Don Camillo (pronounced [ˈdɔŋ kaˈmillo]) and Peppone (pronounced [pepˈpoːne]) 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" (Italian: Piccolo Mondo) 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 (1912–1998). 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.
Contents
Characterisation
In the post-war years (after 1945), Don Camillo Tarocci (his full name, which he rarely uses) 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 (which currently has a museum dedicated to Don Camillo and Peppone) 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.
Don Camillo is constantly at odds with the communist mayor, Giuseppe Bottazzi, better known as Peppone (meaning, roughly, 'Big Joe', an allusion to Josef Stalin) 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 on 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 say Mass for 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 Catholic 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; Peppone and other Communists are also seen venerating 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 at times seen at odds with the city-based Communist bureaucrats, who are sometimes seen as "barging in" and trying to impose policy on the local Communists without knowing conditions on the ground. This is paralleled by Don Camillo sometimes coming into serious conflict with his Bishop, one occasion a case of flagrant disobedience leading to Camillo’s exiled to a tiny village high in the mountains; the Bishop is soon forced to reinstate him at the strong demand of his parishioners (including the Communists).
Books in chronological order
The following Italian language books have been published:
Mondo Piccolo: Don Camillo. [Pub: Rizzoli, 1948] Literally: Little World: Don Camillo
Mondo Piccolo: Don Camillo e il suo gregge. [Pub: Rizzoli, 1953] Literally: Little World: Don Camillo and His Flock
Mondo Piccolo: Il compagno don Camillo. [Pub: Rizzoli, 1963] Literally: Little World: Comrade Don Camillo
The following Italian language books have been published posthumously:
Mondo Piccolo: Don Camillo e i giovani d'oggi. [Pub: Rizzoli, 1969] 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. [Pub: Rizzoli, 2007] ISBN 978-88-486-0355-3
The following US English translations have been published:
The Little World of Don Camillo. [Pub: Pellegrini and Cudahy, 1950] (Mondo Piccolo: Don Camillo, translated by Una Vincenzo Troubridge)
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 (2013) ISBN 978-1900064071
Contains Mondo Piccolo: Don Camillo
No. 2: Don Camillo and His Flock (2015) ISBN 978-1900064187 (12 stories in this volume were published in English for the first time)
Contains Mondo Piccolo: Don Camillo e il suo gregge
No. 3: Don Camillo and Peppone (2016) ISBN 978-1900064262
Contains Don Camillo e Peppone
No. 4: Comrade Don Camillo (2017) ISBN 978-1900064330
Contains Mondo Piccolo: Il compagno don Camillo
No. 5: Don Camillo and Company (2018) ISBN 978-1900064408 (All 24 stories in this volume were published here in English for the first time)
Contains stories which were not in a specific Italian-language edition
No. 6: Don Camillo’s Dilemma (2019) ISBN 978-1900064477 (12 stories in this volume were published in English for the first time)
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 (Italian: Don Camillo; French: Le Petit Monde de don Camillo)
The Return of Don Camillo (Italian: Il ritorno di don Camillo; French: Le Retour de don Camillo)
Don Camillo's Last Round (Italian: Don Camillo e l'onorevole Peppone; French: La Grande Bagarre)
Don Camillo: Monsignor (Italian: Don Camillo monsignore ma non troppo; French: Don Camillo Monseigneur)
Don Camillo in Moscow (Italian: Il compagno don Camillo; French: Don Camillo en Russie)
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 (The World of Don Camillo; Italian: 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.
Radio
A BBC Radio English-language radio dramatization of The Little World of Don Camillo was broadcast in 2001 starring Alun Armstrong as Don Camillo, John Moffatt as the Bishop, Shaun Prendergast as Peppone and Joss Ackland as God, and rebroadcast in July 2010 on BBC Radio 7.
Four further BBC Radio series of The Little World of Don Camillo were made, with the final series broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2006. Ian Hogg replaced Armstrong as Don Camillo, while Prendergast, Ackland and Moffatt all continued to reprise their roles as Peppone, God and the Bishop respectively. BBC Radio 7 broadcast the second and third series throughout August and September 2010 with the fourth series beginning on 6 October.
Television
In 1980, the BBC produced a well-received television series, The Little World of Don Camillo, based on the stories, starring Italian-German actor Mario Adorf as Don Camillo and Englishman Brian Blessed as Peppone. The narrator and Voice of the Christ was Cyril Cusack. Thirteen episodes were screened on BBC 2 at 9pm on Thursday nights from January 8th 1981 to April 2nd 1981. As of 2023, the series has not been rebroadcast or released on DVD/Blu-ray.
In Colombia the stories were adapted into a TV comedy called Don Camilo. The Italian Communist era was changed to a Colombian period called "La Violencia" when the Liberal and Conservative parties were fighting to maintain power in Colombia. The comedy was produced from 1987 to 1988 by the now defunct Coestrellas company and produced and directed by Daniel Samper Pizano and Bernando Romero Pereiro. The series starred Carlos Benjumea as Don Camillo (Don Camilo in Colombian Spanish), Hector Rivas as Peppone (Pepón in Colombian Spanish), Luis Fernando Múnera as The Christ Voice, and the actors Diego León Hoyos and Manuel Pachón as Peppone flunkies. The series was broadcast on Mondays at 10:00 pm by Cadena 2 (Señal Institucional now) and rebroadcast by Señal Colombia in 2011 and Canal Uno in 2014.
Thai novel
The Little World of Don Camillo was adapted by the Thai writer and politician Kukrit Pramoj into his own 1954 novel, Phai Daeng (Red Bamboo).