He was an art historian, gallery owner, publisher, television host, columnist and also a politician: Philippe Daverio, 70, died last night at theCancer Institute from Milan. The director Andree Ruth Shammahe, director of the Franco Parenti theater, made it known. "His brother wrote me this morning to tell me that Philippe passed away tonight," he explained. "My friend … your silence forever is a piercing scream this morning."

Who was Philippe Daverio

Daverio, fourth of six children, was born on 17 October 1949 in Mulhouse, Alsace, to a French mother, Aurelia Hauss, and an Italian father, Napoleone Daverio, a builder. He moved to Italy and he studied at Bocconi of Milan, but without graduating. He often said: "I'm not a doctor because I didn't graduate, I was enrolled at Bocconi in 1968-1969, in those years people went to university to study and not to graduate". Instead, in Milan he opened his first gallery (which soon became one of the most important in the city), and found himself a publisher and popularizer of art.

Councilor for Culture, Leisure, Education and International Relations of the Municipality of Milan from 1993 to 1997, he oversaw the reconstruction of the Contemporary Art Pavilion, which had been destroyed by a bomb in 1993. But the great public got to know him thanks to television, starting from 1999, when he started working as a broadcast correspondent Art on Raitre. The following year he led Art.tù (of which he was also the author), and from 2002 to 2012 Passepartout, a successful art and culture program that brought art to the homes of Italians. Increasingly known as a television personality, in recent years he has often participated in Strip the news, on Canale5.

In politics collaborated with Vittorio Sgarbi, mayor of the Municipality of Salemi, in various cultural and artistic initiatives and was a candidate in the province of Milan in 2009 in the list of Filippo Penati. According to him, who had an idea of ​​politics as a noble service to the community, "left and right no longer make sense".

Daverio was also a university professor: he taught History of Art at the IULM in Milan, History of Design at the Polytechnic of Milan and Industrial Design at the University of Palermo. He wrote many popular books, including The good way, Art on the table, The game of painting. And the last, in 2019, My Europe in small steps, for Rizzoli.

Daverio and the kitchen

Since October 2019, on the occasion of the celebrations for the magazine's 90th anniversary, Philippe Daverio has also collaborated with "La Cucina Italiana" making 10 videos of the history of food. Fascinating as always, full of anecdotes, Daverio has revealed to us curiosities and secrets with his innate elegance, his humor and a boundless love for knowledge.

You can review them here.