When Fred Buscaglione arrived in his home city of Turin after the war, he was returning to a devastated city and a traumatised people questioning the very core of their national identity. He was 24 and felt suddenly old: the Turin he remembered, the bustling, confident city with a vibrant nightlife, seemed to be from a different lifetime.

Freshly demobbed and with his old army duffel bag over his shoulder, Buscaglione wondered what lay ahead. He knew one thing, though. He would grasp every opportunity to rise with the city from its shattered ruins. He didn’t know it, but Turin and the rest of Italy were about to begin a remarkable economic and cultural resurgence.