That the suspicion was well grounded he soon showed by writing the battle poem La Prineide (1814) in Milanese, in which he described with vivid colours the tragical death of Giuseppe Prina, chief treasurer during the Empire, whom the people of Milan, instigated by Austrian agitators, had torn to pieces and dragged through the streets of the town (1814).

[1] The anonymous poem—subversive even in being an incunable of the surfacing Western Lombard dialect as a literary language— was first attributed to the celebrated Carlo Porta, but Grossi of his own accord acknowledged himself the author.

[1] Of the same period is the satirical dialect poem against Classicism, Matrimoni del sur cont Gabriell Verr (1819) written in collaboration with Carlo Porta.

He next wrote an epic poem, entitled The Lombards in the First Crusade, a work of which Manzoni makes honorable mention in I Promessi Sposi.

The example of Manzoni induced Grossi to write an historical novel entitled Marco Visconti (1834), a work which contains passages of true description and deep pathos.