VITTORINO CHIZZOLINI (1907-1984): A BIOGRAPHY

As John the Baptist he accepted to enter shadow and silence
As long as Christ could shine and speak to everybody’s heart
Carlo Manziana

His first years: «formative school» (1907-1935)

Vittorino Chizzolini was born in Brescia on 3rd January 1907, son of Elisa Cominassi and Vittorio, a blacksmith born in Alone di Casto, in Valsabbia, who had specialised in forging gates, railings and shutters he made together with his brothers in a workshop on the corner of via XX Settembre and via Ferramola. After attending nursery school S. Giuseppe and primary schools “Sorelli” and “Nicolini”, he enrolled at municipal technical school “Benedetto Castelli” in Brescia. While he was attending it, he decided he would rather be a teacher than keeping alive the old craftsmanship his family had passed on him.
In 1921 he got his technical certificate and immediately decided to enrol at royal Scuola Normale in Crema, in order to get a certificate that would enable him to teach at primary school, as Scuola “Veronica Gambara” in Brescia was only open to girls. In October 1923, after two years spent far from town, boarding with the sexton of  the church of S. Maria della Stella in Crema, 16-year-old Vittorino managed to enrol at “Gambara”, which, in the meantime, had become “Istituto Magistrale” with the school reform by Gentile. Here he attended the last year and in July 1924 he took the exams to obtain his teaching diploma at Istituto “Carlo Tenca” in Milan, which he passed with a total mark of sixty-two out of eighty.
In school-year 1924/25 he worked as an assistant for primary school pupils at boarding school “Cesare Arici” in Brescia, which was run by the Jesuits. It was this experience that definitely convinced him to go on and deepen his pedagogical studies, since on 5th August 1925 Vittorino addressed a letter to Padre Agostino Gemelli, founder of Università Cattolica, to let him know his desire to be admitted to Istituto Superiore di Magistero “Maria Immacolata” in Milan, which only admitted girls at the time. Reading a few lines of the moving letter is enough to understand the ideal that Chizzolini will pursue all his life long: the Christian education of the youth.

«Most reverend Padre Agostino Gemelli,

I am eighteen years old and have been a primary school teacher for a year. Ever since I first heard of Università del Sacro Cuore, and it was in its very early days, together with admiration for this magnificent institution I felt in my soul a confused hope to became one of its students one day, even though the course of studies I was following would not prepare me to admittance.
When Istituto Superiore di Magistero opened, I thought I was finally able to follow my way. One day I read no new applications by men would be accepted. I was still a student then, nevertheless I felt a sense of pain, as if the great ideal grown with love had collapsed forever. I hardly believed it when later hope revived, fostered by overwhelming desire.
After passing the qualifying examination in Milan, as my family wanted me to have a sabbatical year and I was not old enough to practise my profession, I entered the local boarding school Cesare Arici, run by the Jesuit priests, where I spent a merry year taking care of primary school.
My supreme ideal has always been to become a teacher and devote myself to the education of the young; for this I sacrificed the future my father’s business offered me, a business that I was meant to run, being an only child. Next year I could start teaching, but I think I will be able to do better when I have better training in mind and spirit: the Istituto di Magistero of the university comes back to my mind and hope revives. Is its door really closed to me? Will I have to renounce to pursue the studies I have felt a vocation for?
So I was thinking these days with deep bitterness in my heart, when I received the July issue of Rivista degli Amici: Your invitation, so high and generous, makes me dare to write to you and let you know my fervent prayer: Padre, let me be one of your students, but among your most devoted children.
I really intend to attend the three-year course for school headship, then to go on studying philosophy and pedagogy.
I know other young men are attending the Institute because they had already enrolled: in case it should become attended by girls only, I could leave the school after the first two years.
The admission exam for Latin really worries me considerably, although I am determined to pass it this year: I am going to concentrate all my strengths on it. I trust in the assistance of God, who is the joy of my youth.
I hope a lot and I pray: Padre…
Looking forward to a word from you»

