Afternoon of celebrations today in Siena for the new doctors of the University of Siena who obtained their bachelor’s or master’s degrees in the last academic year and who were celebrated at the Graduation Day graduation party in Piazza del Campo .
Guests of honor were Massimiliano Rosolino, Olympic and world swimming champion, and Gaia Pianigiani, correspondent for the New York Times, who gave a speech; Chiara Galgani, vice-president of the USiena Alumni association, also participated.
An afternoon punctuated by speeches that marked the day of the graduation party for almost 800 participants and their families. The ceremony began at 5pm in the splendid setting of Piazza del Campo. The academic procession entered the square leaving the town hall; there was great emotion at the sound of the clarions that started the event. Then the Rector and the Directors of the university departments took their places on the stage.
The ceremony was opened by Rector Roberto Di Pietra who greeted and thanked the participants, their relatives and friends and the numerous civil, military and religious academic authorities present. He also thanked the municipal administration of Siena for the use of the square and the collaboration in carrying out the important academic event.
The Mayor of Siena Nicoletta Fabio then took the floor: «Greetings to the Magnificent Rector, authorities, teachers, citizens and obviously, with a different and shared warmth, to all these girls and boys present today in Piazza del Campo, to their parents and their families. What I would like to remain in their memories and what we all need to work on most, institutions first and foremost, is the concept of welcome. I would like Siena to be able to remain linked to this very important value over time, especially today. Studying in this city means living it, being part of the daily actions of a community that has always been able to claim a strong identity composition. But this does not mean that there cannot be space for those who were not born in this city. The voice of our young people, all of them, must always be heard. I think trying to build a future with them that can in some cases allow them to continue to consider our city as a second home is the greatest objective.”
This was then followed by the passionate speech of the Olympic champion Massimiliano Rosolino: «Graduation Day is a special moment that represents the beginning and not the end of a journey. I am happy to be able to give my testimony as an athlete and as a person who has never stopped his race: sport has taught me to always start again, both after a victory and after a defeat, giving my all every time and with new stimuli . Not everything boils down to Olympic gold or heat elimination. You need to know how to evaluate both moments, reflect and start again. Just as it’s not all about promotion or failure, a handshake of praise or a 110 with honors: in life you must always think about the next step that fuels the lifeblood needed to grow and improve. The University is the family that trains you, that protects you, that supports you and leads you to adult life where you will then have to give back what you have received.”
Below is Gaia Pianigiani’s wish: «I feel like one of you and it is an honor for me to be here. As a graduate of the University I had the opportunity to build a career that respected my desires. As it was for me, I also wish you all to make your dreams come true starting from this day.”
The Vice President of the USiena Alumni Association Chiara Galgani then spoke; Siena, solidarity, sacrifice and dream were the key words of her speech: «This day represents the synthesis of years of sacrifice, commitment and perseverance. And it must be a moment of joy and gratitude. Like you, I too have traveled a long journey of study and sacrifice to obtain a degree from this authoritative institution. Like you, at the end of this journey, I understood the importance of the goal achieved, but I also felt the awareness of being faced with a new beginning. Like you today, I felt an alternation of emotions: happiness, satisfaction, pride combined with apprehension for the future and a strong desire for personal and professional fulfillment. In other words, this ceremony does not mark an arrival point, but represents a starting point for you. The beginning of a journey made of new projects, changes, challenges, responsibilities and, I hope, success.”
The Rector Roberto Di Pietra then took the floor again for his speech: «This is a special day that the University of Siena dedicates to you to celebrate. In reality, every day of the year we dedicate our care and attention to making the study and life experience at our University and in the city of Siena memorable. You have chosen Siena, our University and, I am sure, you already carry it in your heart. You have experienced an important period of your life at the University of Siena as young people ready to make their contribution to the development of our society and, perhaps, to make our time and our future better. You have achieved an important result at the end of a journey in which you overcame difficulties and obstacles, but also moments of happiness and satisfaction. You have completed a journey in which you have acquired skills, knowledge and abilities together with a better awareness of yourself, a clear maturation of your person. You have chosen the University of Siena and I congratulate and thank you for this choice.” The Rector continues: «The completion of your studies opens the doors to the most challenging path in the world of work in which you will bring your skills, your abilities and your energies».
