FRIENDS - GIUSEPPE REPETTO

GIUSEPPE ("PINO") REPETTO

When Giorgio retired from what might be called some sort of regular job he found that his pension and other funds would not allow him to live comfortably in the city which was his birthplace and which he had called home for so long. He was also having to give up his flat in Via Giulia and to find another place to live. Having mismanaged certain opportunities he’d had through his family, he was forced to think hard about his future and was very lucky to have a good friend in Giuseppe (“Pino”) Repetto.

Pino Repetto at the Gianicolo, Rome

Pino had known Giorgio since 1974 and had other close friends in common. For a certain period he had rented a room in Giorgio’s flat to use when he needed to be in the capital; he hailed from Ovada in Piedmont but had a job which often kept him in Rome. However, by the time Giorgio had to move Pino had his own flat overlooking the Colosseum, where later on Giorgio would stay when he came on his rare visits to Rome.

Pino, who is a practical man, did a few sums and suggested that Giorgio could afford to live in the provinces; he suggested that if he came to Monferrato, not only would he be returning to the land of his ancestors, but would also find friends to give him a hand. Pino found him a very reasonable flat in the centre of the town, which overlooked the river. He also arranged for the move.

Giorgio took to living in a provincial town very well. After all, he had lived in Perugia and many of his oldest friends in Rome had already passed away. In Ovada, as can be seen in various other postings here, Giorgio became a large fish in a small pond and soon found his way around. Not being able to drive, Pino took him to many of the ancestral sites he had never before visited but which he knew from his historical research. He also introduced him to a set of younger people whose company Giorgio enjoyed in the way of any elderly raconteur.

GQP at Casaleggio Boiro (Monferrato) 

granted to William the Old of Monferrato by Frederick Barbarossa in 1164

When Giorgio put his finishing touches to the unpublished book which he considered his life’s work, I Paleologo-Oriundi di Monferrato, he wrote a few lines of acknowledgment to five people. The last of these, whose name ends Giorgio’s book, was Pino: “un ringraziamento anche a Giuseppe Repetto, di Ovada, che è stato una preziosa guida negli antichi feudi monferrini.”

GQP at Casaleggio Boiro (photos by Pino Repetto)

When later on Giorgio became unable to manage for himself, it was Pino who helped him in many very practical ways and on uncountable occasions. He was instrumental in finding him his last home, the Castle of Lercaro, just outside Ovada, where Pino took the present editor to visit him shortly before his death. 

If it is true that “a friend in need is a friend indeed”, then Pino Repetto can certainly claim to be that. He was directly responsible for Giorgio Quintini Paleologo’s having a decorous and interesting old age in Monferrato.