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“I don’t know if these lines of life are poetry, they are certainly the thoughts of a person who chose words based on feelings, emotions and the heart. Then he tried to find, perhaps, that musicality that is needed to create poetry, Perhaps… “. It is with simplicity that Gian Carlo Muzzarelli, mayor of Modena from 2014 to 2024, presents a book that is anything but simple: “Love multiplies”, published by Artioli, dedicated to his wife Alessandra who passed away a year ago, on 23 June 2023 He presents it by opening the doors of the house to journalists that Alessandra had wanted to buy while she was hospitalized, “because she always had the vision of tomorrow”. And on Sunday at 5pm, one year after her death, he will present it in the archbishop’s hall together with Bishop Erio Castellucci. Afterwards, at 6pm, a mass will be held in memory of Alessandra followed by a charity dinner at the Mensa Ghirlandina, the proceeds of which will go to the Lilt association.
In the book – a hundred pages of thoughts, poems and images – Muzzarelli takes off his armor and gives us his purest being, his deepest thoughts. He delivers them to all of us but, even before that, to his children Daniele and Emma. “Because I believe – he tells us – the moment of feelings and hope has arrived. Because – as Alessandra always said – love can do everything: it multiplies, it does not replace but implements the meaning of life. The people we have in our hearts remain in our hearts. heart, Alessandra is there and is continuing to transmit positivity. Today we live with her and this is a book of life.”
VIDEO | Muzzarelli presents ‘Love Multiplies’ dedicated to his wife: “In this book I took off my armor”
A book that is a promise, a commitment made towards his wife who pushed him to write, to collect the thoughts of a life in which past, present and future intersect between images and words. There is the mountain, there are his parents – his mother, with whom he wants to be buried, and the prayer dedicated to his father when he scattered his ashes at the Arcane Cross in the pouring rain -, there is the Honorable Paola Manzini ( who died in 2009), there are children (Emma criticized her father for not consulting her when choosing her photo published in the book), above all there is Alessandra, with her hope and her love.
His deep friendship with Don Ciotti – “if he passed even just one hundred kilometers from Modena he would deviate and come to visit her, they would spend 40 minutes talking and then he would leave” -, the belly carried for nine months with the pride of someone, of risk linked to the disease, he was never afraid. The wedding and the anniversaries to come, always celebrated with the same clothes as the big day at Bottura, the promises renewed after ten years – “we had decided to put our wedding clothes back on, I arrived with the same dress but naturally she had bought one new”- .
There is the smile and the strength that distinguished her until the last day “despite those dots that we compared to those of mimosas, always to be removed. Alessandra’s name and her energy continue, even if she is in another life”, recalls Muzzarelli. “With this book I have dismantled the armor. There are those who disagree but for me the time has come”, he concludes. Without fear, with so much hope.
