I was born in a makeshift hospital under falling bombs in a village next to Verona. You got there by crossing the Adige River on a barge since the bridges had been destroyed. This village (Zevio, now a municipality with 15,000 inhabitants, twice as many as back then) is known for having given its name to a notable painter, the son of a Frenchman who lived there between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Stefano da Zevio. His wonderful Adoration of the Magi is at the Pinacoteca of Brera in Milan.
My mother was from Lombardy, and my father was from Sicily.