Le ragioni del cuore in Manzoni lettore di Pascal

From the first Osservazioni sulla Morale cattolica (1819), affirming the convergence of the «reason» with the «feelings», Manzoni did not repeat the position of Pascal, well known and very dear, one of whose maxims concerns precisely the ignored reasons of the heart by reason, because it distinguished the two domains. Reading his moral treatise among the variations from the first edition (1819) to the second one (1855), as well as some pages of The Betrothed, we examine the articulated but unitary vision in which Manzoni composes the antitheses, both by defining the relevance of the heart to the sphere of the will, both considering the binomial intellect-feeling in human nature.