Bread and Wine by Ignazio Silone

First published:Brot und Wein, 1936 (English translation, 1936; revised, 1962)

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Social realism

Time of plot: 1930’s

Locale: Italy

Principal characters

• Don Benedetto, a liberal priest
• Pietro Spina, a former pupil and a political agitator
• Bianchina Girasole, a peasant girl befriended by Spina
• Cristina Colamartini, Bianchina’s schoolmate

The Story:

In the Italian village of Rocca dei Marsi, Don Benedetto, a former Catholic teacher, and his faithful sister, Marta, prepare to observe the don’s seventy-fifth birthday. It is April, and war with the Abyssinians is in the making. Benedetto invites several of his old students to observe his anniversary with him. Three appear, and the group talks of old acquaintances. Most of Benedetto’s students compromised the moral precepts that the high-minded old scholar taught them. Benedetto asks about Pietro Spina, his favorite pupil, and learns from his guests that the independent-minded Spina is a political agitator, a man without a country. It is rumored that Spina returned to Italy to carry on his work among the peasants.

One day Doctor Nunzio Sacca, one of those who was at the party, is summoned by a peasant to come to the aid of a sick man. Sacca, upon finding the man to be Spina, is filled with fear, but the sincerity and fervor of Spina make him ashamed. Spina, only in his thirties, used iodine to transform his features to those of an old man. Sacca administers to Spina and arranges for the agitator’s convalescence in a nearby mountain village. Later, he furnishes Spina with clerical clothes. Disguised as a priest and calling himself Don Paolo Spada, Spina goes to the Hotel Girasole in Fossa, where he brings comfort to a young woman who is believed to be dying as the result of an abortion.

In the mountains, at Pietrasecca, Paolo—as Spina calls himself—stays at the inn of Matelena Ricotta. In his retreat, Paolo begins to have doubts concerning the value of the life he is leading, but the brutal existence of the peasants of Pietrasecca continue to spur him on in his desire to free the oppressed people.

Bianchina Girasole, the woman whom Paolo comforted at Fossa, appears, well and healthy. Attributing her survival to Paolo, she says that the man is surely a saint. Disowned by her family, Bianchina goes to Cristina Colamartini, a school friend who lives in Pietrasecca. The two women, discussing school days and old friends, conclude that most of their schoolmates took to ways of evil in one way or another. When Bianchina seduces Cristina’s brother, Alberto, the Colamartinis are scandalized. Paolo lost his respect for Cristina, who shows only too plainly that her devotion to God excludes all reason and any humanity; she avows that a Colamartini can never marry a Girasole because of difference in caste.

Paolo begins to visit more frequently among the peasants. Soon he has a reputation as a wise and friendly priest. In his association with those simple people, he learns that no reformer can ever hope to be successful with them by use of abstractions; the peasants accept only facts, either good or bad. He leaves the valley. At Fossa, he again seeks out potential revolutionary elements. He speaks of revolution to Alberto and Bianchina, who move to Fossa, and to Pompeo, son of the local chemist. The youths are delighted. Paolo enlists Pompeo in the movement.

Paolo goes to Rome. There, in the church of Scala Santa, he discards his clerical dress to become Spina once again. In Rome, he finds an air of futility and despair. Romeo, his chief contact, tells him that peasant agitators do not have a chance for success. Spina explains that propaganda by words is not enough; success can be achieved only by living the truth to encourage the oppressed. Spina sees student demonstrations in favor of the leader and of the projected war. He talks to Uliva, who is completely disillusioned. Then he looks for Murica, a youth from his own district who, perhaps, can direct him to dependable peasants. Murica, however, returned to his home. Before Spina leaves Rome, he hears that an explosion killed Uliva in his apartment. The police learn that Uliva was preparing to blow up a church at a time when many high government officials were to be in it.

Back at the Hotel Girasole in Fossa, Spina, again disguised as Don Paolo, is sickened by the enthusiasm of the peasants for the success of the Abyssinian war. He sends Bianchina to Rocca to seek out Murica. During the prowar demonstrations, he goes about the village writing antiwar and antigovernment slogans on walls. Pompeo, who went to Rome, returns during the excitement and reveals that he was won over by the glory of the new war; he enlists for service in Africa. Paolo’s charcoaled slogans soon have the village in an uproar. Pompeo, who suspects Paolo, announces publicly that he will disclose the culprit’s identity, but Bianchina persuades the youth not to expose her beloved Paolo.

Paolo goes to visit his old schoolmaster, Don Benedetto, at Rocca. He appears before the venerable old priest as himself, not as Paolo, and the two men, although of different generations, agree that theirs is a common problem. They ask each other what has become of God in human affairs. They are not able to offer any solution to the problem, but they both agree that any compromise to one’s belief is fatal not only to the individual but also to society.

