Farewell to Luigi Lazzi Gazzini, chief journalist of public accounts

Luigi Lazzi Gazzini, one of the best economic journalists ever, has died at the age of 72. For many years (from 1985 to his retirement) he had recounted the events, not always brilliant at the time, of our public finances from the columns of "Il Sole 24 ore", following with painstaking attention and patience the unfolding of the budget manoeuvre, from the Council of Ministers to the almost always tormented parliamentary path.

Lazzi had arrived at Il Sole from the Italia agency for which he followed the parliamentary work with particular attention to the Commissions. He therefore dealt with numbers and the economy, intertwining the news that came from the Government, the Senate and the Chamber with the careful notes that the bulletins of the Bank of Italy dedicated to the same subject. One thing was certain: if Lazzi gave any news, that news, and so the figures that accompanied it, were certain. The journalists of the other newspapers knew it, but also the politicians and senior officials of the Treasury.

Yes, because Luigi, a more than scrupulous parliamentary journalist, heard from everyone: deputies, senators, ministers, high accounting and treasury bureaucrats to verify and investigate what he had collected. But often the path was reversed. It was the politicians and senior officials who sought him out to verify and check some passage of this or that document. Lazzi spoke to everyone. He was also available to younger colleagues to dispense advice, to correct some inexperienced mistakes.

For many years, the last of my journalistic career at the Sole 24 Ore, I shared the work room in the Rome editorial office with him and two other delightful colleagues (Gianni Dragoni and Donatella Stasio). And so I had the privilege of being able to fully appreciate the grace, goodness and style of the person. Our relationship often took place on the edge of joke and irony especially if personal and delicate issues were under discussion. Sometimes I joked too much with him, perhaps with a touch of rudeness. He felt bad, but he immediately put me in the best position to apologize and go back to joking about it. To say he was a gentleman is an understatement.

Retired (more or less in the same days), we continued to feel quite often. And we also continued to joke about the bad disease that accompanied him. “How are you?”, I began. “I'm,” he replied. And then he resumed the gossip about this or that colleague and about ourselves. In one of the last phone calls we discussed which newspaper would be the most suitable to host our respective obituaries. Jokes and jokes but also a lot of melancholy. But also the consolation of having been a journalist at a time when the world, Italy and the newspapers were in better health than they are now. At least so I believe.

May the earth be light to Luigi. May the memory be sweet for Marcella and Sebastiano.

°°°°FIRSTonline participates with great sadness in the pain of Luigi's family.

°°°°° The funeral will take place on Saturday 16 February in Rome at 15.30 pm at the church of San Saturnino in the square of the same name in the Trieste district.