LeggoManzoni/Wo-Dú Manzoni. Reading The Betrothed in Beijing
The Project
The University of Bologna (Prof. Paola Italia) with /DH.ARC (Prof. Francesca Tomasi), in collaboration with the University of Parma (Prof. Giulia Raboni), the degree course in Italian Language and Literature and the Digital Humanities center of Peking University, coordinated by Prof. Silvano Mo Cheng, present: LeggoManzoni/Wo-Dú Manzoni. Reading The Betrothed in Beijing, a project developed within the Bando Strutture 2024-2026 of the University of Bologna: Innovative projects in the field of international cooperation agreements.
The project, which has received patronage from the National Center for Manzonian Studies, the Italian Cultural Institute in Beijing and the Treccani Foundation, develops over the biennium 2024-2026 and is dedicated to developing the Traduco Manzoni section of the LeggoManzoni portal, implementing the innovative translation module designed by Mariia Levchenko from Digital Humanities and Digital Knowledge at the University of Bologna, thanks to which translations of the novel in English, French, German, Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, and Finnish have already been uploaded online.
The project involves students from the University of Bologna, as teaching tutors, and students from Peking University, as learners, in a peer-to-peer teaching experiment.
The collaboration between the Department of Classical and Italian Philology and the School of Foreign Languages of Peking University is situated within the framework agreement between the University of Bologna and Peking University, and aims not only to introduce Italian and Chinese students to each other's training and work environments and to interest Chinese students and the Chinese population in reading Manzoni's novel, but also to stimulate, through a collaborative platform, greater awareness of the characteristics of digital text, and develop markup and metadata skills, which will allow future expansion of the platform to other texts of Italian literature little known or not yet translated in China, with an impact on the community, which qualifies this project not only in the field of Teaching, but also of the Third Mission of the Department of Classical and Italian Philology.
The entrance of Peking University
Chinese translations of The Betrothed
The Chinese reference text of the project is based on the translation by Prof. Zhang Shihua, made available by the translator: Alessandro Manzoni, Zhang Shihua张世华(translator). Yuehun fufu 约婚夫妇. Yilin, Nanjing 译林出版社, 1998.
The first version was made in 1935 by Jia Liyan and Xue Ping, who however translated the novel from the English version. The first proper translation is therefore that of Zhang Shihua 张世华, published by Yilin of Nanjing, followed by that of Wang Yongnian 王永年, published in 2008 by Huaxia publishing house in Beijing.
Bibliography
- Imparato 2008 - Francesco Maria Imparato, The Betrothed in Chinese. Comparative translation choices, in "Culture", Annali del Dipartimento di Lingue e culture contemporanee della Facoltà di Scienze Politiche dell'Università di Milano, n. 21 (2008), pp. 251-274.
- Bricchi 2012 - The editorial fortune of The Betrothed, in Atlas of Italian Literature, edited by Sergio Luzzatto and Gabriele Pedullà, Turin, Einaudi, 2012, vol. III, pp. 119-127.
- Gao 2020 - Changxu Gao, Italian literature in the Republic of China: translators, interpreters, intellectuals, and their networks, Doctoral Thesis discussed at La Sapienza University of Rome, supervisor Prof. Alessandra Brezzi.
- Bulfoni 2023 - Clara Bulfoni, The Ambrosiana in Chinese translations of The Betrothed (Paper presented at the 4th conference "Religious traditions and transformations of contemporary Asia", Milan, 2011).
- Levchenko 2024 - Mariia Levchenko, Automatic Translation Alignment Pipeline for Multilingual Digital Editions of Literary Works, CHR 2024: Computational Humanities Research Conference, December 4-6, 2024, Aarhus, Denmark.
- Muñiz 2025 - María de las Nieves Muñiz Muñiz. «Sulle traduzioni di Manzoni in Spagna fra storia e metodologia. Il caso dei Promessi sposi», en L'Italiano tradotto e da tradurre, actas del V Congreso internacional ASELIT, Universitat de Barcelona, 26-28 de marzo de 2025, ed. de Giorgia Marangon, Granada, Comares, 2025.
- Alessandro Manzoni: Le sue opere nel mondo / [a cura di] P. Frare, G. Iamartino. Milano: Franco Angeli, 2025.
The Project Team
Scientific responsibility:
- Paola Italia - Professor of Philology of Italian Literature and Scholarly Editing, University of Bologna
- Francesca Tomasi - Professor of Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage, University of Bologna
- Giulia Raboni - Professor of Philology of Italian Literature, University of Parma and Director of the portal AlessandroManzoni.Org
- Silvano Mo Cheng - Professor of Italian Language and Literature, Peking University
Collaborators:
- Roberta Priore - research fellow at AdLab, University of Bologna
- Mariia Levchenko - student of the Digital Humanities and Digital Knowledge degree course at the University of Bologna
- Lorenzo Sabatino - PhD student in the Cultural Heritage in the Digital Ecosystem PhD program at the University of Bologna
Partner institutions:
Program
Main dates:
- March 13-25, 2025: Bologna-Beijing
- December 4-5, 2025: Beijing-Bologna
- MARCH 30, 2026: FINAL EVENT
Activities
March 18, 2025. Visit to the DH laboratory at Peking University. . On March 18, the LeggoManzoni team visited the Research Center for Digital Humanities, guided by Professor Qi Su, one of the founders of the center, and by the director, Jun Wang who showed the spaces and allowed them to meet their research team.
