Don Camillo und Peppone

Don Camillo [ˈdɔŋ kaˈmillo] is a character created by the Italian writer and journalist Giovannino Guareschi, whose name, and some of his character, is based on 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). Guareschi was also inspired by Don Alessandro Parenti, a priest of Trepalle, near the Swiss border. The fictional Don Camillo is one of two main protagonists of Guareschi's short stories, the other being the communist mayor of the town, Peppone. The stories are 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: Mondo piccolo) 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.