I would like to thank Jonathan Galassi, my editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, for having asked me to write this book. His unwavering faith and his subtle suggestions were essential. The multiple directions in nonfiction about two countries and self meant that I took lots of intuitive and blind turns. Jonathan’s belief in the creative process, his precision, and his love for and knowledge of Italy were inspiring gifts. To his assistants, Aoibheann Sweeney and Anne Stringfield, to the copy editor and design and production people, I also am grateful.

I would like to thank Susan Tiberghien, Robert Keohane, Willard Spiegleman, Bianca Venturini, and Anita Bucci, who made suggestions on the text, as well as lending support as dear friends. Elizabeth Pauncz, who has read my work since university days, followed the book through its many versions; besides offering her insights and encouragement, she helped to lift it up.

Paolo and Clare, my husband and daughter, like my editor, gave me full freedom to write as I wished. For as long as I can remember, in heart and deeds, both have shared this dream. Thanks merely scratches the most shallow surface.

I would like to thank the staff at the Palatina Library in Parma for their great generosity, Pier Paolo Mendogni of the Gazzetta di Parma, Franco Furoncoli and Stanislao Farri for their beautiful photographs, Dr. G. Silva of Artegrafica Silva, Georgio Belledi and Aldo Zanettini of the Feltrinelli bookstore in Parma, and the many others from Parma who played parts. Kathy Eckhouse, an American who lived in Parma for a few years, reignited a dialogue with my own literature. Gian Luigi and Cosetta Rossi, the Gill children, Paolo’s family and my mother, my brothers and their wives, my sister and her husband, as well as many dear friends who are not named, have also added to this book and the richness of my life by their very existences.

Need I add that the point of view—the struggle to give form to change and complexity—is my own? I hope, with its lapses and points subject to debate, that this work is accepted as a creative search.