In 1939 Saba sought exemption from the newly proclaimed anti-Jewish laws, but was unwilling to be baptised into the Catholic faith, so the following year he sold the bookshop to his long-time assistant and friend, Carlo Cerne. Upon the announcement of the armistice between Italy and Allied armed forces in 1943, Saba fled Trieste with his family to Florence, where they moved to eleven different hiding places over the following 12 months, to avoid deportation; after which Lina returned to Trieste and Saba moved to Rome, where he oversaw the publication of "Scorciatoie e raccontini". In 1946 Saba was awarded the Viareggio Prize and returned to Trieste where, in the following year, he sparked a vitriolic debate over the future of the city with his article "If I were named governor of Trieste".