By Rebecca Sclavo. Cover image Gabriele Busi for Istituto Marangoni Firenze
Four years ago, I arrived in this Istituto almost by chance. I enrolled by taking a leap into the unknown, and now, after completing both my Bachelor’s degree and my Master’s, I know that I must take another one.
These years have shaped the way I see the world. They’ve taught me to look beyond the obvious and to believe in questions and uncertainty.
I don’t think I’m the only person in this theatre today who feels afraid.
For a long time, I thought that becoming an adult meant no longer being afraid.
I imagined there would be a moment when I would finally feel ready. Confident. Certain.
But so far, that still hasn’t happened.
And maybe that’s exactly the point: growing up isn’t about eliminating uncertainty. It’s about learning to welcome it, knowing that perhaps we’ll never become the version of adulthood we imagined as children.
Over the past few days, I’ve kept thinking about a line from Cinema Paradiso: “Non guardarti indietro. Non cedere alla nostalgia (Don’t look back. Don’t give in to nostalgia).”I think I understand it now.
When I was a little girl, it seemed unfair to me. It almost felt as though it spoke of rejection. I used to wonder why anyone should have to give up returning to the place that had helped them grow.
Now I understand that Alfredo, as a mentor, was asking Totò not to surrender to memory, but to trust in what that place would leave within him.
To carry it forward without remaining trapped inside it. To keep living towards the future without ever stopping being grateful for the past.
Today, the greatest privilege I have is knowing that, even after I walk through that door, this place will never really leave me.
A place can continue to belong to you even when you no longer inhabit it.
This has been one of the most difficult thoughts to accept over the past few months: convincing the part of me that would rather keep me safe, that would like to continue knowing the class schedule and complaining about deadlines set for the day before, to accept that not everything can be planned, that sometimes things simply happen, and that fear of the future is inevitable. Outside, everything feels bigger, more uncertain. Exposed.
But this journey has prepared us for exactly this: not to wait until we feel perfectly ready, because chances are we never will.
Throughout these four years, every day has been an invitation to move forward, to keep improving and to grow. To question what once seemed definitive, because nothing ever truly is.
Now that it’s time to continue on my own, I can only feel grateful to those who have stood beside me every day.
At Istituto Marangoni, teachers are called tutors, and I believe this term best describes their role. They have accompanied us, walked beside us and guided us.
They never simply handed us answers. Instead, they taught us how to ask better questions, trusting us to discover our own answers along the way.
That is a form of respect and an act of faith.
It has been a privilege to have people beside me who recognised my perspective before I had fully understood its potential myself, giving me, without ever trying to change me, the opportunity to bring out what was already within me, even before I was aware of it.
Perhaps that’s the most precious lesson I’ve learned here: every person has a unique perspective, and that perspective deserves to be seen, protected and valued.
Here, I learned that teamwork isn’t just about dividing tasks or practising diplomacy.
It’s about listening without losing your own voice.
It’s about understanding that an idea often becomes stronger the moment it stops belonging to just one person. The strength of this journey has always been the exchange between different skills, sensibilities and disciplines, and from the mutual trust and dialogue between students and tutors.
These four years have taught me how to think, to become aware of who I am and who I could become. I have learned to go beyond.
I’ve never liked giving speeches. And yet, here I am.
My hands are shaking, but I’m doing it.
I leave this place knowing that I am still the same person who, four years ago, first walked through the doors at Via Tornabuoni 17. With the same curiosity, the same uncertainties, the same doubts, and the same fears.
The difference is that now I see them differently. These years have taught me how to change while remaining myself, how to grow without becoming someone else.
Even the most instinctive, fragile and childlike parts of me have finally found their place. And those who know me understand how important that is to me.
I know this Istituto will continue to be a place where individuality is nurtured and protected, a place where freedom and thought are valued.
A place where students are never treated as numbers, but as people with their own voice and their own way of seeing the world. Just as I have been.
Four years ago, I found the courage to walk through that door without knowing what was waiting for me. Soon, I will have to do it again, but in the opposite direction, hoping to preserve forever some of the unawareness of the eighteen year old version of myself who brought me this far.
It is not about moving forward without ever looking back, but about holding on to what may still be needed.
Looking back just enough to remember that what we’ve lived will always be part of who we are.
The value of this Istituto isn’t only in what I have learned.
It lies in the way it has taught me to look at the world, in the way it has asked me to be myself.
And if today I have to take another leap into the unknown,
I want to believe that it will not truly be empty,
but that all of this will be inside it.
Thank you.
