When I heard about your departure I tried to write to you, trivially on your Facebook wall. I couldn't find the words, but the song Blue in Green by Miles Davis came to mind. Here, the sound of his trumpet after the chords on Bill Evans' piano expresses exactly what I felt and feel. Glad to have talked to you about music and to have seen you take back the sax after so long.
Goodbye Franco, say hello to John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk. And behave yourselves.
Salvatore Peluso
Dear Franco,
to find you back, I went through the history of the What's App messages we exchanged over time. At first just a few, because you were certainly not the type who imposed his presence, then almost daily in the three years in which I had the luck and the privilege to be your colleague, and again less frequent but always full of affection when we were no longer colleagues, but only friends.
A message, the most trivial and frequent one – almost every morning between 8.00 and 8.20 – "Are you coming for coffee?" is for me also the most painful to read today, witnessing a daily routine made up of an empty editorial office, lights still off and your presence that was announced by whistling first, then your perfume.
Coffee, cigarettes and confidences: mine as a frightened little girl struggling with the first problems in the working world, with the search for a house, the stupid issues with boyfriends that at the time seemed to be national dramas; yours as an apprehensive father with a daughter a little younger than me who was approaching adulthood, as a practical man struggling with a house to be built and as a dreamer who identified himself in a film or fell in love with a documentary.
With that morning coffee we got to know each other, to build a special friendship.
Since then I have changed colleagues and jobs, but I have never had that date with anyone again. It will remain my memory, banal, of a special person.
Goodbye Franco.
Carlotta Marelli
Excerpt from a guide to Solfeggio designed by Franco: the "Miragliotta method", 2020.
Hey man,
I knew you'd do the joke eventually. You're not one to walk away like the others, but as a divo. Chapeau. So now I have to write with detachment and seriousness, but how can I do it? We used to joke about everything together, and if I think of you in front of me right now I start smiling, because you'd make fun of me. You'd say, “Mariannina, can you please stop writing bullshit?”. Even at your funeral, I felt you were close, making jokes about the sermon and showing off your grave: I have to admit that you took a nice place, the lower right corner of a perfect grid, as the good graphic designer you were. I've spent more time with you in the last four years than with any boyfriend, friend, relative, parent. And not hours as colleagues, but as friends, inside and outside the office walls. The rule was simple and we liked it: let's talk about anything but work. I talked about football, you talked about basketball. You would explain to me the new international refereeing regulations, I would show you my impossible projects in Mexico. We listened to each other. We psychoanalyzed each other. We told each other the truth, that sometimes hurt but it was good. You supported me with singing, and I supported you with the sax. I taught you how to eat beets, and you taught me how to peel fruit with a knife and fork. You always had a new obsession: the circular saw, the Armani jacket, the Korean film dubbing program, the "Miragliotta method" for Solfeggio. So many jokes, so many bad jokes! We didn't spare ourselves. You've been best boy- and girl-friend. See you soon, and don't forget about us, about me: when you least expect it, I'll be there to ask you for a cigarette.
Marianna Guernieri
Hi, Franco,
You had brought this beautiful and good pastiera to us in the editorial office, proud because it had been made by the very good hands of Martina, your daughter. You were always smiling, a reference in perfect balance between Yin and Yang in the work environment. You leave a great void wherever you've been, of that I am more than certain. In my experience in working at Domus you remain one of the most beautiful memories.
Olga Mascolo
Pres' Blues in F minor (Impromptu)
May you always find an aerophone / to blow your kindness in / and that pork pie hat / you were always looking for