Perhaps also following this heartfelt letter, in spring 1926 the academic authority of Milan decided to modify their statutes, so as to let also boys enter the Istituto Superiore di Magistero. In fact the following autumn Vittorino managed to take and pass the admission test to the Institute, where he enrolled on 9th November, choosing between the three available courses the one for teachers of Philosophy and Pedagogy in teacher training schools.
In his youth Chizzolini matured a strong faith, although his father, a non-believer, had a hostile attitude towards the Church: the parish of S. Alessandro, where he had come to the world, and the Youth Federation named after Leo XIII, together with school, were the places where he decided to undertake his mission towards the young. In 1926 the Bishop of Brescia, monsignor Giacinto Gaggia, named him diocesan delegate for the ‘aspiranti’ of Azione Cattolica, that is responsible for artistic and recreational activities for youths between eleven and fourteen years of age: he was in charge for about fifteen years, but as early as in 1930, in the church circles in Brescia, he was known as «the apostle of the youth organisation» .
In school-year 1925/26 he obtained his first position as a teacher at primary school Giuseppe Nicolini in Brescia, where he remained until 1927. Later, he had to care for the suburban schools at Stocchetta and Volta Bresciana, where he taught until 1930, when he had to interrupt teaching because of unexplained family grounds.
To obtain a clear description of the teaching criteria followed by the young primary school teacher, the following text is precious. He wrote it himself in the occasion of the «first centenary of school Tito Speri, previously San Barnaba, Brescia 1837-1937», maybe as part of a celebratory publication, or pronounced during a public ceremony.

«Our school!

O good pupils, it was you who made the school active, with your burning feeling, your spontaneous action in an atmosphere favourable to the pure libations of the spirit. Each of you knew he was the centre of school, point of convergence of the cares of the teacher and of the schoolmates, who helped you improve yourselves. Each of you brought their contribution of interest, research, especially love for common work.
Your action came within you. Free, active, activating school; illumination of experience, ideal generation, projection of light in the seat of intelligence and in the inner soul.
The classroom, cosy and serene, shows your taste and your busy kindness. Here are the presents of child art in the decorative frame refreshed by branches and flowers renewed every day. Here are the posters and the shelves of the bookcase populated by prints, drawings, things, books: life comes into school.
You gather when the monitor commands; one of you, in turns, keeps the pace of work, which happens according to your interests and moved by your desire of research, expression, elaboration.
We run a laboratory of educative life, where the teacher leads studies, co-ordinates experiences, teaches, helps you feel the transcendence of universal values – those of truth and law – but he is not less active in favouring spontaneity, creativity, personal work, which gives joy and reveals congenial aptitudes.
Syllabus? Subjects? Timetable? Plus includes minus. And where there is life there is everything.
You also contribute to discipline time, contents, study aims: you, who are used to execute diligently your daily tasks – from meteorological observations to writing class diaries; you, who have experimented how fruitful team work is and how joyful individual work, done using files, mobile books (our own patent!) made by  ourselves and for us all, can be.
Haven’t we even enthusiastically tried an experience of corporative life at school?
The teacher takes more than giving; he enjoys the spiritual freshness of your gifts: the reports you write about things you have seen and experienced, the historical role plays, the “serene hour”, when you show spontaneously your expressive skills in speaking and singing.
School has no boundaries: we scout around together, we explore the world around us, where the monuments full of memories, the products of our industrious genius, the living wonders of nature teach more than words and books. Should we have to choose a title, we would prefer this: formative school.
School has formed our will in everyday life, after showing you the ideal you should turn your inward eye to.
Many among you remember that the following words were written on a classroom wall: “He who follows a star does not turn”. This can be our motto in life»

