Hemingway Adventure (1999) (15 page)

Milan Central, my gateway to north Italy. Completed in 1931, with a 700-foot-long concourse that’s more like a cathedral. Decor is Art Nouveau with Fascist triumphalism thrown in.

Winged horses and mighty human athletes decorate the front of the station. On his first night young Hemingway walked beneath the soaring glass roof of the Galleria - the world’s first great shopping mall.

Many subsequent nights, recovering after his injury, were spent falling in love with his American nurse, one of the few women known to have jilted Ernest.

The wounded hero, Milan 1918.

The Piave river at Fossalta. The Italian positions were on the left bank, Austrian on the right, when battle began at midnight on 8 July 1918.

Hemingway borrowed a bicycle to take him up to the front line. He would have travelled roads like these.

Redipuglia. Mussolini made sure the First World War dead would not be forgotten with a memorial that takes up an entire hillside. The memorial commemorates over a hundred thousand Italians killed on the Eastern front in the First World War.

Venice carnival in full swing in St Mark’s Square. Masks traditionally disguise social differences and serious celebrants order theirs a year early. In 1646 diarist John Evelyn described it as ‘folly and madness’.

The Old Man and the Mask.