Piero Bruni left us on August 23.

His commitment to the Lake began almost 60 years ago, when he participated in the establishment of a local section of Italia Nostra. In 1987, this section became the Associazione Lago di Bolsena, with Piero as a founding member and one of the main actors together with Giovanni del Drago as president. In 2006 Piero became president, and only two years ago he handed over the reins to Enrico Calvario, remaining honorary president (see his biography here).

Piero had carried the Lake in his heart since his childhood, having known it during the frequent visits that his family, resident in Florence but originally from Capodimonte, made to relatives. His voluntary commitment was constant, attentive, pragmatic, animated by the sole interest of protecting this territory, so precious, so fragile.

He was human, upright, a great worker of scientific depth, without protagonism in his role as leader, a skilled weaver of relationships, aware of the great responsibility that the association has. He was also ironic, mischievous, and he loved life, a prosecco “like Caterina takes it”, being pampered by the ladies. He loved his Lake, and its fate worried him – “you’ll see that we’ll lose it, there’s too much ignorance”.

Piero Bruni and his collaborators oppose ignorance and the temptation to ignore reality, with knowledge. “Know the lake” (this is the title of the school program) – its beauty, importance, fragility, to know the dangers to which it is exposed and learning to protect it, to know its true state of health, measured with scientific rigor.

If only there were more like him!

Have a good trip, Piero, in your new adventure, where you will once again enjoy fish like the ones that your uncle caught and prepared for you, boy, on the Island!