In these pages Vittorino showed clearly he had made his own the school model of activist-catholic background, according to which the teacher had an important role, and he had refused the foreign experiences of active school, which tended to reduce the role of the teacher in favour of a hypothetical increase of the pupil’s autonomy. According to the young teacher, apart from handing out notions, a teacher should arouse intellectual  and creative energy in his pupils, he had to enliven the school community and to be a witness of immortal values and to make his pupils a living community. Perhaps this is the reason why, all his life long,  he kept in touch with many of his previous pupils, and most of their letters to their old teacher, who showed a sense of spiritual fatherhood for them, have been preserved. They did not cease to be his pupils with the end of primary school, and he remained their teacher; this is how his steady interest in his pupils, his fervent attention to their existential choices, his habit to meet them every year can be explained.
Even though he had to attend his demanding studies at Milan university, to teach in Brescia and to honour his commitments in the diocese, Chizzolini also found enough time to enrol at Istituto Cattolico di Scienze Sociali in Bergamo, whose lessons took place in summer, from August to September, and he got a degree there in 1929, discussing before the board of examiners his research work  «The Pacendi encyclical and modernism». He enclosed historical comments and criticism, expressing his opposition to the theories of the modernist movement, which, still offering positive ideas, could clear the way for hazardous deviations from catholic orthodoxy, as denounced by the encyclical by Pious X.
The pause he asked for, or he was forced to ask for, in 1930, allowed him to finally accomplish his academic studies. In academic year 1930/31 he obtained his diploma in Philosophy and Pedagogy discussing, under the guidance of  Paolo Rotta, Professor of History of Philosophy, his thesis dealing with The problem of the existence of God in philosophical modernism (First notes), which, according to the Preface to the treatise, was meant to be «an account of an attempt to set modernism in the vast tragedy of modern religious philosophy and to estimate its meaning in the light of perennial philosophy». The work was discussed on 12th December 1931 before a committee whose Head was the thesis supervisor himself and which counted among its members Mario Casotti, Professor of Pedagogy who will always maintain a strong bond with the student. Chizzolini obtained a mark of seventy out of seventy, with praise.
According to the student, having come to the modernist experience meant «a form of compromise between traditional truths and the heterodox elements of modern thought», therefore modernism represented a missed opportunity to carry out an «orthodox rivindicatio» of contemporary philosophy, being opposed to the positive results of  the neo-scholastic current, which was in vogue at Università Cattolica at the time, and from there, indeed, spread all over Italy. The thesis was a «witty, acute work, which, though dealing with the study of French spiritualism and in particular with Laberthonnière and his moral dogmatism, in the tradition of the Oratoire, from Gratry to Newman  to Ollé-Leprune as far as religious spiritualism is concerned, did not forget the Theory of Education, which approaches one of the most discussed topics of that time: the relationship between the authority of the teacher and the freedom of the pupil, a relationship of interaction and not of opposition, where the authority, being in the service of an imperfect, awkward freedom, progressively frees it from its links and, taking away any obstacles, makes it perfect: from heteronomy (law from outside: authority) to autonomy (inner law: perfect freedom) – and this is the task and the fascination of education» .
Having satisfactorily accomplished his university studies, which allowed him to lay the foundations for his fellowship with Padre Gemelli and Università Cattolica, which was to deepen in the following decades bringing unexpected results, until school-year 1932/33 Vittorino was a teacher at the school of Sant’Eufemia della Fonte, where he also acted as a headmaster, and finally became a teacher at primary school “Tito Speri”, where he remained until 1935, when he asked for a yearly leave on medical grounds, although from that moment he never went back to teaching in a classroom, as in 1936 Monsignor Angelo Zammarchi called him to Editrice La Scuola, appointing him as an editor of the magazine «Scuola italiana moderna», on which he had been collaborating for quite a long time.