The Rector then proposed a reflection on the difficult situations that can be experienced in everyday life: «In our society and therefore also within the Universities, the difficulties, obstacles, problems, defeats are taking on a connotation that is not what it should be a normal situation in people’s lives. A sense of inevitable and irremediable defeat is spreading, generating ungovernable and insurmountable anxieties. From the overcoming of an obstacle, from the solution of a problem, from the manifestation of a defeat, the idea seems to have spread that all future life derives from this. It’s not like this, it’s never been like this, it can’t be like this! Life is full of obstacles and defeats. Defeat, defeats are themselves part of our life. There can be no victory, result, finish line – I even say “performance” – if not because we have gone through defeats.”
The Rector continues: «We are in the year of the Olympics. Precisely this year we need to remember a meaning that is very present in sporting competitions, in general, and in Olympic competition, in particular. For this reason we asked a national federation, the Italian Swimming Federation (FIN), to receive the greetings of one of its Ambassadors. Precisely for this reason, the multiple Olympic champion Massimiliano Rosolino told us and testified to how sport – any sporting practice – trains people to manage defeats as a tool to achieve victories in competitions and in life. The Olympics every four years remind us that in a long journey there are numerous defeats and, every now and then, some victories. In the Olympic spirit there is, first of all, the objective of improving oneself by going through the “unwinnable races” before arriving at victories”.
He then wanted to refer to Piazza del Campo, as a place that welcomes, but also the theater of centuries of victories and defeats: «Piazza del Campo is the square to which you will return in your memory to remember the moments experienced, including this afternoon’s. Piazza del Campo has been the ideal theater for centuries in which the continuous succession of Palio victories and necessarily defeats is always renewed. Every victory follows many defeats and every defeat is experienced as a necessary step on which to build the next victory starting from the day after the Palio, at every Palio.”
The Rector continues: «Our place in the world is also the result of our defeats. Defeats are an integral part of the path to success. Success is not defined by victory, but by the ability to face defeats and learn from them. Success is not definitive, defeat is not inevitable and what really matters is the courage to continue. All this is summarized in two wonderful verses by Leonard Cohen: “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in” – There’s a crack in everything. And that’s where the light comes in.”
Finally: «I wish many victories for your lives, I certainly do not wish you defeats and, however, in the knowledge that they will exist, I wish you to know how to live and transform them as the necessary premise for achieving your goals. Only in this way will the flavor and value of the results you achieve be full of light and worthy of applause!
We then move on to calling the new doctors onto the stage for the usual photograph with the Rector and the Director of their department.
Finally comes the choral moment of throwing the tòcco into the air, to seal the important goal achieved. For everyone, a liberating moment that brings together the academic community in a symbolic embrace.
The event was accompanied by the choir of the University of Siena, directed by Maestro Elisabetta Miraldi, made up of members of the university community, including students, teachers and staff, who enlivened the event with a rich program from their own repertoire.
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Massimiliano Rosolino
Massimiliano Rosolino was born in Naples on 11 July 1978 to an Italian father, the restaurateur Salvatore, and an Australian mother, the flight attendant Carolyn. Olympic champion in the 200m medley in Sydney 2000, world and European, he was the first Italian swimmer to win the Grand Slam, in the 200m medley, and to win three Olympic medals in a single edition. Nicknamed “the little dog” for his determination, Rosolino was a freestyle and mixed style specialist and from 1995 to 2009 he collected 60 podiums in world and European competitions and at the Olympic Games. After his retirement, which was never announced, he established himself in the world of entertainment as a host, reality show competitor and actor. In 2021 he published the book «Il Campione – A journey of love and friendship beyond the Pitt-Hopkins syndrome», published by Dantebus. He is the father of Vittoria Sydney and Sofia Nicole, born from the relationship with his partner Natalia Titova, a dance teacher. Testimonial of the Italian Swimming Federation, for activities to promote and disseminate aquatic disciplines, Rosolino is still the athlete to have won the highest number of Olympic medals in Italian swimming.
Medal collection
Olympics 1 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronzes
World Cup 1, 3, 1
Europeans 7, 8, 6
Short course world championships 1, 2, 7
Europeans in short course 7, 8, 5
Mediterranean Games 5, 3, 0
Italian championships 41, 32, 14
Gaia Pianigiani
New York Times correspondent in Italy. She began at the Times in 2010 in the Rome editorial office, first as an intern and then as an editor, over the years dealing with both breaking news (from major shipwrecks to earthquakes) and current affairs and politics (following two Popes and 8 Presidents of the Council of Ministers). and writing reports on economic and social changes and immigration in Italy.
Before The Times he worked at the Steel Business Briefing news agency in London and at Forbes magazine in New York. She is originally from Castellina in Chianti (Siena) and studied literature and
Foreign Languages at the University of Siena and spent a year as an Erasmus student at the Freie Universität of Berlin. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
