Maximum he is gone just when he thought he had won. He had reconciled to himself, he had taken up the choices to make in his hands, he was beginning to think about things to write, services to prepare. He went to the newspaper rooms to tell his friends, give reassurance, make promises and it was understood that in reality he was betting with a part of himself, the one that had been lost and dragged him elsewhere, while he now tried to take it back and govern it. He did not make it, as if in the end all the energy of his young life had rebelled reversing himself into his opposite and now he no longer had the strength to do his battle.
The newspapers remain, which explain many things and reveal people: because they are part of life, not of its representation. Vincenzi was deputy editor of the “Press”, correspondent of “Repubblica” from New York. But each of us, when he thinks of him, sees him always and only sitting at the head of the central office, the newspaper machine that begins to design it in the morning, gives it shape and meaning during the long day, accompanies it to the press, night. That was his place, the place of his talent, his character, the junction between training and ambition, the meeting between management and editorial staff, the opportunity to teach and learn together, starting over every day.
Arriving from the “Gazzetta di Mantova”, the newspaper of his city where he had started his career at a very young age, Massimo had climbed “Repubblica” as a natural passage, as if the job were simple. It was for him, who had that physical intelligence, that speed of instinctive reaction of the true editors, who when a great event occurs they stand up to dictate the new sheet by throwing the whole newspaper into the air, and the editorial staff follows them as they do. the director follows: because that is the mysterious authority of those who know how to make the newspaper with their hands, in a binary logic that continually chooses the news that must be inside and what will remain outside, without ever losing the general feeling of the newspaper that he is composing, and that every day is different despite being equal to himself.
Massimo was all this as if it were predestined, built exactly for that job.
Like everyone else, he knew it and tried to escape through literature, Bukowski’s characters and perhaps eventually Bukowski as a character, the play plays that he wrote, the conquest of America that he chased. But its natural center of gravity remained that “Republic” room on the seventh floor, that corner chair, that “rudder” in front of the eyes with all the pages in a row to be filled, the colleagues who entered, left, recognized the defects impatient at a young age and excused them with the priceless value of a solid, confident guide who knew how to make choices, and was able to explain why.
Reaching America, Massimo perhaps lost that very center of gravity, or perhaps as Simona says he lost the horizon. He was lost, sought, chased. As expected, he returned to his place, because talent demanded him there, then Maurizio Molinari proposed to him the deputy director of the “Press”, and the adventure began in Turin.
When he was in Rome he passed by us like someone who comes home, caressed the desks with his eyes, seemed ready to start the meeting every time. Perhaps loneliness was winning, stealing spaces from work. Perhaps recomposing what had broken inside was now more difficult than building the pages of the newspaper, organizing them, taking care of them until the last caption, before firing them, finally resting on the back of the chair at the end, looking at the time and warning at that point the collective effort of the company.
Instead, even in him who thought himself invulnerable, and who never seemed to feel the fatigue of work, the fatigue of living has made its way. The body gave in when perhaps it had given up the will, first ambitious, then proud, then insecure, finally lost.
The continuous pursuit with work now saw increasing distances, even the newspaper now seemed to escape, with the reasons of a life. Until everything is locked up in a hospital bed, without even knowing that the colleagues in the editorial office constantly ask for news and shake their heads. We never told each other, Massimo, because we didn’t go beyond the handshake every morning: but we love you, that chair is yours.
Saturday 28 March from 8.30 to 10.30 it will be possible to give a last farewell to Massimo Vincenzi at the mortuary of the Santo Spirito Hospital (Lungotevere in Sassia 1). For the restrictions imposed by the containment of COVID-19, access will be allowed to one person at a time
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