The Mill on the Po: God Save You (Book One)

The Mill on the Po trilogy tells of the birth of Italy as a nation; its central figures are Lazzaro Scacerni and his family, their mill on the river Po, and the river itself—stately, savage, source of both life and death. God Save You begins in the convulsive final years of the Napoleonic Wars. For a solitary act of heroism, Lazzaro Scacerni receives a treasure of pillaged jewels and establishes Saint Michael’s Mill on the Po. In the subsequent years, he and his family fight forces both natural and social—floods and famine, smugglers and scoundrels—in a determined, at times heroic, battle for sustenance and survival.

And so we arrive at the encouraging truth that quarrels and wars and all the most violent human passions, when there is good will on the part of God and man, actually contribute to the achievement of unity among men and the profit of civilization. (Riccardo Bacchelli)

Captivating from the first word to the last, God Save You is an auspicious beginning to Bacchelli’s capacious and passionate masterpiece, The Mill on the Po.

Paperback, 370 pages.