Don Camillo and Peppone


Don Camillo and Peppone are the fictional protagonists of a series of works by the Italian writer and journalist Giovannino Guareschi set in what Guareschi refers to as the "small world" of rural Italy after World War II. Most of the Don Camillo stories came out in the weekly magazine Candido, founded by Guareschi with Giovanni Mosca. These "Little World" stories amounted to 347 in total and were put together and published in eight books, only the first three of which were published when Guareschi was still alive.
Don Camillo is a parish priest and is said to have been inspired by an actual Roman Catholic priest, World War II partisan and detainee at the concentration camps of Dachau and Mauthausen, named Don Camillo Valota. Guareschi was also inspired by Don Alessandro Parenti, a priest of Trepalle, near the Swiss border. Peppone is the communist town mayor. The tensions between the two characters and their respective factions form the basis of the works' satirical plots.

Characterisation

In the post-war years, Don Camillo Tarocci is the hotheaded priest of a small town in the Po valley in northern Italy. He is a big man, tall and strong with hard fists. For the films, the town chosen to represent that of the books was Brescello after the production of movies based on Guareschi's tales, but in the first story Don Camillo is introduced as the parish priest of Ponteratto.
File:Don camillo.jpg|thumb|Don Camillo talking with Jesus. He is wearing a black biretta.
Don Camillo is constantly at odds with the Communist mayor, Giuseppe Bottazzi, better known as Peppone and is also on very close terms with the crucifix in his town church. Through the crucifix he hears the voice of Christ. The Christ in the crucifix often has far greater understanding than Don Camillo of the troubles of the people, and has to constantly but gently reprimand the priest for his impatience.
What Peppone and Camillo have in common is an interest in the well-being of the town. They also appear to have both been partisan fighters during World War II; one episode mentions Camillo having braved German patrols in order to reach Peppone and his fellow Communists in the mountains and administer Mass to them under field conditions. While Peppone makes public speeches about how "the reactionaries" ought to be shot, and Don Camillo preaches fire and brimstone against "godless Communists", they actually grudgingly admire each other. Therefore, they sometimes end up working together in peculiar circumstances, though keeping up their squabbling. Thus, although he publicly opposes the Church as a Party duty, Peppone takes his gang to the church and baptises his children there, which makes him part of Don Camillo's flock; also, Peppone and other Communists are seen as sharing in veneration of the Virgin Mary and local Saints. Don Camillo also never condemns Peppone himself, but the ideology of communism which is in direct opposition to the church.
Peppone and his comrades are sometimes seen at odds with the city-based Communist bureaucrats, who are sometimes seen as "barging in" and trying to dictate policy to the local Communists without knowing the local conditions. This is paralleled by Don Camillo sometimes coming into serious conflict with his Bishop, on one occasion a case of flagrant disobedience leading to Camillo being exiled to a tiny village high in the mountains; however, the Bishop is soon forced to reinstate him at the strong demand of his parishioners.
As depicted in the stories, the Communists are the only political party with a mass grassroots organization in the town. The Italian Christian Democratic Party, the main force in Italian politics at the time, does not have a local political organization ; rather, it is the Catholic Church which unofficially but very obviously plays that role. Don Camillo thus plays an explicitly political as well as religious role. For example, when the Communists organize a local campaign to sign the Stockholm Peace Appeal, it is Don Camillo who organizes a counter-campaign, and the townspeople take for granted that such a political campaign is part of his work as priest.
Many stories are satirical and take on the real-world political divide between the Italian Roman Catholic Church and the Italian Communist Party, as well as broader political issues. Others are tragedies about schism, politically motivated murder, and personal vendettas in a small town where everyone knows everyone else, but not everyone necessarily likes everyone else very much.
Political forces other than the Communists and the Catholics have only a marginal presence. In one episode the local Communists are incensed at the announcement that the small Italian Liberal Party has scheduled an election rally in their town, and mobilize in force to break it up—only to discover virtually no local Liberals have turned up; the Liberal speaker, a middle-aged professor, speaks to a predominantly Communist audience and wins its grudging respect by his courage and determination.
In one story, Don Camillo visits the Soviet Union, pretending to be a comrade. In another, the arrival of pop culture and motorcycles propels Don Camillo into fighting "decadence", a struggle in which he finds he has his hands full, especially when Christ mainly smiles benevolently on the young rascals. In this later collection, Peppone is the owner of several profitable dealerships, riding the "Boom" years of the 1960s in Italy. He is no longer quite the committed Communist he once was, but he still does not get on with Don Camillo – at least not in public. Don Camillo has his own problems: the Second Vatican Council has brought changes in the Church, and a new assistant priest, who comes to be called Don Chichì, has been foisted upon him to see that Don Camillo moves with the times. Don Camillo, of course, has other ideas.
Despite their bickering, the goodness and generosity of each character can be seen during hard times. They always understand and respect each other when one is in danger, when a flood devastates the town, when death takes a loved one, and in many other situations in which the two "political enemies" show their mutual respect for one another and fight side by side for the same ideals.
Guareschi created a second series of novels about a similar character, Don Candido, Archbishop of Trebilie. The name of this fictional town is a play on words of Trepalle, a real town whose priest was an acquaintance of Guareschi's.