Editrice La Scuola: a mission

The short Autobiographical Notes Chizzolini wrote after 1946, probably because he had to answer a questionnaire sent him as “Brother” of the Missionari della Regalità, contain a few lines that highlight the deep relationship that started at the beginning of the 20’s between university student Vittorino, who was extremely active among the youths of Azione Cattolica, and Monsignor Angelo Zammarchi, director of «Scuola italiana moderna» as well as co-founder of Editrice La Scuola itself, in 1904:

«Towards the end of the 20’s Monsignor Zammarchi, unexpectedly called me on the phone (as Don Tedeschi had asked me to collaborate with him on Scuola Italiana Moderna and his activities, and because he had probably understood that I was going to choose apostolic service) and peremptorily told me: “The Lord’s will is that you remain at “La Scuola” as a layman in order to help us in this very difficult moment.” I did not hesitate, in spite of fearing my meanness, in spite of my present  commitments, even though I was working as a teacher and I was still a student of Magistero at Università Cattolica, I did not hesitate an instant in answering: “Yes, I will do what I can.”
I accepted low-paid subordinate collaboration, with the intention of a service of love for the Opere Toviniane.»

In these precious lines Chizzolini mentions the names of two charismatic figures that contributed to his spiritual and existential choices, advising the young man to definitively give up teaching, after the period of leave he had asked for on medical grounds, in order to devote himself to study and divulgation: as mentioned, monsignor Zammarchi made sure to reassure the young man about his vocation to devote himself, as a layman, to the apostolic and cultural action of La Scuola. In 1927, when he was not yet twenty-one years old, during the spiritual exercises organized by the Istituto Cattolico di Scienze Sociali of Bergamo, Vittorino composed a prayer, part of which is conveniently reported here below:

«I offer all of myself to You, my Creator, with my will and my aspirations. I intend to do my work for Your glory. Make me become, one day and in the way You want to, one of Your most fervent apostles. My life has this ideal; You, my Lord, have lighted it; I feed it with desire and hope. One day it will come true»

These promises were re-confirmed during a similar experience, a few months later:

«during the spiritual exercises in Rho, in which I took part as a university student (Faculty of  Magistero), I completed my “resolutions” deciding to devote my life to activities of mission, with no previous determination»

