Il Maestro di Vigevano

Lucio Mastronardi (biography from Wikipedia) is an italian writer of the 60’s and 70’s. He was born in Vigevano, a small town in the county of Pavia and not far from Milano and famous for its grand and splendid piazza and for the large shoe manufacturing industry (one of the most important in the world), which sprung up just after the second world war.

Piazza del Duomo, Vigevano (Pavia), Italy
Photo by Luca Volpi (Goldmund100)

Vigevano not only is the setting of this trilogy of novels but also represents a symbol of provincial Italy during the postwar period. These novels center on small, inept men who seem incapable of living. When they try to mark a turning point in their lives, they always fail, and the repercussions are often catastrophic. Il calzolaio di Vigevano, the first of the triology, is written in the Vigevanese dialect and can be a very overwhelming to read (even for Italians!). The style is wonderfully rhythmical, and there are many plays on words which makes the reading endearing and fun.
The first novel tells the rise and the fall of Mario Sala, also known as “Micca”, a gifted and clever shoemaker who will first become a successful entrepreneur but soon succumbs to his failures.


Il Maestro di Vigevano, the second word of the trilogy, is widely regarded as the best of the three. The work has a very dramatic and intense story, full of a bitter and cruel sarcasm on the whole of society. No institution is safe from Mastronardi's criticisms, not even school or the Church. Antonio Mombelli is the protagonist Il maestro di Vigevano  who is held captive by his wife’s ambition. She is a sort of a provincial Madame Bovary, intensely attached to money and status. She forces her husband, Antonio, to give up his career at school so that he might open a small shoemaking factory. (NB: A film of the same name was directed ty Elio Petri and featured the inimitable, Alberto Sordi, in the lead. However the book has an ending that is more morbid and darker than the film!)

The final work of the triology, Il meridionale di Vigevano, tells the story of a humble businessman of Southern origins who finds himself immersed in the petty racist world of Pavian surroundings.  His story is not told with sentimentality but with a detachment that accents the mentality and prejudices of the Vigevanese populace, who nurture and despise the many Southerns who have fled their homes for the more prosperous north.

From a linguistic point of the view, the novels might seem difficult for the non-Italian reader who may have little knowledge of the Lombardian dialects.  However, it would not be difficult to use a glossary while reading the book which is full of musical prose and a book that is never trite or trivial.  This edition also includes essays by Italo Calvino and others which analyze the style of the writing and the themes of the work.

Purchase suggestions:
If you prefer a print copy, you can order one here from ibs.it -- it includes all three books in one volume and was the book referenced in this review.  As of the writing of this review, no ebook version seems to be available from sites I searched.

by Marcello Gammella