Piccolo mondo antico

Franco, a young man of noble descent, marries Luisa, the daughter of a modest clerk, against his grandmother’s will. The old marchesa does not forgive it: she disinherits her grandson, has Luisa’s uncle, the family’s only support, dismissed from his post, and closes in on the young couple. Losing their little daughter Ombretta in the lake changes everything, and around the same time Franco is drawn into the movement for Italian independence. Mario Soldati adapted Antonio Fogazzaro’s 1895 novel, and the story runs between 1848 and 1859 around Lake Como. It is one of the best known examples of the Italian tendency called calligrafismo and a detailed record of an aristocratic world about to end. Alida Valli leads, and the screenplay took the national cinema prize of its season.