On Sunday 10th January 2016, Prof. Michele De Benedictis, at the age of 88 has passed away. He had turned 88 on December 19th, celebrating serenely with his family.
Michele was formally long since retired, but his passion as a scholar has remained alive to the last, prompting him to actively participate in the life of many organisations he was part of. He had been chair of the Association for Studies and Research Manlio Rossi-Doria, which he had founded, then becoming honorary chair of Manlio Rossi-Doria Centre for Social and Economic Research. Still in recent months he had written on agriculture, on Mezzogiorno, on Manlio Rossi-Doria. Member of Accademia dei Lincei, he had taken part on November 18th to the Conference, organized by the Academy, with a presentation on Manlio Rossi-Doria. On December 2nd, due to a flu, unable to attend personally to the presentation of the book by Guido Fabiani Agricoltura-Mondo – La storia contemporanea e gli scenari futuri, he had sent his text to be present with his thoughts .
In all these years he has always supported us with his ideas and with the depth of his thought and has continued to be a strong reference for all of us. His imagination continued to amaze us. His irony cheered us up.
We will miss him.
Il percorso biografico e scientifico di Michele De Benedictis , by Anna Carbone e Roberto Henke.
In: Michele De Benedictis: scritti scelti 1964-2008, a cura di Anna Carbone, Fabrizio De Filippis e Roberto Henke, edizioni l’ancora del mediterraneo, 2009