From all these words comes out the confused awareness of a project the young man felt he was called for: it is certain that Chizzolini thought about consecrating himself to God in some order or congregation, and he is likely to have thought to be called by God to priesthood in his early youth, but it was Angelo Zammarchi, together with Don Peppino Tedeschi, who realized what gifts and potentiality the young teacher had and exhorted him to lavish his talent for La Scuola Editrice, in order to form educators. And the perspective of the opportunity of being totally in the service of that mission he had longed for following Tovini’s ideals, and what is more in such a significant and strategic place as the Editrice, appeased the sorrow caused by having to give up teaching his young pupils.
Starting from 1935, Chizzolini made Tovini’s well-known motto his own: «our Indies are school! », living his mission with total devotion but no fanaticism. On one side he defended in words and writing the dignity and qualification of Italian teachers, against those who, abroad, would doubt education or effectiveness in teaching, stating (maybe indulging in the propagandistic attitude of that time) the educational primacy of Italy, opposing to the wealth of foreign experiences, often pervaded by naturalistic and materialistic theories, the wealth of Italian school, rooted in the tradition of Catholicism and Latinity. On the other side he was so active in his search for truth as to organize, for instance, residential courses of Pedagogy in the mountains as a prize for the best newly-qualified students of the Istituti Magistrali in northern Italy. All in all, however, Vittorino showed more than once that what he had at heart were the problems and essential values of teaching: even when he lingered over problems dealing with mere teaching methods, he never failed to make sure that the educators for whom he wrote or supervised texts had clear awareness and educational competence, rich in values and ideal passions. The scholar had taken as models the greatest educator of all times, on whose works he had meditated so much as to derive teaching methods and models of inspiration, making them relevant in the eyes of his readers. Socrates, Vittorino da Feltre, Filippo Neri, Giovanni Bosco, the Agazzi sisters, Maria Boschetti Alberti, to mention only the most loved and studied champions, had all contributed to form in Chizzolini the awareness of the most high value of his own teaching, giving him also hints to address properly his own continuous search for more and more effective teaching methods, as well as to understand himself better.
In the pages of an essay written in 1939, meant to sketch the figure and the educational work of Vittorino da Feltre, we can see he is so busy in highlighting the similarity between the humanist’s choices and his own, that feels like reading Chizzolini’s spiritual autobiography. Indeed, Vittorino da Feltre had decided to renounce taking monastic vows as soon as «he sensed the fecundity of his educational mission, which could verge on the priestly one», so «he gave up writing and hid his profound science, he did not live for himself, he did not ask for goods unless he could use them for his aim, he avoided praise, which could take away humility and the force to feel himself nothing compared to the idea» . A profound correspondence in the way they conceived the figure of the teacher stood out too, as Vittorino da Feltre «was able to acutely enter his pupils’ psychology, which he studied deeply, in its deficiencies and aptitudes, so as to make his educational action suitable to personal needs and vocations», with his own lessons, «endowed with humanistic enthusiasm and together vibrant with spirituality (…) he opened his eyes to beauty and his soul to the poetry of duty» . This was the task a teacher had, according to Vittorino da Feltre: «to transfuse into life, together with education, the supreme good of faith and to put all the good of life in the service of faith», being convinced that «teaching is spiritual fatherhood that expresses itself through love» . We can say that this represented as well, in brief, the pedagogical ideal Chizzolini pursued, to which he had devoted his best years and will devote all his existence. He referred to the national pedagogical tradition starting from Vittorino da Feltre and ending up with Giovanni Bosco to state that Italian school was inspired by a sense of balance, which gave it the characteristic feature of “serenity”, coming from art and religion, two traits that made Italian school «humanistic», «spiritual» and «formative».
«Scuola italiana moderna» was published quarterly and it absorbed most of the work of 30-year-old Vittorino, who had soon become the soul of the magazine, which he followed with tender loving scrupulous care in every step it took to process it. Although the magazine had been thought of as a tool of spiritual, cultural and pedagogical uplift for teachers, Chizzolini was able to give it a more and more intimate, even loving tone, which more and more often made the editorial staff address their readers calling them «friends», or define their work as «a message from friends to friends», inspired by understanding, help and solidarity for teachers, who lacked a «fraternal voice». Vittorino was well aware that teachers absolutely needed to be illuminated and supported in their daily toil, so that their personal individual efforts of reading, studying, comparing methods, could be stimulated and fed by the intelligent, loving work of a «friend». This explains the reasons why he paid particular attention, since when he first joined the Editrice, always to control everything scrupulously, to establish a fellowship with authors, to define and maintain a certain style for the magazines he was entrusted with, with courage and without regard for those who failed to respect the style the Editrice traditionally had.
Inspired by a growing desire to contribute to the professional growth and moral maturity of teachers in any possible way, towards the end of the 30’s Vittorino, apart from his work in the more and more animated editorial office of the Editrice, also took it upon himself to start writing, together with his friend Marco Agosti, who was responsible for the most philosophical sections, a series of texts for students of Pedagogy, which was to be extremely successful and was successfully started in 1938 with the publication of the volume of Magistero, a historical handbook with readings of philosophy and pedagogy, which will be followed by four other volumes, for a total of 2750 pages. In the Preface the two authors clearly illustrated their ideal of teacher, listing then the number of responsibilities he had:

«The mission of the educator expresses itself as teaching, that is as love diffusing truth among children, where humanity is continually renovated as in the perennial spring of life…»

