The making of a scientist II (Nobel Lecture).

I was born in Verona, Italy on October 6, 1937. Fascism, Nazism, and Communism were raging through the country. My mother, Lucy Ramberg, was a poet; my father, Luciano Capecchi, an officer in the Italian Air Force. This was a time of extremes, turmoil and juxtapositions of opposites. They had a passionate love affair, and my mother wisely chose not to marry him. This took a great deal of courage on her part. It embittered my father. I have only a few pictures of my mother. She was a beautiful woman with a passion for languages and a flair for the dramatic (see Figure 1). This picture was taken when she was 19. She grew up,