 The novel narrates in more than 2000 pages the lives, adventures and problems of Lazzaro Scacerni and his family.It opens in the early 19th century as Scacerni returns to Italy from Russia, where he had served as a soldier of Napoleon's invasion, and follows him and his family through a full century until the First World War.Scacerni owns a mill in a rural area on the river Po (hence the title).