The spouses Giovanni Cau and Helga Elmqvist were two intellectuals: he, a native of Cagliari, professor of natural sciences at the Piarists of Florence and author of school texts and, together with Helga, of fables; she, Swedish, translator of Nordic fairy tales and excellent illustrator. Thanks to his wife, Cau came into contact with Nordic culture and its fairytale repertoire and was able to enjoy the precious graphic contribution that the painter gave to her books. In the illusion of escaping the horrors of war they had moved from Florence to small Gebbia but on 29 June 1944, in retaliation against the killing of three German soldiers by the partisans, the Nazi massacre of Civitella Val di Chiana was perpetrated: 244 civilians were killed and among them were Giovanni Cau and his wife Helga Elmqvist. The bodies of the shot spouses were concealed in the haste of the German withdrawal as Helga should have enjoyed immunity under the treaties. They were found in 1950, by chance in the sand of the Focardi furnace, and identified by relatives.