Books in chronological order

The following Italian language books have been published:
  • Mondo Piccolo: Don Camillo. Literally: Little World: Don Camillo
  • Mondo Piccolo: Don Camillo e il suo gregge. Literally: Little World: Don Camillo and His Flock
  • Mondo Piccolo: Il compagno don Camillo. Literally: Little World: Comrade Don Camillo
The following Italian language books have been published posthumously:
  • Mondo Piccolo: Don Camillo e i giovani d'oggi. Literally: Little World: Don Camillo and the Youth of Today
  • Gente così. 1980.
  • Lo spumarino pallido. 1981.
  • Noi del Boscaccio. 1983.
  • L'anno di don Camillo. 1986.
  • Il decimo clandestino. 1987.
  • Ciao don Camillo. 1996.
  • Don Camillo e don Chichì. 1996. The complete version of Don Camillo e i giovani d'oggi
  • Don Camillo e Peppone.
The following US English translations have been published:
The following UK English translations have been published:
  • The Little World of Don Camillo.
  • Don Camillo and the Prodigal Son.
  • Don Camillo's Dilemma.
  • Don Camillo and the Devil.
  • Comrade Don Camillo.
  • Don Camillo Meets Hell's Angels.
The following five were compiled into a larger book published in 1980: The World of Don Camillo, to coincide with the television adaptation:
  • The Little World of Don Camillo.
  • Don Camillo and the Prodigal Son.
  • Don Camillo's Dilemma.
  • Don Camillo and the Devil.
  • Comrade Don Camillo.
The World of Don Camillo does not contain all the stories contained in the individual books. The Italian, US English and UK English publications often have a different number of stories within them.

Pilot Productions authorised complete English-language edition (2013 onwards)

The Guareschi family only discovered after 1980 that the original English language publishers made unauthorised cuts in stories, only publishing 132 of the original 347 Italian stories. After an approach from Piers Dudgeon of Pilot Productions, the family authorised him to publish uncut translations into English of all the original 347 stories. The copyright is vested in the family, and the books published so far are:
  • No. 1: The Complete Little World of Don Camillo
  • No. 2: Don Camillo and His Flock
  • No. 3: Don Camillo and Peppone
  • No. 4: Comrade Don Camillo
  • No. 5: Don Camillo and Company
  • No. 6: Don Camillo’s Dilemma
  • No. 7: Don Camillo Takes the Devil by the Tail
  • No. 8: Don Camillio and Don Chichi
  • No. 9: Merry Christmas Don Camillo
  • No. 10: Don Camillo of La Bassa
  • No. 11: Ciao Don Camillo, Volume One
  • No. 12: Ciao Don Camillo, Volume Two

    Media

Films

A series of black-and-white films were made between 1952 and 1965. These were French–Italian coproductions and were simultaneously released in both languages. Don Camillo was played by French actor Fernandel, Peppone by the Italian actor Gino Cervi, quite a Guareschi-lookalike, both tall and bulky with big mustaches. The author of the original stories was involved in the scripts and helped select the main actors. To this day, the films are screened in Europe. The titles were:
  • Little World of Don Camillo
  • The Return of Don Camillo
  • Don Camillo's Last Round
  • Don Camillo: Monsignor
  • Don Camillo in Moscow
Christian-Jaque began filming the French-Italian film Don Camillo e i giovani d'oggi in 1970 but had to stop filming due to Fernandel's falling ill, which resulted in his untimely death. The film was then realized in 1972 by Mario Camerini with Gastone Moschin playing the role of Don Camillo and Lionel Stander as Peppone. A Don Camillo film was remade in 1983, an Italian production with Terence Hill directing and also starring as Don Camillo. Colin Blakely performed Peppone in one of his last film roles.