The autostrade—modern highways built for high-speed traffic—provided Jeffrey Smart with open-ended metaphors for travelling through space and time. He wrote in his autobiography: ‘Italy was even more scenic from the autostrada – no hoardings were permitted; the only signs were those needed for the traffic and I found them beautiful, they were so well designed. That first journey took less than two hours and it was an exhilarating experience … We take autostradas for granted now. But the Italian autostrada, now stretching the entire length of the peninsula, and the RAI Television, have together done more to unite Italy than Mazzini, Cavour or Garibaldi.’
