The museum in Brescello has been around for twelve years, but there's also a more recent center dedicated to Guareschi and Don Camillo. Cesare Bertozzi (right), a fan with a pair of mustaches to rival GG's own (!), opened his museum in May of 1998. It's located in Diolo, in an old belltower which Alberto Guareschi describes as "all that remains of the little church of 'Boscaccio,' the small village in which 'Chico' and his eleven brothers and sisters live" in GG's three prototype Little World stories dating from 1942 (alas, these do not exist in English translation). The spot, he adds, is situated right in "the green heart of the 'green desert' of la Bassa, our 'green Sahara.' It is a 'country of the soul,' where it can be said that the people live together with their dead in the perfect communion of the saints." [e-mail, 2 May 1998] Or, as GG put it, "an outlandish place where the sun beats down on people's heads, and they reason more with sticks than with their brains, but where, at least, the dead are respected."

The museum contains various pieces of memorabilia (copies of GG's books, issues of Candido, etc.), but the pride of the "Centro del Boscaccio" is a wall-sized map of the Little World, indicating local spots which inspired fictionalized Guareschi settings-- e.g., the "homes" of various characters such as Smilzo, Gina dei Filotti, Mariolino della Bruciata, etc. "And," adds Alberto Guareschi, "even if they're not the 'actual' ones, they are [nevertheless] very 'real' (as both GG and Giuseppe Verdi wrote, [sometimes] 'it is necessary to invent what is real')."

When I visited in August of 1998, this museum did not charge an admission fee per se (instead, one left a donation). As for the hours of operation, here's what they were back then (with thanks to Mauro Ferrari for translating):

• Festivi (holidays, including Sundays): 9:00 a.m.- 12:00 noon; 2:30 p.m.- 6:30 p.m.

• Pre Festivi (the day before a holiday, including Saturdays): 4:00 p.m.- 6:00 p.m.

• Feriale (week-days): by appointment for groups and schools

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Left: The belltower. [Photo courtesy A&C Guareschi]. Center: Caterina and Cesare Bertozzi inside their Guareschi museum. Behind them are books, framed newspaper articles and copies of Candido, and other items having to do with GG. Right: A portion of the museum's wall map of the Little World; across the top (in too much shadow, alas, to see properly in my photo) runs the River Po. The pictures and papers affixed to the map give information about the various places that figure in GG's writings.