A presence that reawakens work
Enzo’s company in the corridors of Careggi Hospital
It all started with a desire for something new and a love for a workplace that many would now like to escape from, taking fewer and fewer risks and often leaving room for complaint. Today, those who work in healthcare and hospitals run the risk of becoming tired and fearful spectators of their own daily lives.
This need gave rise to the desire to bring the exhibition prepared by some young people from the CLU in Bologna about our friend Enzo Piccinini.
In November 2024, an initial group of a few friends, who work at Careggi Hospital or other healthcare facilities, with the valuable involvement of the Cultural Center of Florence, promoted the opportunity to visit the exhibition at the Emergency Room Chapel of Careggi Hospital in Florence.
A place that is particularly important to us, where we recite the Angelus. The exhibition was open to visitors during the last week of November and ended with a presentation of the book Amico carissimo (Dearest Friend), written by Pierpaolo Bellini and Chiara Piccinini, who spoke, moderated by Prof. Andrea Simoncini, in the Aula Magna of the CTO in Careggi, where about 400 people were present.
Everything exceeded all expectations, even considering the initial doubts associated with such a great desire. In the realization of this desire, the response of our community was impressive: many made themselves available to act as guides to the exhibition, helped also by the encounter with the enthusiasm and contemporary taste of Enzo’s relationship with two young people from the CLU of Bologna, Teresa Pastore and Marco Ercolani.
The exhibition was visited not only by our community, but also by colleagues, patients, and people passing through the chapel, as it was located in a central area of the hospital. The exhibition and the meeting were a real whirlwind of unexpected events: they made us more attentive to many aspects of our daily work and generated changes in those who were involved as guides, bringing dormant questions back to the surface. We saw the amazement caused by Enzo’s figure in colleagues, patients, and friends. We truly had the privilege of seeing our friend at work.
Among us, and together with those who immediately got involved in these actions, in addition to great gratitude, what we carry with us is the memory of what generated the breath of our little “yes” and the responsibility of what we saw and touched with our own hands during those days: that we can always live like this. A beautiful promise, a beautiful challenge.
With Enzo, it was predictable that we would not be satisfied with just one week. So new desires were ignited: to make ourselves more present among those who work in the healthcare world, also starting a relationship with the young people of the CLU of Medicine, and to be able to hang a panel dedicated to Enzo.
The initial group of friends thus expanded, involving other people in the creation of a panel that could encapsulate everything that Enzo represents to us. A panel that would be a source of help and remembrance for us healthcare workers, for our colleagues, for patients, for anyone who happens to visit that part of our hospital.
Brother Walter, who’s in charge of the chapel and has gotten to know and appreciate us over the last few years—thanks in part to another friend, Roberto Giulio Romanelli, a doctor at Careggi who passed away a few years ago and who helped us feel at home here by suggesting we recite the Angelus—told us we could put up a panel. Initially, we hung the last panel of the CLU children’s exhibition, while waiting to create ‘our own’.
The initial group of friends thus expanded, involving other people in the creation of a panel that could encapsulate everything that Enzo represents for us. A panel that would be a help and a reminder for us operators, for our colleagues, for patients, for anyone who comes across that place in our hospital.
Our relationship with the Foundation has been fundamental in all of this, right from the start. We shared every step with Massimo, who was also present at the inauguration, even sending him a package containing all the material from the exhibition, intended for Enzo’s canonization process.
Our friend Enzo has always been a great reference point for us in our work. But in everything we have experienced and continue to experience, he has proved to be a constant companion and a source of practical support for our lives and our daily work.
On Saturday, January 17, 2026, a ceremony was held to inaugurate the panel, with a dialogue with Anna Rita Piccinini, followed by the celebration of Holy Mass by brother Walter.
Numerous people from the healthcare sector and beyond participated, and it was a valuable opportunity to discuss the three great challenges that Enzo has given us in our lives and in our daily responsibilities, which we wanted to take up and bear witness to in the panel: putting our heart into everything, the need for a united life and not to be alone, and the meaning of offering ourselves to Another.
We are so grateful to Anna Rita for sharing her experience of these challenges with us, giving us concrete ideas for our work in the hospital, for our lives and our daily routines, and for allowing us to experience the contemporaneity and fullness of Enzo’s experience, so alive and deeply relevant to us and to the world.
With all our gratitude.
Saverio, Donatella, Elisa.
