Map

Some go to game, or pray in Rome
I travel for my turning home 
For when I’ve been six months abroad 
Faith your kiss would brighten God! 
(J.M. Synge, “Abroad”)

    

While their works travelled at the four corners of Italy, Irish writers also showed a penchant for the Bel Paese. James Joyce arrived in Trieste in 1904 an unpublished writer and left as the renowned author of some of modernism’s masterpieces; William Butler Yeats took on wintering at Rapallo between 1928 and 1934, after his first Northern Italian journey with Lady Gregory in 1907. At times, their journeys tellingly cross paths with the publishers and reviews that would publish their work, with their translators and mediators. 

John Millington Synge 

February April 1896: Rome // May 1896: Florence 

Oscar Wilde 

1875: Florence, Verona, Rome // 1877: Genoa, Ravenna, Rome // September 1897 - February 1898: Naples  

George Bernard Shaw 

October 1891: Northern Italy // September 1894: Milan, Florence, Pisa, Genoa, Como // April-May 1904: Milan, Genoa, Siena, Perugia // May-June 1904:  Turin, Rome, Pisa // April 1929:  Trieste // December 1932: Naples 

James Joyce 

1904-1915:  Trieste // 1906: Roma // 1919-1920: Trieste

Yeats e Lady Gregory 

1907 : Venezia, Urbino, Ravenna, Firenze 

W. B. Yeats 

1925: Sicilia, Napoli, Roma // 1928-1934 : Rapallo // 1934: Roma 

James Stephens 

1928: Firenze

Samuel Beckett

 1927: Firenze, Venezia, Como