R. Bacchelli, 94; Prominent Italian Playwright, Novelist

MONZA, Italy — Riccardo Bacchelli, a leading Italian poet, playwright and novelist for most of the 20th Century, died Tuesday after a long illness, his family announced. He was 94.

He was best known for his popular historical trilogy, “Il Mulino del Po” (The Mill on the Po). Published from 1938 to 1943, these novels traced the development of modern Italy through the lives of a family of artisans in the Po Valley.

Bacchelli was born in Bologna in 1891 to an Italian father and German mother. He started writing early, abandoning his university course in his third year to concentrate on literature.

His first article was published when he was only 18, and two years later Bacchelli wrote his first novel, “Il Filo Meraviglioso di Lodovico Clo” (Lodovico Clo’s Marvelous Thread).

His last novel, “In Grotta e in Valle” (In the Cave and in the Valley), was written in 1980.