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).[1][2] 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.
- ^ Mauthausen Komitee Österreich [Austrian Mauthausen Committee] (in German).
- ^ "Morto a Bormio don Camillo; Il suo nome ispiro' Guareschi" [Dead at Bormio don Camillo; his name inspired Guareschi], Corriere della Sera (in Italian), 5 November 1998.