riter of german origins, Mario Benzing was born on December 7, 1896,
in Como, where his family momentarily lived, before going back to Stuttgart. After finishing his studies in Lausanne and in London, he settled in Milan. During the First World War, he enlisted in the Army Medical Corps, then as a volunteer in

the "Arditi" Corps and in the Alpine Corps in the Italian Army. Wounded by
a stab, he was taken to the military hospital and made the acquaintance
of Ernest Hemingway, who in the same period was a patient in Milan. In 1928 he married Giovanna Raschi (with him in the left photos). Between the two Wars, he wrote in italian several novels and biographies of historical figures,
as Messalina, Cleopatra and the Queen Christina of Sweden. As a literary translator from English, German and French, he worked for many publishing houses, often signing as Mario Benzi, because of the period laws, which imposed italian names. The authors
to whom he specially devoted his work, often as first Italian translator, were
Jack London, Joseph Conrad,

Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Schnitzler, Lewis Carroll, Pelham G. Wodehouse, Edgar Wallace, Hugh Walpole, Edgar Allan Poe, Herbert G. Wells. He translated more than 80 volumes of 55 authors. Fond of ancient languages of the Near East and of Caldaic Oracles, he was friend of many milanese scholars and artists, as composer Umberto Giordano. He played for his pleasure the piano and a special six-chords banjo. He died in Milano on November 29, 1958.