At 96, Giuseppe Paterno has faced many tests in life – childhood poverty, war and, more recently, the coronavirus pandemic. Now he has sailed through an exam that makes him Italy’s oldest university graduate….
Already in his 90s when he enrolled for a degree in History and Philosophy at the University of Palermo, Paterno grew up loving books, but he never had the chance to study…. [H]e graduated first in his class with top honours, receiving congratulations from the university chancellor Fabrizio Micari.
Growing up in a poor family in Sicily in the years before the Great Depression, Paterno received only basic schooling as a child. He joined the navy and served during World War Two before going on to work in the railways as he married and brought up two children.
In a society focused on rebuilding after the war, work and family were the priorities, but Paterno wanted to learn and graduated from high school at the age of 31, always harbouring a desire to go further.
“Knowledge is like a suitcase that I carry with me, it is a treasure,” he said.
As a student, he tapped out his essays on the manual typewriter his mother gave him when he retired from the railways in 1984. He eschewed Google in favour of printed books and was not tempted by the late-night student parties of his 20-year-old classmates, who applauded him warmly at the graduation ceremony.
“You are an example for younger students,” his Sociology professor, Francesca Rizzuto, told him after he passed his final oral examination in June….
As for what he planned to do next, he said he was not about to stop now he had graduated.
“My project for the future is to devote myself to writing; I want to revisit all the texts I didn’t have a chance to explore further. This is my goal.”
h/t Tonya Kircher
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