In memory of Luca Serianni
If the Italian language is the autobiography of the nation, Luca Serianni was a Virgil of our time, illuminating its path. Federico Guiglia's notebook
It hasn't been a year yet since, on July 18, 2022, Luca Serianni was hit by a car in Ostia, while crossing the strip near his home.
It was 7.30, transported to San Camillo he would die three days later.
I will leave to those who will intervene the task of remembering one of the greatest Italian linguists, a teacher for more than 5,000 students (he did the math himself in his last epic lecture at Sapienza), a member of all the main institutions called to valorise our magnificent national language – from the Accademia della Crusca to the Dante Alighieri Society – and engine of initiatives that have given a future of modernity to the ancient language where the "yes" continues to sound in Italy and in the world.
If the Italian language is the autobiography of the nation, Luca Serianni was a Virgil of our time, illuminating its path.
I had the pleasure and fortune of interviewing him, I correct myself, of wanting to interview him several times, in the television programs I hosted on Rai and La7, and in the newspapers for which I write, starting with Il Messaggero.
I confess that on TV the first time I was very worried, because before going on the show Professor Serianni appeared inversely proportional to the weight of knowledge for which I had invited him: a modest man, of few and sparse words, almost intimidated and so intimidating me too. What happens if in the interview this man answers me in monosyllables, as I feared?
Naturally, that first meeting, like all the others, revealed not only the essential competence, but also the never-heralded, yet profound love for the Italian language. Comprehensive, communicative answers and with a perceptible thread of Roman irony, that is, great irony.
In the publications that commemorate him, and that you have kindly sent me, his colleagues and students often use a word that I use sparingly: Maestro. That word, which in my field of journalism I reserve for just one of the many editors I've had – Indro Montanelli , the Master of the Journal in which I trained many years ago – reveals the legacy that Luca Serianni leaves forever, and not only to the many who loved him.
Maestro Serianni and Maestro Montanelli, indirectly linked by the visible thread of the Italian language, which both knew right into the meanders of history and not only of literature.
The linguist Serianni and the storyteller Montanelli, the Italian language is precisely the autobiography of the nation.
And we today, colleagues, pupils, friends and acquaintances of Luca Serianni want to continue leafing through the chapter of those who, in the last lesson, said to his students: "You represent the state". And he claimed, without quoting it completely, the second paragraph of article 54 of the Constitution. Which says: "Citizens entrusted with public functions have the duty to fulfill them with discipline and honour".
It is the autobiography of those who contributed to the autobiography of the nation.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/in-ricordo-di-luca-serianni/ on Sat, 08 Jul 2023 05:56:09 +0000.