Paolo Manfrini

But he was much more than that. Here is the portrait that his friend Alberto Faustini, long-time editor of various newspapers in Trentino, shared with us:

“Paolo was a builder of dreams and ideas. He had a playful intelligence, Paolo Manfrini. He looked life straight in the eyes, with a gaze that was both cultured and disenchanted. Pop and sophisticated. With the ability to lighten any situation and take everything seriously at the same time. Always balancing between a light smile and depth. Just as he knew how to engage with life, filling it with ideas, inspirations, and initiatives, he could also converse with death: he looked it in the face; he did not fear it. He awaited it, living each day as if it were the first and, at the same time, as if it were the last. In short, he waited for it in his own way: by ignoring its existence until the very last moment.

Paolo did everything: always with the ability to be fully committed to one thing, while also keeping a foot and a fragment of his imagination elsewhere. Journalism. Culture. Tourism. Events. Politics. Friendship. And a taste: for stories, for flavors, for ways of living, for people. In him, everything continuously mixed together, like a deck of cards, of thoughts and curiosities that he always kept in the pocket of his imagination. 

He was much more as well: an engine of culture that was both exquisitely local and grandly international. He played on multiple registers: from amateur dramatics—a tradition that ran in his blood, passed down not only through his father’s side—to Oriente Occidente, to I Suoni delle Dolomiti, to dawns with writers or with the great artists of this timeless time, to the countless initiatives he invented or supported.

He believed in a tourism that was both high-minded and carefree, disarming: a sort of transposition of his way of living, thinking, and interpreting his various jobs. His trick—even when asked to engage in politics, perhaps to become the mayor of his city—was to break down the barriers between dreams, work, and interests. There was no public, no private, no intimate, no collective: the overlapping planes always allowed him to fill each step with enthusiasm and overwhelming energy. He had the ability to get involved in everything while managing to stay one step ahead: in an apparent detachment—which sometimes drove those crazy who asked him to show the tough face he didn’t have—from worldly, ephemeral, transient matters. A protagonist of many seasons and yet a supporting player, careful not to overshadow: the president, the councilor, the adventure companion. His grace helped him navigate very different seasons. With a smile. Both ironic and mocking. With that unmistakable air and style that never left him until the very end.”