How Beautiful a’ Muntagna Is Tonight

April 30, 1959, Renato is seen for the last time at the university. On May 2 or 3 the mathematician Salvatore Rionero, who is waiting for his fiancée in front of the Gambrinus café, sees him coming down via Chiaia and emerging in piazza San Ferdinando. On looking at him he is flooded with a sense of desolate amazement, of indescribable melancholy. Caccioppoli seems barely able to stand. He walks with difficulty, hesitant, his arm in a cast at his neck. His proverbial thinness has reached “spectral” levels. His body appears as fragile as glass and gives the impression that, like glass, it may shatter at any moment. Rionero approaches him and, affectionate and deferential, he asks him: “Professor, how are you?” And Renato, giving Rionero his hand: “Rionero, how do you think I am?”