Italo Svevo

After being involved in a serious car accident he was brought into hospital at Motta di Livenza where his health rapidly failed. As he reveals in his memoirs each time he had given up smoking with the iron resolve that this would be the "ultima sigaretta!!" he experienced the exhilarating feeling that he was now beginning life over without the burden of his old habits and mistakes. Svevo was a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the end of the First World War.