Lombardy under Spanish administration during the plague of 1630; in particular, Manzoni’s aim was to criticize the criminal justice practices of the time, specifically the use of torture to extract the truth, by describing the trial of the two alleged plague spreaders, Guglielmo Piazza and Gian Giacomo Mora. In addition to contemporary chronicles and transcripts of the testimonies of some of the suspects, Manzoni’s primary source was the “Observations Against Torture” (1804) by the renowned Enlightenment thinker Pietro Verri. A fine copy with full margins and small tailings, showing the usual occasional slight foxing present in this work—particularly on the frontispiece and the last page—due to the use of slightly yellowed endpapers. The binding is well-preserved, with slight signs of wear at the corners. Biancardi-Francese, p. 289; Fumagalli, 228; Parenti, First Editions, p. 331: “This is the first edition of the revised text of the novel and of the History of the Colonna Infame”; Parenti, Rarities..., Vol. I, pp. 214–6. Vismara, 57.