Nuccio Ordine, thinker, writer and essayist, died this Saturday in Cosenza (Calabria). An exceptional intellectual and multiplier, he had a major impact on the Spanish publishing sector and had a major impact on European readers. No one is prepared for such news. But in the case of Ordine even less. The writer, who had to be urgently admitted to the Annuziata Hospital in Cosenza, where he was staying a few days ago after suffering a stroke, was due to receive the 2023 Princess of Asturias Prize for Communication and Humanities in October, which had just been awarded to him was a few weeks ago. An appointment he awaited with great emotion became the fabulous culmination of a career dedicated to a passion for knowledge.
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Nuccio Ordine (Diamante, 1958 – Cosenza, 2023) was one of those authors who are often more respected abroad than at home. A relatively common phenomenon in cultural exchanges between Italy and Spain. In fact, it has grown tremendously here in recent years, selling more than 80,000 books in Spanish. The author of the worldwide hit The Uselessness of the Useless (now in its 28th edition in Spanish), in which he denounced the damage current utilitarianism is wreaking on schools, universities and research, continued to work as a professor in Italy for Italian literature at the University of Calabria. A renowned specialist in the Renaissance in general and Giordano Bruno in particular, his books have been translated into 24 languages. An anomaly given its origins.
Born in a small Calabrian town without a bookstore, Ordine always said that he learned to read thanks to television, the comics his grandfather sold in a kiosk and a good teacher. “To be born in a house without books and parents who have not studied, to live in a small southern town without bookstores or libraries, without theaters or cultural spaces does not mean to be doomed to ignorance,” he explained in an interview . Ordine has been a visiting professor at centers such as Yale, Paris IV-Sorbonne, the CESR in Tours, the IEA in Paris, the Warburg Institute or the Max Planck Institute in Berlin and is a member of the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies Alexander Foundation Humboldt and the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The writer lived in the countryside, in Cosenza (Calabria), surrounded by a library with more than 20,000 books. After starting teaching in southern Italy, he went to university, where he developed his tireless research work, which led him to share and publish texts ranging from proposing specific models of philosophical exegesis to widely used texts. So much so that this year he received one of the highest possible awards.
The news of his death was confirmed by the Mayor of Consenza, Franz Caruso, who expressed his sadness at the disappearance of “one of the most cultured personalities, in the broadest sense of the word, that Calabria and the whole country could experience” to include in their history. current”.
Nuccio Ordine, in Milan, July 2014. Leonardo Cendamo (Getty Images)
Ordine was awarded the Princess of Asturias Prize in Communication and Humanities in 2023. “I feel very, very happy and very moved, I can appreciate the magnitude of this award and I can assure you that it is far superior to me,” he told the newspaper during a brief phone call at the awards ceremony. The jury recognized Ordine “for his defense of the humanities and his commitment to education and the values rooted in the most universal European thought” and singled him out for having “established a dialogue with contemporary society, which he particularly can convey to young people”. that the importance of knowledge lies in the learning process itself.” “The value of education must be understood in terms of the passion for seeking knowledge and the best of each individual, without being limited to economic interests,” added the jury. Because that was one of the cornerstones of his work.
The shortcomings, gaps and perversions of the educational systems that Borja Hermoso recalled in this newspaper a few days ago were one of Ordine’s favorite victims in books such as the aforementioned “The Usefulness of the Useless”, but also in “Clásicos para la vida o” . Men are not islands, they are all published in Spanish by Acantilado, a publishing house that the thinker, writer and professor of Italian literature at the University of Calabria thanked “from the bottom of my heart” for his work over the years. “Today, people who dedicate their lives to teaching are considered obsolete, but I dedicate this award to them, I dedicate it to those who teach and, through their sacrifice, silently change the lives of their students,” said the Italian intellectual.
And he also voiced his criticism of these students, the flagship of Italian humanistic education. “In Italy, the best university is considered to be the one that enrolls 300 students at the beginning of the course and has 300 graduates at the end of the course. Three hundred arrive, 300 leave with their diplomas in their pockets. But no one wonders what the value of those 300 is. Of course, to reach 300 the level will be lowered, that’s the only way. And the same thing happens with elementary school, secondary school, institutes … and then we have to go back to Rilke, who said that only difficulties can enable you to make the efforts that make you better.”
Technology and its shortcuts, as well as the emotional and intellectual deficits caused in recent times by the onset of the digital universe and its cultural reflections, have also been the subject of his attention. “It is evident that the virtual society creates new forms of loneliness, which is a true paradox of our time, because more than ever we are connected to each other, but it turns out that we are alone.” We have the illusion of being related to be, but a virtual relationship cannot be a good relationship, it is an empty form of relationship,” he emphasized in a recent interview with EL PAÍS.
Ordine believed that in order to understand all the details of the present, one had to go into the big world and into the past. And he left it written in the classics for a lifetime. A Small Ideal Library (2017), in which he brought masters such as Cervantes, Shakespeare and Plato to the understanding of contemporary issues, from the inequality of women to the independence movement. “I would recommend Puigdemont and Rajoy to read Montesquieu,” the author said in a 2017 interview with Efe. Ordine is now coming to the other side of this barrier, that of the classics that will shape the thinking of the future.
The Princess of Asturias Foundation: “A man committed to education and the protection of the humanities”
Teresa Sanjurjo, director of the Princess of Asturias Foundation, said this Saturday afternoon after learning of Ordine’s death: “We have waited many days for Nuccio Ordine’s health and it is with great sadness that we learn that he has just passed away. ” away. We wholeheartedly share the pain of his family and friends and will always remember the great joy and honor that it was to receive the Princess of Asturias Award for his commitment to education and his strong commitment to the humanities as a Means of imparting knowledge meant to the new generations. We will be the spokesman for his priceless message and pass on his legacy.”
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