Ciro Caldera, from a University Chair to Exile

Putting pen to paper to outline the vicissitudes that characterised the life and professional career of Ciro Caldera, a brilliant colleague, who in 1924 directed the Ear Nose and Throat Clinic of the University of Pavia, seemed a due tribute. Overdue because to be fair and honest we cannot but put the records right posthumously for someone, who was victim of heavy persecutions and forced into exile due to his opposition to Fascism and then, as we will see, before and after the fall of the Fascist regime shamefacedly ignored by colleagues and authorities. The more distasteful part of this story is that, after the forced expatriation to Australia for his antifascist ideas, Ciro Caldera did not receive any acknowledgement from the so called democratic governments, that for many years had exalted and favoured those, often in reality a sham, who boasted a past of fighting against the totalitarian tyranny. on the contrary, little attention was given to Ciro Caldera and, from a certain point of view, there was an unjustified aggression with the medieval form of a true damnatio memoriae. in fact, in the specialist literature after 1929, the first mention of him is be found in the volume by D. Felisati and colleagues (41) but that, being fragmented, did not dwell on the causes and repercussions of that political situation. Furthermore, it is relevant that only seven sources refer to Ciro Caldera and five of these were published in Australia.