AND 'DEAD AND DON Patruno 
In a muggy afternoon in late summer of 1970, I and my friend, Andrea, we went to the ACLI's Montebello8, the legendary Montebello 8.
Andrea said, "Let's find a friend" and we climbed the stairs. We found a young man of good physique. "Gabriele Met Don Franco, a friend of working students" I thought, but this is a priest? bho! I then got used to seeing the brothers.
Don Franco told us to sit. We were in a room with a casino .... ... his study was the huge ..... a study of an artist, because Don Franco had the gift of painting.
In less time than we say we did the portraits. Andrea I think that she still has, the more I do not know where it is, because shortly thereafter trasloccai.
And of course while I squashed it with charcoal on paper, Don told barzelette, all strictly in the dialect of Ferrara.
From that day I have never had direct contact, I've seen several times in the square, in the parish or the ACLI Montebello 8, where many of our Contrada grew.
The last time I saw and heard the presentation by Feltrinelli Dario Franceschini's book, along with the mayor Sateriale. Among the audience were people who belonged to my youth. Characters of different political faiths, of different backgrounds, but that certainly belonged to your framework. The beautiful youth Ferrara '68.
That meeting I have never forgotten because it happened a few days before I met another child of God "strange" Dallari Father Francis, the friend with the habit that has grown up and married.
If I think of Don Franco immediately think Padre Francesco, men without borders, without prejudice and, above all, integrity.
SAY THAT THEY ARE BORN OF MEN SO LITTLE FOR EACH GENERATION.
News posted on 18/01/2007
www.estense.com La Ferrara and the secular religious mourning
E 'Father Franco Patruno dead Mark Zavagli
Father Franco Patruno is dead. At 15.45 yesterday afternoon, a hospital room in St. Anne, died one of the most important representatives of Ferrara. The grim irony of fate would have it, Patruno to go away just as "his" Casa Cini is at the center of a controversy town for the closing (or not appropriate, timely or not, this is not the time to judge) decreed by the Curia .
With him, intellectual, nationally recognized painter, art critic and film for the Osservatore Romano, went away more twenty years of cultural breath that the city had failed to earn under the direction of the Institute of Boccacanale via St. Stephen's.
hospitalized since 13 December for a liver crisis, was already a couple of days that doctors, including one which occurred due to respiratory failure, save him from despair. It was in 1999 that Don Franco was fighting the disease since he was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis. Last summer his health was further weakened by the arrival of another crisis, this time linked to diabetes. Now the body was too tried to stand up to further complications.
Next to him at the crucial moment, there were the nephew and Don Andrea Zerbini. Throughout Ferrara, in the religious but also (and perhaps especially) in the secular, there is a widespread sympathy. The first evidence comes from the mayor Sateriale Gaetano, who remembers how Patruno "and 'was for decades a leading figure in artistic and cultural life of our city. In addition to the mission of the priesthood, Father Franco Patruno has been able to express his rich talent in painting , in writing, art critic and film-making, teaching. It 'was for many of us - still Sateriale - a friend and a valuable reference point. His versatility has allowed him to direct Casa Cini consolidating best traditions of a place that Ferrara is a real cultural institution, have gravitated around which some of the most fervent minds of our city. We will miss his deep humanity, the sincere generosity, intellectual acumen. We will miss his voice and his eyes always alert and sensitive. On behalf of the city of Ferrara and personally express my deepest condolences for this sad loss. "
Late evening comes the brief statement that the diocese" is in the pain of the archbishop, of all the clergy, family and friends for the disappearance. Its tall cultural, theological and artistic dialogue along with its outstanding trait and relational, they feel deeply the great void that he left in his local church and in the community and national civil town. "
Franco Patruno was born in Ferrara on November 29, 1938. He was ordained priest in 1966. He taught at the seminary at Ferrara and Bologna, parochial vicar at St. S. Maria Nuova Biagio 1966 to 1967, Director of the Diocesan Mission from 1969 to 1985, young assistant from 1966 to 1975 BC, with responsibility for Social Communications since 1971, a journalist of L'Osservatore Romano, director of "Casa Cini" from 1985 to 2005, canonical the Cathedral of Ferrara in November 2006. And - at least for many - more.