At the beginning of the 40’s Chizzolini, who was by then at complete disposal of teachers, started to create programmes for the organisation of refresher courses for teachers dealing with culture, pedagogy and teaching methods. Some of the occasional experiences started also under the patronage of «Scuola italiana moderna» at the end of the 30’s were a sort of experiment leading to the epochal beginning of the first summer meetings organized by «Paedagogium», the Institute of studies for Christian education founded within Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. After examining advisability and effectiveness of the series of meetings for the formation and retraining of university graduates who had become teachers organized from the 20’s, padre Agostino Gemelli had resolved on intensifying the promotion of such initiatives, which had so far proved to be very fruitful, and on adequately supporting them with structures, means and competences. Notwithstanding the dramatic worry of the world conflict under way, in the pages of the issue of «Vita e Pensiero» published in July 1942, the rector showed his conviction to proceed according to the plans, also taking into consideration the introduction, in 1939, of the Carta della scuola by Bottai, which had corrected the idealistic mark of the reform made by Gentile and had opened new opportunities for the renewal of Italian education in a “realistic” way, for the achievement  of which improvements, experiments and verifications were needed. The text of the law was considered favourably especially because of its crucial opening to values owned by the Italian religious tradition, and the Catholics operating in the pedagogical field had to be prepared to put forward proposals apt to renew, by reanimating it, the didactic action, so as to «restore the Christian aspect to our Italy». Therefore, research and theoretical-practical elaboration had to come before any initiative, and infant «Paedagogium», the scientific reliability of which was to be guaranteed by the approval by the University, was meant for that.
So, with the war in full swing, Università Cattolica and La Scuola Editrice created an Institute of studies for Christian education: in the article with which the rector presented the initiative he made clear that the reason why the agency availed itself of the contribution of the editorial staff of «Scuola italiana moderna» was mainly because of the existing collaboration (started in the 20’s) between Mario Casotti, Professore of Pedagogy, and the magazine published in Brescia. The many aims the institution pursued look at least ambitious: to develop reflection on Christian educational thought; to follow the way started by Carta Bottai; to support Catholic school initiatives on a pedagogical-didactic point of view; to promote research on the subjects of familiar and social education; to plan and supervise refresher courses for teachers and pedagogues; to stimulate the publication of proved quality monographs and magazines. The board of directors of the agency, whose chairman was Professor Casotti, included Monsignor Zammarchi, Monsignor Olgiati, Agosti, Chizzolini and Colombo, and the secretary was Ada Cribini Spruzzola, assistant of Pedagogy at Università Cattolica in Milan.
The first two conferences organized by «Paedagogium», which was immediately quite successful, took place in Luino, near Varese, in August 1942: the members of the Institute, joined by Nosengo and Mazza, dealt with educational themes, children, school, teaching methods, don Peppino Tedeschi was appointed to the service of «religious uplift» and padre Agostino Gemelli presented the final report, «From childhood to adolescence». In the same month, in Castelnuovo Fogliani, at the Apostolico Istituto del Sacro Cuore, there was a meeting meant as a refresher course on teaching methods for middle school headmasters working for non-royal schools. In October, urged by minister Bottai himself, padre Gemelli started to study the opportunity of setting up, within the Institute, a didactic Centre for the teaching of religion, involving in the project the Sacra Congregazione del Concilio and the Segreteria di Stato, even though, for a number of reason, among which the crisis the dictatorship was then experiencing, the initiative was set aside and Chizzolini, the person the rector preferred to deal with, was not involved.
