School reminiscences. Generations of students have memorized the poem by Alessandro Manzoni entitled, precisely, ''21 March 1821'', of which we publish the first verses.
- focus onarid shore,
- look at the crossed Ticino,
- all absorbed in new destination,
- certain in the cor of the ancient virtù ,
In reality the event to which Manzoni dedicated his decasyllables never occurred; it was only a hope that was soon dashed. In those days riots had broken out in Piedmont which induced the regent Carlo Alberto (the sovereign Carlo Felice was – let's say – abroad in the Duchy of Modena) to grant the Statute.
It was, in truth, a provisional statute because, upon his return, Carlo Felice ordered the repression of the uprisings in Turin and everything went back to the way it was before. Thus the Albertine Statute was launched in 1848, in the presence of somewhat more widespread and consistent popular uprisings. So much so that Manzoni's poem was written and published in that year - during the Five Days of Milan - Don Lisander having realized that, in 1821, there had been no anticipation of the Risorgimento, even if this was the hope aroused by the new course – soon aborted – in the Kingdom of Sardinia. Basically, the Savoy troops did not cross the Ticino to free Lombardy-Venetia on that day and in that year.
The ode is introduced by an articulate dedicated to the German poet and patriot Karl Thedor Koerner , died during the battle of Leipzig (October 16-19, 1813), also known as "Battle of the Nations" and considered (in addition to the battle that caused the first fall of Napoleon and his exile on the island of Elba) a fundamental affirmation of German national identity against Napoleonic "oppression". The Piedmontese, in 1821, continued to keep swords ''in the shadows'' which waited a few more years ''to shine in the sun''.
