Milan

Milan is the setting of the medical intervention that ends Marco’s childhood growth delay and marks a rare point of cooperation between his parents. At fourteen, after years of disagreement over whether his small stature should be accepted or treated, Marco is taken there for an experimental hormone program; within eight months he grows almost sixteen centimeters.

The Treatment and Its Background

Marco’s delayed growth had been interpreted very differently at home. Letizia treated his smallness as part of the hummingbird’s distinctive grace, reassuring herself and others that there was no cause for concern. Probo, by contrast, became increasingly alarmed as adolescence began without Marco’s body developing normally. Consultations and tests established moderate statural hypoevolutism caused by insufficient growth-hormone production. Since no standard cure was then available, the family faced a choice between leaving the condition alone and enrolling Marco in an experimental protocol.

A Family Dispute Reaches Milan

The proposed treatment sharpened the conflict between his parents. Letizia opposed intervention, invoking the harmony between growth and form described in D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson’s On Growth and Form; Probo argued that refusing a scientifically available treatment was itself irresponsible. Their quarrel, usually conducted in low voices, escalated into a prolonged shouting match in their home in Piazza Savonarola. Irene’s intervention helped bring the dispute to an abrupt halt, after which the parents remained together but continued their unhappy, restrained pattern of disagreement.

The Journey and Parental Compromise

For Marco’s sake, Letizia tried to relinquish what her analyst called the myth of the hummingbird: the idea that her son’s enduring smallness and beauty belonged to a special harmony. Probo, still loving his wife, tried not to treat his position as a personal victory. Instead, he took Letizia to meet Dr. Vavassori, the Milanese pediatric endocrinologist whose program offered a possible treatment. He asked her to assess the proposal independently and promised to consider her judgment before a final decision. After repeating the research Probo had done, Letizia concluded that the protocol was the only serious scientific option available to help Marco grow. They had not resolved their deeper unhappiness, but for once they found themselves on the same path.

Consequence and Significance

At fourteen, Marco underwent the experimental hormone treatment in Milan. The intervention restored him to a more typical stature: in eight months, he grew almost sixteen centimeters. His father’s decision to take him there was later described as the only act of authority Probo exercised in his parental duties. Milan thus signifies both a concrete medical turning point and a rare instance in which the parents’ conflict yielded to a shared decision centered on their son.