Following its successful beginning in summer 1942, the board of directors of «Paedagogium» planned another five meetings, which had to be organized in August 1943. Three of these residential meeting were meant to deal with moral education and were to be organized in the Franciscan places par excellence, Assisi and La Verna. Another two meetings, devoted to look into the «Educational aims and didactic needs in middle school» and to deepen the topic «A school for the formation of educators» respectively, were to be organized in Castelnuovo Fogliani, near Piacenza. Putting in practice these educational experiences was obviously hindered by the devastating events that took place that summer, first the fall of Fascism, then the signing of the armistice and the creation of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana, but Chizzolini never ceased to lavish his efforts to make the initiatives succeed: he planned to periodically send those people who took part in the summer initiatives a Friendship letter, in order to maintain and strengthen the links with them, and to keep them updated about any events and meetings to be organized. In August 1943 bombings by the Allies on Milan hit Università Cattolica, destroying the archive and the publications of «Paedagogium» and temporarily interrupting all activities. After the end of the war, however, the Institute lived hard times and did not survive after the 50’s, but it was a trial run of the collaboration between Catholics in Milan and Brescia, which will be precious for the future developments of the experience.
Anyway, at the beginning of the 40’s, in Brescia, the editorial staff of «Scuola italiana moderna» was enriched by new young collaborators, selected by don Tedeschi and Chizzolini himself: among them Rinaldini, Monchieri, Nardini, Comassi, Salucci. Thanks to the memories of some of them, we can reconstruct the activities of those hectic though dramatic two years, lived by the group without becoming flustered: from the meditations on the gospel after work, to the meeting at the parish centre of the Filippini with padre Bevilacqua, Lodovico Montini, La Pira, Lazzati, to the creation of the Gruppo di Attività Sociali, a laboratory of analysis and socio-political reflection in preparation for the fall of the regime, whose meetings were held in the editorial offices of the magazine themselves until late at night, which attracted the attention and the inspections of the fascist authority, which repeatedly questioned the young men involved. After 8th September some of the collaborators and the editorial staff, such as Emiliano Rinaldini, the pupil the Professore preferred, left Brescia to take active part in the Resistance, volunteering for the victory of an ideal that Vittorino completely shared, even though he felt the supreme duty not to move from town, in order to protect the Editrice and the magazine: indeed, those were terrible years for the life of La Scuola, which was constantly endangered by the harassment of the officers of the regime, who even imprisoned the Professore, though only for a short time.
After a reflection of a few years, following a path illuminated by the confrontations with padre Gemelli and Giancarlo Brasca, on 19th December 1943 Vittorino applied to join the Pious association of Missionari della Regalità di Nostro Signore Gesù Cristo, founded by the rector himself in 1928 in order to form laymen particularly devoted to the service in favour of Università Cattolica and of various forms of mission in connected areas, such as the Opera della Regalità or the Azione Cattolica. The Institute fully suited his ideal of total consecration to God and of complete devotion to the apostolic task, yet remaining a layman, in perfect harmony with his fruitful activity with the Editrice. On 8th September 1946, in one of the numerous moments of grief, this time caused by the desperate health conditions of his father, who died a few days afterwards, under the arches of the church of Castelnuovo Fogliani the Professore pronounced the “promises” of poverty, chastity and obedience, taking upon himself the obligations peculiar to that kind of consecrated life.

