Richieri is the provincial city where Vitangelo was born and lives, and where almost the whole novel takes place. The text calls it a noble city and describes it by its streets, squares, and buildings (the bank, the Abbey, the bishop's palace), but it only places it in Italy, which the text names twice (the king of Italy, one of the richest dioceses in Italy); it mentions Rome once, as a distant place.
Where It Appears
- Book I: The nose and the mirror
- Book III: The father and the one hundred thousand
- Book VII: The revolver and the bishop
Quotes
That vital point that had felt itself wounded in me, when my wife laughed on hearing me say that I no longer wanted to be counted as a usurer in Richieri, was God, beyond any doubt: God, who had felt himself wounded in me, God, who in me could no longer bear that others, in Richieri, should count me as a usurer.