Maria Clotilde Mosconi

Maria Clotilde Mosconi, UC student of the 40s, returns after 75 years to see her University again

 "In Padua there was no Faculty of Education. Ezio Franceschini, who was a close friend of my brother's, told me that he was at Cattolica. So I chose to study at Università Cattolica and moved to Milan. I used to live in Piazza Piola 14." Professor Maria Clotilde Mosconi - "Mariuccia" to her friends - longed to return to the cloisters of Largo Gemelli and kept asking her daughter if it was possible to make this dream come true. So on November 28th, "Mariuccia", with great joy and emotion, returned to her university after 75 years.

 She was welcomed by Dr. Mario Gatti, Director of the Milan Campus, who had her review her 1942 thesis on Maddalena Campiglia, a sixteenth-century poet from Vicenza.  The supervisor - Prof. Alberto Chiari - had told her: 'We would have  given her a 110 laude but her average is 104 and we can't give her  110'," she says with amusement. And he adds that since there was war in those years, for fear of bombings, the graduation had taken place in the basement of the University.

 Mariuccia is 97 years old, carried with elegance and composure, two shining eyes full of gratitude for a full life to tell to her children and grandchildren, who take care of her with care and dedication.

 Walking through the cloisters, memories of a distant time come to mind: the entrance, the trees, the corridors on the first floor with the classrooms where she went to class. He remembers when he was studying in the library, the classes divided between boys and girls and the ever-present figure of Father Gemelli: "We were a group of friends at the entrance and at a certain point Father Gemelli arrived and asked us what we were doing. I said, "Can't you hear that we're singing?" He sent us all to our classrooms because we were singing and we couldn't! Father Gemelli often went around the cloisters and we students were very in awe of him." On another occasion, however, Father Gemelli had summoned her to his office to tell her: "Miss, there are two students fighting in the cloisters because they are both courting you. Make up your mind: choose one or the other, but let there be no more such scenes in our cloisters!" She still smiles as she recounts these episodes that take her far back in time. She continues to tell us her story: after graduating, Mariuccia returned to Padua where she began her teaching profession, which she loved so much: "The first school was a middle school, where I taught Latin. Then I changed areas and also taught geography, another subject that was dear to me. I remember with pleasure the lectures of Prof. Giuseppe Nangeroni...».

Mariuccia is certainly an exceptional alumna and her desire to return testifies to an affection for the University that lasts over the years and deeply marks her life: "Università Cattolica meant a lot to me: I made important encounters, both for the friendships born and for the professors with whom there was great confidence and they taught us with love," Mariuccia concludes.

The story of Maria Clotilde Mosconi testifies to what the Magnificent Rector recently said: "Our alumni are the best testimony of the educational mission of Università Cattolica: they possess and disseminate a heritage of human, cultural and professional experiences of inestimable value for the whole of society".