The Mill on the Po by Riccardo Bacchelli
"The Mill on the Po" is a historical novel by Riccardo Bacchelli set in early 19th-century Italy, particularly around the Po River near Ferrara. The narrative follows Lazzaro Scacerni, a young miller whose life is shaped by personal loss, survival, and ambition. He inherits the mill and becomes prosperous after discovering a mysterious receipt for plundered jewels. Lazzaro's life is marked by both success and tragedy, including floods that threaten his mill and the tumult of political change during Italy's unification. As Lazzaro navigates family dynamics, including a troubled relationship with his son Giuseppe, he faces societal challenges that reflect broader historical tensions, such as the impact of wars and the rise of nationalism. Eventually, the story weaves in themes of resilience and loss, culminating in Cecilia, Lazzaro's adopted daughter, who carries on the family legacy amidst personal and economic strife. The novel paints a complex picture of life on the Po River, blending individual struggles with the historical context of Italy's transition during the 19th century.
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The Mill on the Po by Riccardo Bacchelli
First published:Il mulino del Po, 1938-1940, three parts (English translation, 1950, parts 1 and 2; 1955, part 3)
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Historical
Time of plot: 1812-1918
Locale: Po River region, near Ferrara, Italy
Principal characters
Lazzaro Scacerni , a millerDosolina , his wifeGiuseppe , his sonCecilia , his daughter-in-lawLazzarino , his grandson
The Story:
In 1817, a new water mill appears on the Po River, near the city of Ferrara. Its owner is young Lazzaro Scacerni, who has mysteriously become the miller. He is, however, no stranger to the river—his father was a ferryman at Ariano and died in the peasant uprising of 1807. Shortly afterward, the young Lazzaro was sent, along with other orphans, to serve as a cabin boy in the navy. When older, he became an army engineer who built pontoon bridges. Now, in 1812, he finds himself a part of Napoleon Bonaparte’s ill-fated Russian campaign.
During the terrible 1812 retreat, a dying captain gives Lazzaro a mysterious receipt, which the illiterate young man cannot read. He guards it closely, however, as he straggles homeward from a debacle in which fourteen out of every fifteen Italian soldiers perish. Finally returning to the neighborhood of Ferrara, Lazzaro leads a life of struggle while waiting for a chance to make use of his one mysterious asset. He learns to read well enough to decipher the name and address attached to the receipt. His search leads him to a Jewish man in Ferrara’s ghetto. The receipt is for jewels, plundered from Spanish churches by Lazzaro’s benefactor. His windfall assured, Lazzaro cannily ponders how to apply it. Millers, he decides, are least affected by times of adversity, so he has a friendly old shipwright build him a floating mill. In due time it is finished and put into operation.
As the years pass, the miller prospers. As his trade grows, Lazzaro hires three boys as helpers. His success inspires more envy than affection among his neighbors, and a few wives and daughters succumb to his dashing gallantries. Nearly forty years old and wearying of bachelorhood, Lazzaro falls in love with Dosolina, poor but delicately beautiful and twenty years his junior. Lazzaro buys a house, marries Dosolina, and settles down to enjoy his prosperity.
Fate, however, does not always smile on Lazzaro and his mill. Floods come, the bane of the Po River millers. Smugglers, crossing between the Papal State and occupied Austria north of the River Po, insolently use his mill for a rendezvous. On the birth night of his son, Giuseppe, Lazzaro’s troubles reach a climax. While Dosolina is writhing in difficult labor, the desperate Lazzaro fights to save his mill from the swollen menace of the Po. Slipping on the wet deck, he breaks a leg but continues to direct his laborers, two of whom are strong workers. The third, Beffa, is malformed and secretly hates his master; he also has become a tool of the smugglers. Shedding all restraint, Beffa openly exults over his master’s plight and scornfully asserts that the miller has been cuckolded. Lazzaro, using his muscular arms, reaches out, seizes Beffa, and hurls him into the river.
Dosolina recovers, and the mill is saved, but Beffa’s dismissal causes Lazzaro to receive disturbing threats from Raguseo, leader of the smugglers. Soon afterward, however, a feud breaks out among the outlaws that disposes of Raguseo, after which Lazzaro breathes more easily. Some dangers are over, but others soon come. Intermittent floods continue to threaten the mill. One day a large mill washes ashore near Lazzaro’s own, its only occupant a girl named Cecilia, orphaned by the flood. To Cecilia, her mill had meant home. She is very happy when the Scacernis befriend her and reestablish her mill alongside theirs. From that time on Lazzaro regards the girl almost as his own daughter.
