Memorial is the third part of the celebrated trilogy Camon called "the cycle of the lowliest," which traced one of the most important but least recognized events of modern history: the death of Italy's peasant civilization. Camon's northern Italy was primitive and poor; little more than strong religious beliefs helped sustain its people through years of poverty, hunger, and disease. With the arrival of modern life and its "civilizing" aspects, the peasant ways, and all they stood for, changed forever.