Arrigo Castellani died before becoming old. I am not saying that this was an enviable end. However, the fact that his life was interrupted before suffering a trauma is, if not uncommon, particularly relevant. If it is true that we plan for our old age during our middle age, and in a certain sense our middle age already encompasses our old age, then I believe that from this perspective Arrigo’s middle age was inadequate. I would even say that in this matter he was and remained ambiguous, he never quite fitted in. He was never able to truly profit from the benefits that his experience, his corporate and social duties brought him. He never let himself be completely institutionalised. When carrying out his directive duties, when participating in work-related functions, in his way of expressing himself through facial expression, signs, reflections and impulses, he behaved rather like an eager youngster. This was like a call in his defence, an alibi for his still incomplete characterisation, an attempt to reconfigure his own existence – yet too caught up in an unending sequel of one-way roads, firmly entrenched in a grid of conventional relationships –, in order to back off, take his bearings and start out again with a new perspective. Is this only one connotation of his personality, a marginal aspect? Perhaps, but in my opinion, this is what made him a different man in the context he was dealing with, like a picture hung a little lop-sided in a gallery with all the other portraits perfectly aligned. Different: difficult and easy day-in day-out, event after event, sometimes peremptory, overwhelmingly, sometimes ductile, problematic and even defenceless, sometimes irritating and other times captivating. His relationship with work – I speak after many years by his side in the editing staff of the Pirelli Magazine – was always “a surprise a day”, a relationship that necessitated continual reinvention, without any fixed, consolidated o truly acquired truth to rely on. He could appear unbearable but instead, as the relationship grew, he became more and more likeable. And he had a talent which nowadays is more and more rare, especially in Milan: he knew how to be joyful, and also how to be melancholic. Never grey nor boring; but melancholic. If there was some magic key to interpret a person, then for Arrigo Castellani I would say the following: he managed to conserve a true taste for life during his entire existence. Well, even if this is an unlikely true key, this observation cannot be considered marginal. When behind his desk, at office lunches, during business trips or when speaking to colleagues – almost always connected to his duties – the corporate man is still able to kindle that taste for life, to savour true existence, it is no mean feat. Going back to where I started, I believe that Arrigo would have had a very difficult old age. He was not the person to accept regression serenely or whole-heartedly; he was not the person to renounce alternatives or unexpected things for this sad but general norm: to live poorly to survive longer.