Nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum Tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias, Accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu, Atque in perpetuum, soror, ave atque vale. (Catullus)
Concerning Bormio, we all realized, and now more than before, how this magnificent corner of Alps had been chosen as an essential part of her life and even of her departure. It sounds terribly monotonous (it is true however) to repeat that she was the brain and the soul of the Bormio Conference, which, under her direction, became the natural home of the Nuclear Physics winter meetings, a magic but so human event, where her qualities, so precious and uncommon, allowed for a realistic assessment of a special way for all of us to meet together.
It was her inner intellectual force that enabled her, in spite of the apparent frailty, to be so dynamic and vigorous as a real force of the nature. And I will repeat what with Marcello Pignanelli, who cannot be present today with us, we said in her memory: “She was capable of unifying a deep cultural and human interiority with a vital verve. This was even contagious up to lavish the joy of life, the joy to be there even if mixed up with a subtle and delicate irony”.
This is the reason why Ileana is still so present with us even if we realize that a great discontinuity did occur in our life as members of the Bormio Nuclear community. She is no more with us. But we shall continue to come and to meet here also on her memory.
from “Introductory words” R. A. Ricci Proceeding of the XLVIII International Winter Meeting on Nuclear Physics, Bormio 2010 – soon available at pos.sissa.it
Bormio, Ileana, a tradition stretching over so many decades, involving so many people, present and departed…A conference? That too, as informal as the standard welcoming speech which she would deliver in her idiosyncratic English…Ski pass…. Go to Celso for skis and boots… Welcome drinks and the program, the schedule…
Ileana a physicist? No. Ileana was Ileana first and foremost. She lived physics as she lived her human condition. Physics was never detached from the physicist who presented it, from his or her individuality and connection with Ileana’s world.
We all belonged to her, we all felt how we were part of her personal world, of her loving care. Now we have lost her, but, as we were part of her life, she is part of ours, she cannot disappear from our awareness without us becoming less than ourselves. So we shall live our life and in so doing she will live too.
So many more things I should say… and already Ileana and Bormio are becoming legend that will be passed down orally to future conferences and conferees…
from “Ileana’s Magic Mountain” L. Moretto Proceeding of the XLVII International Winter Meeting on Nuclear Physics, Bormio 2009
