The day after the funeral, the first four rows of the church of Our Lady of Fatima are full of children. On the same benches where Giulia also sat on Sundays and weekdays. «Immensely Giulia». The parish priest Don Roberto spoke to his catechism classmates about one of the two children of the woman, 45 years old, who died on Monday after an illness that lasted several years: «She was smiling and sober. Her immense being consisted in her normality.”
In the Vigentino neighborhood, south of the city, in 2003 a beacon of notoriety fell on the then girl. The occasion was the innovative video clip for «Dedicated to you». It was the first single of the Milanese band Le Vibrazioni, a film recorded on the Navigli that made history in Italian musicwhich still after more than twenty years remains an icon, a verse (“This is dedicated to you, to your shining harmony”) that everyone sings and inspired by Giulia Tagliapietra, that girl with whom frontman Francesco Sarcina he had been having an affair. «They asked me what I meant by “shining harmony” – writes the singer in a post after breaking the news of the 4-year-old’s death -. I realized that to understand the meaning it was necessary to know Giulia.” In that video clip she crosses a bridge on the Naviglio Pavese and enters the historic venue, “Le Scimmie”, closed in 2015, in via Ascanio Sforza.
«He came often, he was with the guys from Le Vibrazioni – thinks Sergio Israel, former owner of Le Scimmie -. About the day of filming? Smiles come to mind and the girl’s willingness to try the scenes again and again». A remake of the video was made last year for the twentieth anniversary. A second version was then made using the actress Angelica Cacciapaglia as a stand-in.
But Giulia «despite that sudden flash – as LZ, a resident of the Vigentino area recalls – remained the same as before. She is a humble person.” Before her, high school at «Claudio Varalli» in Chiesa Rossa, then her family (she leaves behind a husband and two young children) and her work as a gemologist. In a neighborhood that becomes a town, her faces are connected to stories, anecdotes and details: «I remember her since I was a child, walking with her mother. They bought the “Puzzle Week” together,” says another resident. Who adds: «Every now and then in the evening Sarcina would come and pick her up». Because at the Vigentino «Dedicated to you» she was a huge hit. And perhaps that video clip now preserves the memory of her: «In the last three days I will have seen it thirty times». LZ speaks in the present tense: «Giulia is disarmingly sweet». Immensely.
