Riccardo Bacchelli

Bacchelli contributed to the Bologna-based magazine La Raccolta from 1918 to 1919.{{cite thesis|author=Simona Storchi|pages=60–61

|title=Notions of tradition and modernity in Italian critical debates of the 1920s|year=2001|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1778448531

|isbn=978-1-339-48161-6|location=University of London|id={{ProQuest|1778448531}}|degree=Ph.D.}} He was a member of the editorial board of the Rome-based magazine La Ronda between 1919 and 1922.{{cite web|title=La Ronda|language=it|access-date=24 June 2023|url=https://r.unitn.it/it/lett/circe/la-ronda|publisher=University of Trento}} 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.[http://www.quirinale.it/elementi/Onorificenze.aspx?pag=0&qIdOnorificenza=&cognome=bacchelli&nome=riccardo&daAnno=1800&aAnno=2011&luogoNascita=&testo=&ordinamento=OCO_ANNO_DECRETO%20DESC,OCO_MESE_DECRETO%20DESC,OCO_GIORNO_DECRETO%20DESC Presidenza della Repubblica – Le Onorificenze: Riccardo Bacchelli.]

File: Nino Rota Riccardo Bacchelli e Bruno Maderna.jpg and Bruno Maderna in 1963]]

The novel narrates in more than 2000 pages the lives, adventures and problems of Lazzaro Scacerni and his family. It opens in the early nineteenth century as Scacerni returns to Italy from Russia, where he had served as a soldier in 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 nineteenth 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.Giulio Ferroni (1992) Profilo storico della letteratura italiana, Einaudi scuola, Milano 1992, p. 956: "strutture narrative spesso acute e sottili, che mostrano una notevole attenzione alle forme del contemporaneo romanzo europeo."

• Italy: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (19 April 1971){{Cite web |title=Le onorificenze della Repubblica Italiana |url=https://www.quirinale.it/onorificenze/insigniti/34463 |access-date= 24 October 2022|website=www.quirinale.it}}

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• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Riccardo Bacchelli}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20050320124550/http://www.maat.it/livello2/fascismo-manifesto.htm Manifesto]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20020726022408/http://riccardobacchelli.it/ Riccardo Bacchelli website]

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Category:1891 births

Category:1985 deaths

Category:Writers from Bologna

Category:20th-century Italian novelists

Category:20th-century Italian male writers

Category:Viareggio Prize winners

Category:Members of the Royal Academy of Italy

Category:Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic

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