in Rosário de Santa Fé, Argentina, and naturalized Brazilian in 1946, Professor Forattini was the only child of immigrant parents from Italy who arrived in Brazil at the early of the 1930s. He grew up in a family environment in which he spoke in Portuguese to his father, and in French and Italian to his mother. As well as mastering these three languages, he also became fl uent in Spanish and English and had a great interest in studying Latin. As a scholar, he advocated that books should be read in the language in which they were written. One of the fi rst books that he had the pleasure of receiving as a gift from his mother, on his twelfth birthday, was a copy of The Divine Comedy, written in archaic Italian.Because he was the only child of a couple without any family in Brazil, and because of the intellectual training that he received with his parents' encouragement, he became passionate about literature, history, classical music and arts. From a very young age, he would go to concerts at the Municipal Theater of São Paulo on Sundays, and he would listen to classical music every day. In this way, he was able not only to identify the composer, but also the orchestra and soloist. Nonetheless, he also enjoyed other kinds of music, such as jazz, blues and regional music and used to read and write poetry. Therefore, Professor Forattini was very familiar with many works in depth and could describe musical pieces and works of literature, history and art in detail. He was a lover of words and life.During his secondary school education in the city of São Paulo, he thought about studying history, but with time he entered the University College to sit the university entrance examination for the medical course. Classifi ed in fi rst place, he became a student in the