Paolo gives Bianchina money and letters and sends her to Rome; he himself goes to Pietrasecca. There a young peasant brings him a letter from Don Benedetto. The messenger is Murica, the man he was seeking. When Spina reveals his true identity to Murica, the two men swear to collaborate. News of Murica’s work with Paolo circulates in Pietrasecca, and Paolo finds himself playing the part of confessor to Pietraseccans. What they disclose to him disgusts him but at the same time convinces him more than ever that the peasants must be raised from their squalor. Paolo renews his acquaintance with Cristina, who was asked by Don Benedetto to give Paolo help whenever he needs it.

Don Benedetto is threatened because of his candid opinions. Called to officiate at a mass, he is poisoned when he drinks the sacramental wine. At the same time Paolo, who receives word that Romeo was arrested in Rome, goes to the Holy City, where he finds that Bianchina is a prostitute. She confesses her undying love for the priest. Paolo, now Spina, finds the underground movement in Rome in utter chaos after Romeo’s arrest. Despairing, he returns to his home district, where he learns that Murica was arrested and killed by government authorities. He flees to Pietrasecca to destroy papers he left in the inn where he stayed during his convalescence. Learning that he is sought throughout the district, he flees into the snow-covered mountains. Cristina follows his trail in an attempt to take him food and warm clothing. Mists and deep snow hinder her progress. Night falls. Alone and exhausted, she makes the sign of the cross as hungry wolves close in upon her.

Bibliography

Brown, Robert McAfee. “Ignazio Silone and the Pseudonyms of God.” In The Shapeless God: Essays on Modern Fiction, edited by Harry J. Mooney, Jr., and Thomas F. Staley. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1968. Notes the underlying Christian symbolism in this novel of failed revolution. Suggests that God is not dead but hidden, revealed not through religion but through sacrifice for others.

Holmes, Deborah. Ignazio Silone in Exile: Writing and Antifascism in Switzerland, 1929-44. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2005. Focuses on Silone’s fifteen-year exile in Switzerland. Holmes discusses the influence of German antifascist émigres and Swiss socialists upon Silone’s work, Silone’s role in Zurich’s intellectual community and the Swiss left-wing press, and the reception and rewriting of Bread and Wine.

Howe, Irving. “Silone: A Luminous Example.” In Decline of the New. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1970. Traces Pietro Spina’s spiritual anguish and his ultimate rejection of Marxism in favor of the primitive Christianity of the Abruzzi peasants. Explores the possibility of modern heroism through contemplation rather than action.

Leake, Elizabeth. The Reinvention of Ignazio Silone. Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press, 2003. In 1996, it was revealed that Silone, a hero among Italian liberals and a one-time high-ranking member of the Communist Party, had secretly supported the Italian Fascists. Leake reevaluates Silone’s fiction from a psychoanalytic perspective, demonstrating how his novels reflect his struggles with this duplicity. Bread and Wine is discussed in chapter 4.

Lewis, R. W. B. “Ignazio Silone: The Politics of Charity.” In The Picaresque Saint: Representative Figures in Contemporary Fiction. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1959. Identifies Spina, with his alter ego Paolo Spada, as a picaresque saint, part hero and part rogue. Analyzes his encounters with other symbolic figures.

Paynter, Maria Nicolai. Ignazio Silone: Beyond the Tragic Vision. Buffalo, N.Y.: University of Toronto Press, 2000. Critical study focusing on the controversies surrounding Silone and his writing. Analyzes his intellectual and political convictions and assesses his development as a writer. Includes bibliography and index.

Pugliese, Stanislao G. Bitter Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. A comprehensive and detailed account of Silone’s life and work that addresses many of the misconceptions about Silone’s political involvement. Describes how Silone’s personal faith defied political and religious orthodoxies and was reflected in his fiction.

Scott, Nathan A., Jr. “Ignazio Silone: Novelist of the Revolutionary Sensibility.” In Rehearsals of Discomposure: Alienation and Reconciliation in Modern Literature. New York: King’s Crown Press, 1952. Characterizes Bread and Wine as a revolutionary novel, citing its disenchantment with all political parties. Examines the inevitable isolation of a revolutionary such as Spina.

Silone, Ignazio. Bread and Wine. Translated by Harvey Fergusson II, with an afterword by Marc Slonim. New York: Atheneum, 1962. Comments on significant changes in Silone’s 1955 revision. Views the novel as a kind of ethical bildungsroman.

Sipe, A. W. Richard. “Will the Real Priest Please Stand Up: Ignazio Silone.” In The Serpent and the Dove: Celibacy in Literature and Life. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2007. A study of religious celibacy, focusing on historic figures who were celibate, such as Mahatma Gandhi, and on literary accounts of celibacy, including the writings of Silone.