ICTP mourns passing of Luigi Stasi

ICTP is deeply saddened to learn of the death of Luigi Stasi, a longtime friend of the Centre who was instrumental in its very founding and who actively oversaw the creation of its buildings and was instrumental in securing financial support from Italy in support of ICTP. Since its founding in 1964, the Centre has received more than 100,000 visits from scientists worldwide.

Stasi's ICTP-related achievements included:

• was secretary of the Local Restricted Committee, which was formed in Trieste to facilitate the establishment of ICTP;
• helped compose the agreement that was eventually signed between ICTP, IAEA and the Italian government;
• oversaw the bidding and other administrative tasks related to the acquisition of land and architectural services for the design of the ICTP building;
• as president of the Istituto Autonomo Case Popolari (IACP), oversaw implementation of the construction of ICTP's Galileo guesthouse.
  

Stasi wrote in the book From a Vision to a System: The International Centre for Theoretical Physics (1964-1994): "The dream of Trieste will continue if the seed of the existing scientific culture will yield fruits which the most enlightened minds will be able to cultivate further."

"Luigi Stasi's legal skills were very useful for the establishment of ICTP. Without his legal manoeuvring, the Centre could not have started. [ICTP co-founders] Abdus Salam and Paolo Budinich had many ideas, and Stasi was the person to make the best of those ideas a reality," said ICTP Director K. R. Sreenivasan.

André-Marie Hamende, who was associated with ICTP from 1964 until his retirement in 1990, and who has written several books about the history of the Centre, said, "Luigi Stasi deserves a monument for all the accomplishments he achieved to benefit ICTP. He was a lawyer by training, and was indispensable in implementing the ideas of Budinich and Salam. He had contact with many entities in Trieste, and because of that was able to not only bring ICTP to Trieste but to ensure its permanent creation by overseeing the purchasing of land and the construction of the ICTP campus."