The visit was followed by a round table comparing research projects and digital practices in the field of DH between the University of Bologna and Peking University. Roberta Priore, representing the University of Bologna, presented the work of the department laboratory, ADLab, highlighting the necessary steps for correct digitization of sources, using the example of the Giuseppe Raimondi collection, which preserves heterogeneous material including the writer's autograph notebooks. This introduction was followed by an overview of virtual exhibitions, digital teaching paths, and digital editions, using as a case the VaSto edition, dedicated to Benedetto Varchi's Florentine History.
The comparison continued with the presentation of the hosts' work, with four projects that demonstrate the ability to integrate the history of tradition and digital innovations. The first is Shī Qiān Jiā, a platform powered by artificial intelligence capable of generating classical Chinese poetry. Just enter a few words to see verses come to life, modeled on centuries of ancient literature. Continuing, the second project presented was the one dedicated to the National Rare Books System, a project born in collaboration with the Chinese National Library. Here you can explore an imposing library heritage through interactive interfaces, semantic visualizations and maps that tell the story of the transmission of ancient texts.
Furthermore, the Shídiǎn platform was presented as a powerful tool for reading, annotating and studying classical texts, with advanced features such as character recognition, automatic punctuation and access to digitized texts. Finally, the comparison concluded with Guanchao, a project that gives life and form to textual descriptions of the Song dynasty. Through the use of generative artificial intelligence, texts are transformed into animated scenes and visualizations inspired by traditional pictorial art, allowing to "see" the past in a completely new way.
The meeting allowed for comparison on a dual level, that of literature and that of Digital Humanities, stimulating new perspectives for research and collaboration.
March 20, 2025. The LeggoManzoni workshop at Peking University.. On March 20, the University of Bologna Team held an innovative workshop at Peking University, presenting to Chinese students the methods of Digital Humanities through various projects related to Manzoni's The Betrothed. The session included two presentations: the first, led by Prof. Paola Italia, concerned the evolution of the novel from Fermo e Lucia to The Betrothed, in the two editions of 1827 and 1840 (viewable in Philoeditor). Subsequently, Maria Levchenko presented the Multilingual Digital Edition model and the pipeline of the LeggoManzoni platform, designed to integrate multiple translations based on languages and time periods.
Particular interest was aroused by the practical XML/TEI markup workshop, in which Chinese students learned to encode the Chinese translation of the novel from 1998 by Zhang Shihua. This peer-to-peer learning experience showed the platform's segment-level alignment technology, enabling precise correlation between the original Italian text and segments of the Chinese translation. Students had the opportunity to put TEI encoding principles into practice, contributing to the expansion of the TRANSLATE MANZONI module. This module is part of a broader international collaboration between the universities of Bologna and Beijing aimed at making Italian literature more accessible through innovative digital tools.
March 20, 2025. LeggoManzoni at the IIC in Beijing.. On March 20, 2025, at the Italian Cultural Institute in Beijing, a meeting was held with Professors Giulia Raboni (University of Parma) and Paola Italia (University of Bologna): Alessandro Manzoni and The Betrothed: from papers to the Web / 曼佐尼与《约婚夫妇》：从书页到网络.
Alessandro Manzoni and The Betrothed: from papers to the Web 曼佐尼与《约婚夫妇》：从书页到网络
March 20, 2025, 7:00 PM. Italian Cultural Institute in Beijing. 意大利驻华大使馆文化中心
Event in Italian-Chinese with consecutive translation by Prof. Silvano Cheng Mo 活动语言：意大利语 - 中文（成沫教授）
7:00 PM Institutional greeting by Daniele Galleni, cultural attaché IIC Beijing. 官方致辞: 意大利驻华使馆文化中心文化专员高达宁博士
7:05 PM Conference by Paola Italia and Giulia Raboni: Alessandro Manzoni and "The Betrothed": from papers to the web. 主题发言：曼佐尼与《约婚夫妇》：从书页到网络. 主讲人：Paola Italia教授（博洛尼亚大学）；Giulia Raboni教授（帕尔马大学）
7:55 PM Presentation of the project: LeggoManzoni/Wo-Dú Manzoni. Reading The Betrothed in Beijing by students of the Digital Humanities and Digital Knowledge master's degree and the Cultural Heritage in the Digital Ecosystem PhD program at the University of Bologna, Mariia Levchenko and Lorenzo Sabatino. 项目介绍："我读曼佐尼：在北京读《约婚夫妇》". 介绍人：Mariia Levchenko 与 Lorenzo Sabatino（博洛尼亚大学）
8:25 PM Guided tour of the Real and virtual Exhibition: The Betrothed in Europe and the world. 展览介绍："《约婚夫妇》在欧洲和全世界的传播". 介绍人：Giulia Raboni教授与Paola Italia教授
8:35 PM Free visit to the Exhibition set up at the Institute. 观众自由观看展览
9:00 PM End of event. 活动结束
The conference presented the biography and literary production of Alessandro Manzoni, focusing on the three drafts of The Betrothed and their philological evolution. The Manzoni Online portal was illustrated, which offers access to manuscripts, letters and the author's library, Philoeditor, and LeggoManzoni, and parts of the text were read in Chinese translation. The meeting represented a key moment of the exchange project between the University of Bologna and Peking University, aimed at promoting Italian literature in China through Digital Humanities and collaborative teaching. The collaboration with IIC Beijing was very effective also for the dissemination of the project.
