ABSTRACT
May and his wife sailed from Melbourne at the end of October 1888, travelling by way of Colombo, which they greatly liked. It was not an uneventful journey for the Mays. His wife, Lil, was unwell for most of the journey as she had been on the voyage out. Phil had bad eye trouble two days out of Melbourne and then fell down in a spell of bad weather, imagining he had injured his spine. They were very relieved to land at Naples in the middle of November, although much irritated to be kept waiting for three hours at Customs. May described the city as Very dirty and interesting’ in a letter back to his patron Fink. They stayed at the Royal Hotel and made friends with a sculptor who went with them to Rome. The plan was to share a studio with this young man. 'We have seen some fine rooms,’ May wrote from the Hotel Molaro,
but they were a little too high so was the rent: but if they lower it I may hire it. there are two rooms one would do for a studio the other for a bedroom, and a beautiful terrace at the back where I could paint out of doors, the rent is LI 00 a month (one hundred lire or four English pounds) but I think I may get it for less
adding, 'I am going to do something that will please you by the time you come over. I am hunting up subjects already’.1 May was still supplying work for The Bulletin, but his greatest concern in Rome was the paucity of really good cigars!
