Today Google's doodle is dedicated to Italian writer Alessandro Manzoni celebrating the 227th anniversary of his birth in 1785.
The doodle shows the main characters of his masterpiece, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed) sitting or standing around the letters forming the Google logo: Fra Cristoforo, the Nun of Monza, Renzo and Lucia, Don Rodrigo and Don Abbondio.
The Betrothed is the first Italian historical novel, first published in 1827 in three volumes, it is now the most famous and widely read Italian novel.
Other Italians celebrated by Google were Renaissance artist and art historian Giorgio Vasari, sculptor Gio' Pomodoro, writer Italo Calvino, musician Nino Rota and film director Fellini and a special doodle was also dedicated to the commemoration of the anniversary of the foundation of the postwar Italian Republic.