March 20-April 15 WWManzoni Exhibition – The Betrothed in Europe and the world at the IIC in Beijing. As part of the evening at the Italian Cultural Institute, the WWManzoni exhibition was inaugurated – Reading The Betrothed in Europe and the world, created in 2014 by the Arnoldo and Alberto Mondadori Foundation in collaboration with Casa Manzoni, together with the MOVIO virtual exhibition re-installed for the occasion.
The exhibition presents the life and works of Manzoni and translations of the novel, with an in-depth look at Chinese translations, created specifically for the Beijing exhibition. For the inauguration, a real Exhibition of Chinese translations and "pirate" copies of The Betrothed was also set up, which visitors were able to admire during the guided tour. The novel, in fact, had enormous success, documented by the large number of editions and translations, some also illustrated.
March 22 Presentation of the WWWManzoni Exhibition – Reading The Betrothed in Europe and the world to children from the IIC Italian school. On March 22, the Exhibition Reading The Betrothed in Europe and the world was presented to children attending Italian courses at the Italian Cultural Institute, and to their families, in a guided tour among the exhibition panels and using the SEE MANZONI section, with illustrations from The Betrothed, to tell, through the novel's events, also that of its adventurous editorial history.
April 16-May 10, 2025 WWManzoni Exhibition – Reading The Betrothed in Europe and the world in Dalian. From April 16 to May 10, the WWManzoni exhibition – Reading The Betrothed in Europe and the world was brought to Dalian (Liaoning Province), at the library of the Dalian University of Foreign Languages.
June 7-15, 2025. WWMANZONI - Reading The Betrothed in Europe and the world at Beihang University. From June 7 to 15, 2025, the WWManzoni exhibition – Reading The Betrothed in Europe and the world, was set up in Beijing, at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences of Beihang University.
December 4-5, 2025. The Leggo Manzoni/Wo-Dú Manzoni project returns to the University of Bologna. The Leggo Manzoni/Wo-Dú Manzoni project returned to the University of Bologna with two days of meetings and workshops.
On December 4, from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM in Aula Affreschi (Via Zamboni 34), a session dedicated to the Leggo Manzoni – Wo-Dú Manzoni project was held as part of the Scholarly Editing and Digital Textuality course, with Paola Italia, Roberta Priore, Lorenzo Sabatino, Mariia Levchenko, Silvano Cheng, and Qi Su.
On December 5, from 3:00 PM to 4:45 PM in Aula Pascoli (Via Zamboni 32), at a meeting aimed at DHDK students, PhD candidates and DH.Arc, the Digital Humanities projects of the DH laboratory at Peking University were presented (Prof. Qi Su, Dr. Zhaoji Wang, pkudh.org).
Following that, from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM in Aula Pascoli, the presentation of LEGGO MANZONI – WO-DÚ MANZONI was held, with readings of passages from The Betrothed in multiple languages by international students from the Scholarly Editing and Digital Textuality course who participated in the project, and the performance Accidenti, Manzoni! (Curated by Nicola Bonazzi).
Closing event – Casa del Manzoni, March 25, 2026
On March 25, 2026, the closing event of the project Reading The Betrothed in Beijing was held at Casa del Manzoni, with the PhD candidates, research fellows and students of the University of Bologna who contributed to the markup and revision of the Chinese translation. Speakers included the President of Casa Manzoni, Prof. Mauro Novelli; the Director of the National Edition, Prof. Giulia Raboni; the President of the Confucius Institute of Milan, Prof. Fu Haifeng; Prof. Bettina Mottura, sinologist at the University of Milan; and, connected from Beijing, the Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Beijing, Prof. Federico Antonelli, and Prof. Silvano Mo Cheng, project leader for PKU.
The final version of Leggo Manzoni was presented by Mariia Levchenko, Roberta Priore, Lorenzo Sabatino, Irene Piattoni, Monica Valentini and Ersilia Russo, together with the digital game Memory Manzoni, designed by Francesca Gaeta, a DH student at the University of Bologna. The event concluded with staged readings of passages from The Betrothed in Italian and Chinese, performed by University of Bologna students Hu Xiangting, Yihua Li, Yixuan Qu and Guo Xinyi.
