Michela Murgia: Omaggio a Cathy La Torre e Lorenzo Terenzi a Firenze
A Firenze, Michela Murgia is remembered with both fondness and emotion by those who knew her and even by those who never had the chance to meet her but felt a part of the large community that the late writer had managed to create around herself.
“I can see that tonight this beautiful room is exactly where someone wanted to be,” says Maria Federica Giuliani, the councilor for memory and legality who organized the event “Battling and Words to Defeat Hate – In Memory of Michela Murgia.” Giuliani invited Murgia’s husband, Florentine actor Lorenzo Terenzi, and her friend and lawyer Cathy La Torre to be part of the event.
The remembrance, held a month after her passing, was initially planned to take place at Palazzo Vecchio but ended up in the magnificent Salone dei Cinquecento due to ongoing renovation work.
“I was deeply saddened by this loss,” explains Councilor Giuliani. “And I was surprised by the impact it had on me – if someone like me, who only knew her through her books and words, was affected like this, imagine how Lollo and Cathy must feel. That’s why I wanted to invite them to remember her one month after her passing.”
In the city of peace, with enlightened mayors like La Pira, in a hall that celebrates the Renaissance, “it felt like a guiding hand from above was asking us to be here, to carry on her message of advocating for rights, recognizing people, and respecting others.”
A long and emotional applause fills the room, with eyes traversing the frescoed ceiling and beyond, as if looking up to the heavens where Michela Murgia is thought to be, smiling mischievously, watching over the crowd gathered for her.
“Michela is here. She is in every word. She is a collective good.”
Despite this being the first time Cathy La Torre remembers her friend in public, she makes it clear that she will never speak of her in the past tense: “Michela is in everything, she is always here. If I could put into words what she is, I would say she is a collective good, a common good that belongs to everyone.”
La Torre goes on to explain, “We enjoyed Michela in moments of intimacy, as friends and family, but the separation between Michela and her community was very thin indeed. She is all the words spoken and written in her essays, articles, and books.”
She uses the example of one of Michela’s historic campaigns to promote inclusive and respectful language: “She taught us that before a female name, ‘La’ shouldn’t be used, just as we would never refer to a man only by his name. She said, ‘La Murgia is the plateau in Puglia, I am Michela Murgia.'”
“There is no difference between the person and the character in her. Everything she wrote is what she believed in her thoughts. The last message we exchanged was on August 9th: she sent me her final piece on queer families and a reflection on her posthumous book. She was writing until a few hours before she died, feeling the urgency to speak, to provoke.”
It is a collective mourning that unites everyone in the Salone and thousands of people who, in recent weeks, have continued to cherish the memory of the writer. “I understand it,” says La Torre, “it is a void in all our lives. We miss her words, reflections, and perspective. We wonder how to continue what she started, which is a legacy to be practiced daily in our lives. So when we see something that angers us, let’s write it down. We all have the ability to make our voices heard, to break and deconstruct stereotypes.”
Michela Murgia’s Battles
La Torre explains, “Michela continues to fight a tremendous number of battles. She talked about everything, from Sardinia to religion, from bodies to the queer movement, women’s rights, and fighting patriarchy. I hope that her words can inhabit our lives and
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