Italian academic Nuccio Ordine passed away this Saturday at the age of 64 of age in the Hospital of Cosenza, in southern Italy, where he had been admitted to the ICU in serious condition due to illness.

Ordine was one of the greatest scholars of the Renaissance period and of the scientist Giordano Bruno and last May he was awarded the Princess of Asturias Awardof Communication and Humanities 2023. The jury highlighted “his defense of the humanities and his commitment to education and values ​​rooted in the most universal European thought” and his effort to “transmit, especially to the youngest, that the importance of knowledge lies in the process of learning in itself”.

Born on July 18, 1958 in the Italian town of Diamante, he graduated in Modern Literature from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Calabria and in 1987 received a doctorate in Literary Sciences: Rhetoric and Techniques of Interpretation. He began his career as a journalist and he achieved some fame in his investigations of the Muto mafia clan.

Was Italian Literature teacher from the Department of Humanistic Studies at the University of his native Calabria and was visiting professor at American universities, such as Harvard, Yale and New York, and European ones, such as the School of Higher Studies in Social Sciences and the Normal Superior School of Paris, in addition to at the Warburg Institute in London, the Max Planck Society in Berlin and the German University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.

Philosopher, writer and expert in literary theory, is recognized worldwide as one of the greatest connoisseurs of Renaissance thought and literature, and, specifically, of the figure of the Neapolitan humanist Giordano Bruno. One of his outstanding books on this matter is ‘La cabala dell’asino. Asinità and knowledge in Giordano Bruno’.

In addition, Ordine wrote numerous essays on the Cinquecento, and in the field of literary theory and aesthetics, published in individual and collective works and in numerous articles. In his works, he reflected on the marginal situation of the Humanities in today’s world and vindicated them as necessary disciplines in the civic formation of the human being and in the creation of fundamental critical thinking for development and social well-being.

A staunch defender of an education far from the tendency to pragmatism, he advocated inculcate in students the pleasure of knowledge and curiosity to know. According to his vision, a broad base of general culture is the best tool for young people to be able to successfully face the variables of the labor market in the future.

Recognitions and awards

Honorary member of the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, member of the Royal Academy of Belgium and founding member of the Italian Association of Theory and Comparative History of Literature, he also presided over the Centro Internazionale di Studi Telesiani, Bruniani e Campanelliani and he was part of the executive council of the Italian Institute of Philosophical Studies.

He was also an advisor to the publications ‘Albertiana’ and ‘Journal de la Renaissance’ and co-directed the Giordano Bruno and Biblioteca Italiana collections for the Les Belles Lettres publishing house in Paris, and Sileni, Theatrum Sapientiae and Umbrae idearum for various publishers in his country, as well from other collections in different countries, such as Russia, Romania or Brazil. He was also regular contributor to the Italian newspaper ‘Corriere della Sera’.

Doctor honoris causa by the Brazilian universities of Rio Grande do Sul, Caixas del Sur and Porto Alegre, the University of Valparaíso (Chile), the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium), the Pontifical University of Comillas (Spain) and the Seal of the Ateneo de la Universidad de Urbino (Italy), was Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, Knight and Commander of the Order of the Academic Palms and Knight of the Order of the Legion of Honor of France (2012).

Throughout his career, in addition to receiving the Princess of Asturias Award, he was recognized with the Siracusa Philosophy Award, the Il Sogno di Piero Award from the Urbino Academy of Fine Arts, the Liberpress Award for Literature, the Special Award from the Carical Foundation and the International Humanism and Renaissance Award from the Egyptian Lyceum Museum, among many others.

The Princess of Asturias Foundation promises to transmit its legacy

The director of the Princess of Asturias Foundation, Teresa Sanjurjo, has lamented the death of the Italian professor and has promised that the institution will transmit “his legacy”. “We have spent many days pending Ordine’s state of health and We have known with great sadness that he has just passed away“He said in a statement, in which he said he shared” the pain of his family and friends.

The director of the Foundation recalled “the immense joy and honor” that the awarding of the award meant for him “for his commitment to education and his strong defense of the humanities as a way to transmit knowledge to new generations”. She has also promised that the institution will be “the loudspeaker of his most valuable message” and will transmit “his legacy”.