Alberto Bargellini, 76, an important Viareggio personage, died on July 3 2008.

A demure, cordial man, he deeply loved our city and was bound by strong family connections to its harbor. He was in fact the nephew of the brave diver bearing the same name, lost in the Artiglio tragedy in the Quiberon Bay (1930).

Together with a group of members of the Rotary Club Viareggio Versilia, of which he was Past President, he had taken part in creation of the International Artiglio Award, and was subsequently appointed vice-president of the Artiglio Europe Foundation. As in all his other deeds, he gave a precious, essential contribution to the success of this enterprise.

A Chemistry graduate at the University of Pisa, after spending a brief period as researcher in a chemical industry he began to take interest in Chemistry Didactics, and shortly earned an Associate Professorship in this discipline at the University of Pisa. He followed specialization courses in important research centers in the U.S.A., where he had occasions to approach and exchange opinions with leading Chemists and Physicists. Soon recognized as a leading expert in Chemistry Didactics, he was often invited as lecturer in important Universities and research institutions both in Italy (as the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna of Pisa) and abroad. He also published several textbooks addressed to Chemistry Teachers, thus providing an important book collection of sure interest for present and future teachers at upper and lower secondary school levels.

At the same time he created, in association with wife Simona Bonuccelli, a high school focusing on languages, where hundreds of students successfully obtained their diplomas.

Alberto, a man of formidable culture, had a wide range of artistic and literary interests besides Chemistry. A passionate art collector, he owned many important paintings of local masters (L. Viani, Moses Levy, M. Marcucci, etc.). Furthermore, as an affectionate Viareggio native he never forgot the many unresolved, age-old problems affecting his multifaceted, lively city. He fought to maintain alive the remembrance of ancient local traditions such as ship building, seamanship and diving; to create a maritime Museum and to reappraise and remember local memorabilia often approaching oblivion.

The Artiglio Europe Foundation and the Viareggio-Versilia Rotarians have been deprived of a great friend, a person of considerable prominence, whose loss will long be regretted.


                                                                                           Boris Giannaccini