Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Mr President of the City Council, dear friends,
the registration ceremony for the Famedio that we are holding this year is more intimate due to the safety regulations imposed by the epidemic: however, it is perhaps a more intimate moment and certainly no less significant for our city community.
Today all of Milan dedicates its embrace to great figures of its history: women and men who are still here among us with the greatness, the civic sense, the genius that they gave us with their lives and their work. 
 
Today reminds us that we need greatness. We need high and ambitious goals, and the people registered at Famedio have left us a clear and indelible testimony of what greatness is.
However, we also need a daily greatness, which concerns everyone, which makes us part of a single project. And the Famedio is also this: a monument to the unity of all Milanese people. 
 
Since 1870 the Famedio has brought together different people, united in diversity, in its single Milanese membership; women and men of different origins, sensitivity and personal history who in Milan have become part of a common path of growth and development. Milanese who with their work have made this city great and with it the whole country
 
In short, this place teaches us the value of being united. It invites us to be an active part of a single community of citizens. It is this value that today we must cultivate, promote and make ours in the depths of our hearts, to overcome this difficult moment and return to looking to the future with hope.
 
Names that are familiar to all of us are inscribed in the Famedio, names that are part of our collective memory. However, this is not a monument that celebrates a glorious past, but a living, evolving reality, like our city.
Every year new names, new examples of excellence in life and work become part of this great city temple dedicated to our history, to our city, to what Milan has been able to create and continues to create and for itself, for the Italy and for the whole world.
 
Today we are enrolling eight women and ten men (*) in the Famedio who have been able to bring an original and irreplaceable contribution to the most varied fields and disciplines: from art to professions, from politics to culture. Some of them have made civil commitment their battle, others have left memorable works, some have dedicated themselves to the weakest, others have infected us with their passion for sport, still others have made us smile and meditate with their art.
 
The President of the City Council will shortly, in his speech, give due prominence to the name and work of each of them.
I want to thank President Bertolè and all the members of the Honors Commission for their work and for the unanimous decision with which they were able to select the names to be registered in the Famedio. I thank them because they have shown us that we can be divided on many things, but faced with the greatness and generosity of a life spent for everyone, we can find ourselves united.
 
Ability to compare different sensitivities and above all loyal and constructive collaboration between all the institutions have always been the basis of the civil growth of the city and the country, especially in the most difficult moments. 
Today those values ​​are more necessary than ever: a spirit of service and dedication to the common good are essential to overcome this phase and start again tomorrow with greater strength and optimism.
 
Whoever is remembered in the Famedio is a master for all of us Milanese.
Today we need these teachers, so as not to give in to the discouragement of these difficult months, of pain, of uncertainty. Their life, their works, their tenacity demonstrate that Milan, even in the most difficult moments, is there, and that a word of hope can come from Milan. 
 
Milan's reserve of passion, enthusiasm and industriousness is ready - even today - to give Italy back the energy it needs for a new beginning. To start again tomorrow on new foundations, taking from this dramatic crisis the opportunity to overcome past mistakes and imagine a better future. A future that I dream of is fairer, greener, more supportive.
 
The example of these women and men, in fact, is not just memory, but a call to action. Today's problems cannot make us forget what our city is capable of. What excellences does it possess and what fruits of progress has it offered and will still be able to offer to the world. 
 
Today we affirm that Milan is ready to take up their baton. 
Great challenges await us that we must all overcome together, starting with the dramatic one we are facing to overcome the epidemic. 
These are challenges that require men and women like those who from today will be remembered in the Famedio; people capable of working and dreaming. Capable of passion. Capable of affirming with their talent and genius the greatness of this open, supportive and inclusive community that is Milan.
Thank you all.