The period piece/police procedural/fantasy Inspector Ricciardi (Il Commissario Ricciardi) hits many buttons for me.
It’s an Italian series that’s currently being streamed (with English subtitles), on PBS Passport, so it helps me with my Italian.
The stories are set in 1930’s Naples, a city that’s important to my family history.
The show has a supernatural element, and fantasy attracts me more than hard reality.
The three seasons of Ricciardi (14 episodes) deal with romance, and family tragedies, as well as crimes.
Best of all, the lead is Lino Guanciale, who played a much different part as Leonardo Cagliostro in La Portarossa/ The Red Door.
(The fourth season of The Red Door is set to premier on MHz, on August 26, 2026.)
In Il Commissario Ricciardi, Lino Guanciale plays Luigi Alfredo Ricciardi, a brooding police inspector with a secret.
Ricciardi’s secret is that he sees the ghosts of people who have recently endured sudden, violent deaths.
Not only does he see these ghosts, he hears them repeat their last words or thoughts.
Occasionally, these ghostly words are keys to solving the case.
Mostly, however, they lead him in the wrong direction.
After Ricciardi has solved each case, he generally returns to the scene of the crime, and watches the ghosts dissolve, giving him a feeling of peace.
Justice has been served.
Maria Vera Ratti plays Inspector Ricciardi’s lady love (Enrica Columbo), a teacher and neighbor who Ricciardi first observes from his bedroom window.
(His window is directly across from the Columbo family kitchen.)
Like any proper maiden of the era, Enrica has not left her parents “early”—that is, before getting married.
Luigi Alfredo and Enrica become mutually obsessed with each other.
However, they only meet when Enrica is asked to come to the police station, and explain her recent visit to a murdered fortune teller (season one, episode two, La condanna del sangue).
Their romance doesn’t begin until episode 4 of season two (Rondini d’inverno).
The stories about Ricciardi are set in Naples, Italy, in the period after Mussolini rose to power, but before WWII began.
This is the same time period when my mother lived in the Naples area.
Her family lived in a small town about 30 miles from Naples.
However, she studied to be a teacher in Naples, and also studied voice in either Naples itself, or in Padua (staying with an aunt).
(I’m not too sure of the details.)
While mother didn’t tell us many stories of Naples itself, she did teach us the area’s recipes, sang “Santa Lucia” accompanying herself on the piano, describe the food that her family brought as they climbed to the Sanctuary of Montevergine, and talk of life at the Convitto Femminile in Mercogliano (a boarding school).
The setting, and the time period, are crucial to my love of the series.
One of my favorite episodes is the first episode of season three, because of the set designers.
This episode takes place during the Christmas season.
The set designers were able to find fantastic Neapolitan manger scenes (presepi).
It’s a treat to watch this episode on a big screen because there are presepi in nearly every scene!
Presepe means crib or creche,* and Neapolitan nativity scenes, have been popular in Italy since the Middle Ages.
In addition to the series, I’m also enjoying the novels (by Maurizio De Giovanni) that the series is based on.
Of course, there’s lots more detail about the characters, and the city of Naples, in the novels.
On page 230 of the English-language paperback of Viper, we learn that:
It was impossible for him [Ricciardi] to nestle comfortably in that cocoon of selfishness that everyone is endowed with at birth.
On page 251 of Viper, the reader is treated to a recipe for minestra strinta, a dish that people who grew up eating food from the Naples region might find familiar.
My mother made this dish with bitter greens (like escarole), mashed potatoes, olive oil, garlic, and chili pepper.)
Only the first ten, of De Giovanni’s fifteen novels (the ones on Ricciardi), have been translated into English.
Unfortunately, I only read Italian as a beginner.
So far, I’ve read four of the translated books, and I’m looking forward to locating all ten as printed books.
Most of the books are available (at least, as e-books) on Amazon.
My husband discovered that there are also Italian Inspector Ricciardi graphic novels!
I wonder if some of the TV episodes are based on the graphic novels?
A difference between the novels, and the TV show, is the level of gore.
While the spirits in the show are in soft focus, the spirits in the novels are described with bones poking out of their flesh and grotesque, oozing, bloody wounds.
As Ricciardi takes his long walks in Naples, he learns to avoid certain streets, so as to avoid the terrible sights and voices that give him migraines.
Ricciardi reminds me just a tiny bit of two English crime-solving characters of the same time period: Lord Peter Whimsey (also of noble birth), and Inspector Ian Rutledge (also a haunted man).
(Whimsey was the creation of Dorothy L. Sayers, and Rutledge was created by the mother and son writing team of Charles Todd.)
Lord Peter and Inspector Rutledge are about ten years older than Ricciardi.
These characters are both former officers during the Great War (WWI).
Therefore, post-traumatic stress disorder (and shell-shock) are a factor in their personalities.
Ricciardi, on the other hand, is too young to have served during WWI.
Thank God for that!
If Ricciardi had been drafted to fight in the Great War, seeing and hearing the ghosts of those who died in battle might have been too much to bear!
Like Lord Peter, Inspector Ricciardi is a nobleman (a Baron) who chooses to spend his time fighting crime, rather than sit back and enjoy his wealth.
Like Inspector Ricciardi, Inspector Rutledge (of Scotland Yard), is a haunted man.
Rutledge, however, is haunted by just one entity: Corporal Hamish MacLeod, a Scottish soldier who Rutledge (as the commanding officer) was forced to execute on the battlefield for insubordination.
One factor that all three characters (Ricciardi, Whimsey, and Rutledge) have in common is their desire for justice.
Each does not always follow the letter of the law.
It’s far more important that they follow their own moral codes.
The Lord Peter novels have been dramatized on British TV, with two different actors playing Lord Peter: Edward Petherbridge (in the late 1980’s), and Ian Carmichael (in the mid 1970’s).
Both series were entertaining, but Mr. Petherbridge was a much better fit as Lord Peter.
As far as I know, Inspector Rutledge has never been portrayed on film.
Enrica Columbo isn’t the only woman drawn to the mysterious Inspector Ricciardi.
In the first episode of season one (Il senso del dolore), Ricciardi meets the enchanting singer Livia Lucani, the wife of a murder victim.
(This episode is based on De Giovanni’s first Inspector Ricciardi novel, “I Will Have Vengeance: The Winter of Commissario Ricciardi” in the English translation, but “Il senso del dolore” in the original book.)
Livia is played by Serena Iansiti.
Although Ricciardi is attracted to Livia, it was love at first sight with Enrica.
According to internet sources, there will be a fourth season of Il Commissario Ricciardi.
It’s set to premier, in Italy, in 2027.
*The Art Institute of Chicago displays a massive mid-18th century Neapolitan creche every Christmas season. This creche has more than 200 painted terracotta figures. It’s only displayed for a few weeks because of the fragility of the silk cloth used to dress the figures.
