The word Neophyte is not a new addition to the English language, as it’s been part of the English vocabulary since the 1300s, but it wasn’t in general use before the 19th century. When it was used in a 16th-century translation of the Bible, some folks derided it as pretentious and Latinate. One critic lumped it with other “ridiculous inkhorn terms” and another went as far as to write, “Neophyte, to a bare Englishman is nothing at all.” The criticisms of “neophyte” weren’t entirely justified, given the word’s long history in English, but it is true that “neophyte” has classical roots. It traces back through Late Latin to the Greek neophytes, meaning “newly planted or “newly converted.”

The Betrothed published in 1827 but set two centuries earlier, against the tumultuous backdrop of seventeenth-century Lombardy during the Thirty Years’ War,  is the story of two peasant lovers, Lucia and Renzo, who want nothing more than to marry.

Their region of northern Italy is under Spanish occupation, and when the vicious Spaniard Don Rodrigo blocks their union in an attempt to take Lucia for himself, the couple must struggle to persevere against his plots — which include false charges against Renzo and the kidnapping of Lucia by a robber baron called the Unnamed — while beset by the hazards of war, bread riots, and a terrifying outbreak of bubonic plague. First and foremost a love story, the novel also weaves issues of faith, justice, power, and truth into a sweeping epic in the tradition of Ivanhoe, Les Misérables, and War and Peace.

Groundbreakingly populist in its day and hugely influential to succeeding generations, Alessandro Manzoni’s masterwork has long been considered one of Italy’s national treasures. The Betrothed is translated by Archibald Colquhoun.