Lazzaro is much less pleased, however, with the character and disposition of his own son. Bandy-legged, crafty, and cowardly, Giuseppe cares nothing about his father’s trade except its profit. Early on, he had shown considerable skill, as well as great avarice, in business dealings of various kinds, but now, he is held in contempt by all, except by his mother.
During the late 1840’s, Lazzaro begins a successful traffic in grain with the hated Austrians. The same years bring new distress to Lazzaro’s family. Roving bands of partisans, Italians or Austrian mercenaries, infest the countryside and disturb the peace and security of the Scacernis. Finally, both mills are commandeered by the Austrians, and Lazzaro and Cecilia are required to transfer the mills to the opposite side of the river.
After a few months, the mills are allowed to be returned to the Italian side of the river, but the political atmosphere is still cloudy and confused among the rival claims and interests of the Papacy, the Italian nationalistic movement, and Austria. Lazzaro, who is growing old and querulous, finds much to complain about. Only at the mills, in the company of his helpers and Cecilia, does he feel comfortable. Even there, he sometimes rails at the smuggling, which carries scarce grain across the river to Austria. He is outraged when he learns that Giuseppe has taken a leading role in the transactions.
A problem in the family suddenly arises, causing distress to both Scacerni parents. Giuseppe, apparently inattentive to women, has long slyly coveted Cecilia for his wife, in spite of her clear indifference to him. Not daring to risk her mockery by a proposal, he goes about winning her by characteristic trickery. Meanly playing on her fondness for his father, Giuseppe blandly announces that Lazzaro has broken a law by possessing concealed firearms. His son tells Cecilia that he could exert influence to head off his father’s arrest and punishment, but only for a price: Cecilia’s consent to marry him. Taken by surprise, Cecilia is confused, angry, and ignorantly fearful. Her devotion to Lazzaro, however, is greater than her repugnance for his son, and in the end, Giuseppe has his way.
Lazzaro, unaware of Cecilia’s sacrifice, is baffled and feels hurt by what he considers her poor judgment. In turn, Dosolina regards her new daughter-in-law as little better than a river gypsy and quite unworthy of her son. Neither of the parents, however, have long to lament the marriage. In 1855, Dosolina is the victim of a wave of cholera that sweeps all Europe. The next morning, Lazzaro is found dead beside her.
The structure of Italy is changing: Time is bringing defeat to Austria, the end of papal rule, and the dawn of a united nation. These things, of course, mean little to Cecilia Scacerni, but the warmth of her nature at last finds a rewarding outlet. Her firstborn and favorite, Lazzarino, is vigorous and intelligent, a reminder of his grandfather in more than name. Even his grasping, mean-natured father openly adores his son.
Lazzarino is not destined to match his grandfather in years, however. Miserable at the general mockery of his father’s cowardice, he runs off to join Garibaldi’s volunteers. News of his death staggers Cecilia; its effect on Giuseppe is catastrophic. Grief gnaws at his reason, and the destruction of his house and crops by flood completes his downfall. Howling obscenely, he is carted off to an asylum.
Left alone, Cecilia survives with calm courage. There is work to do, and she will see that it is done. With her seven children, she succeeds in rebuilding the mills in these, the early years of the Italian unification. The taxes on mill owners are enormous, causing Cecilia to cheat on the unfair taxes by fixing the counting mechanism to show lower activity. A tax inspector experiences a tragic accident during an inspection of the mills that results in a long prison sentence for one of Cecilia’s sons. A series of economic problems ensue and befall the Scacerni family so that, at Cecilia’s death, only one son, named Lazzarino, after his grandfather, is left. Reversals of the family’s fortune cause him to join the Italian army during World War I. He is killed while trying to erect a pontoon bridge over the River Piave.
The Scacerni family has passed from the Italian scene, and the Po continues its eternal flow. The family has been conquered by nature and by their own tragic conduct.
Bibliography
Bartolini, Paolo. “Riccardo Bacchelli.” In The Oxford Companion to Italian Literature, edited by Peter Hainsworth and David Robey. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. A brief but useful biocritical introduction to Bacchelli and his writings.
Licastro, Emanuele. “Riccardo Bacchelli.” In Italian Prose Writers: 1900-1945, edited by Luca Somigli and Rocco Capozzi. Detroit, Mich.; Thomson Gale, 2002. A ten-page biographical essay examining Bacchelli’s life and work.