Riccardo
Bacchelli (Italian
pronunciation: [rikˈkardo bakˈkɛlli]; 19
April 1891 – 8 October 1985) was an Italian writer. In 1927 he was one of the
founders of the review La Ronda and Bagutta Prize for literature. He was nominated for
the Nobel Prize in Literature eight
times. His first novel was Il filo meraviglioso di Lodovico Clo (The
wonderful thread of Lodovico Clo). Next was Lo sa il tonno (1923).
Other works include Il Diavolo al Pontelungo (1927) and La
città degli amanti (The City of Lovers, 1929). His most popular
work remains Il mulino del Po (The Mill on the Po)
(1938–1940), which covered a century in the life of a rural family. A film
adapted from the novel was released in 1949. Later novels, published from 1945
to 1978, include: Il pianto del figlio di Lais, Non ti chiamerò più
padre, La cometa, Il rapporto segreto (The secret
relationship), Afrodite: un romanzo d'amore (Aphrodite:
a love novel), Il progresso è un razzo (Progress is a
rocket) and Il sommergibile (The submarine). Riccardo
Bacchelli was elected as a member of the Royal Academy of Italy. He
was awarded the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of
Merit of the Italian Republic in 1971. The novel narrates in
more than 2000 pages the lives, adventures and problems of Lazzaro Scacerni and
his family. It opens in the early 19th century as Scacerni returns to Italy
from Russia, where he had served as a soldier of Napoleon's invasion, and
follows him and his family through a full century until the First World War. Scacerni owns a mill in a rural area on the
river Po (hence the title). He and his descendants conduct
their lives amid political turmoil, wars, economic hardship, and class
conflicts. The historical, geographical and social background was painstakingly
researched by Bacchelli, who created a large and comprehensive portrait of life
in rural Italy in the 19th century. The language and style of this novel show
that Bacchelli held Alessandro Manzoni as
his model. At the same time, he created a structure that showed his attention
to contemporary European novels.