«In 1946, the hasty declaration of the “promises” in the church of Castelnuovo Fogliani at night, as a car had come from Brescia to take me to my dying father’s deathbed.
I have chosen the “secular way” because it corresponded to Monsignor Zammarchi’s invitation, who was worried because there was no layman to be used in the relationships with the Ministery of Education and other fascist organisations, etc.
I am on my own, happy to live in the place which is at the same time the centre of my service and my home, both located in the offices.
Poverty and simplicity are a liberation. Obedience to conscience, to duties, to circumstances, especially to signs that are often revealed by unforeseen events, unavoidable new services»

Vittorino joined the association just at the time of its revival, which was characterized by a more open-minded apostolic vision and which came after a long troubled period, which reached its acme with the temporary dissolution decided by Ezio Franceschini, “Eldest brother” of the Institute, in 1942. This vocational choice definitely and more determinately sanctioned, also from the ecclesiastical point of view, the decision made in his youth to put himself in the most total service of education and school, and allowed him to establish a closer relationship with Franceschini and La Pira, who will become friends and confidants. Even before becoming a Missionario della Regalità, the Professore had become a Franciscan tertiary, which was in any case requested by the Constitutions of the Pious Association: the dialogue he had had with padre Gemelli, in fact, had brought him to choosing the values of poverty and humility, and it influenced his way of conceiving his own mission as «humble service». He always thought that the vocation of his own life was to devote himself totally to the «supreme cause» of Christian education, spread thanks to the work of educators formed on Christian doctrine. He meant his vocation in a rigorous way, not only as a number of natural inclinations to be satisfied by practising a rewarding profession; moreover he was animated by the conviction that God had prearranged everything in order to make him progressively understand what the task he was called to perform was, from his passionate juvenile enthusiasm to the meditated decisions of adulthood.
During the Second World War Chizzolini, who was the delegate for the Aspiranti and was in charge of the teacher section of Azione Cattolica in Brescia, managed to enlarge his field of activities in the diocese. Every Sunday morning in the monastery of S. Giuseppe, with the «Charitas» group, he organized  spiritual and material assistance of the poor: first the celebration of the Eucharist, during which one of the young men of the group made a reflection; then medical examinations, thanks to Doctor Francesco Montini, brother of the future Pope, who had set up a tiny surgery in a makeshift room and distributed medicines to anybody who needed them; finally the convivial dinner, on the first floor of the cloister or, at Christmas and Easter, inside the bishop’s residence.
Helped by Doctor Briosi, Chizzolini also organized first aid classes for young volunteers belonging to «Charitas», mainly university students belonging to Fuci or secondary school students, in order to prepare them to rescue the injured in case of bombings: Vittorino himself, a red cross on his arm, joined them in assisting the unlucky victims of violence. On 2nd March 1945 those young men brought the friend and teacher the news that the house on the corner of via Pusterla (now via Turati) and piazzale Arnaldo which hosted his mother, Elisa Cominassi, and his sister Elda, had collapsed under the bombs. The two women, who had come to town from Alone di Casto to do some shopping, had not managed to survive. The same day in the same circumstances the building hosting Editrice La Scuola was hit and destroyed and the Bishop of Brescia, Giacinto Tredici, wrote a letter to Vittorino to comfort him, who felt like answering his bishop this way:

«Passion Sunday 1945
Most Reverend Excellence,

I thank You heartily for Your letter, the most comforting among the others.
God may welcome the sacrifice of my loved ones for the return of peace to the world, of Christ’s peace in everybody’s heart.
I offer my grief for the rebirth of La Scuola, to which I humbly devote my life.
I kneel before You, Excellence, as before my soul’s father, and I beg for Your saint blessing»

The dreadful grief, however, did not dishearten the Professore: as soon as 20th April, thanks to the printing press of a tiny print shop near Brescia, he was surprisingly able to put into print a new issue of «Scuola italiana moderna», whose introduction, Invitation to collaboration, was addressed to the «family» of his readers and urged them to support the publication in such a difficult moment, above all considering that rays of hope were lighting the horizon. Chizzolini maintained as well his commitment in the wards of the military hospital and, later, by the end of the war, with the support of don Angelo Pietrobelli, he managed to turn the bishop’s residence into a reception camp for soldiers coming back from prison camps where they had been imprisoned. His men continually drove their lorries on the track Brennero-Brescia, and he himself went to Germany and Poland more than once, looking for missing people or for those who found difficulty in getting back. Together with young members of «Charitas», encouraged and supported by the Benatti sisters, he worked hard assisting the «Libyans»», beggars who lived in squalid shacks in the area around via Milano, in Brescia: his support was not limited to material help, but it also included the projection of films and silent comedies and the teaching of catechism.

His commitment for the Italian school (1946-1956)

The time had come for the reconstruction and slow normalization of Italy: the war years had deprived Chizzolini of his father, mother, sister, as well as of his fraternal friend and follower Emiliano Rinaldini, a Resistance partisan who had been ferociously killed by fascist militiamen of the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana on 10th February 1945 at Belprato, in Valle Sabbia, and who had therefore become a martyr to faith and freedom:

«you represented, near us, before us indeed, the ideal of teacher. Fits of action and balance of thought; didactic taste and friendship for children; love, above perishable things, for universal perennial values, to live them and let others live them; search for souls and for the kingdom of God; vision of school sub specie æternitatis: here is the teacher. Here is the ideal that your young life lived and sang more powerfully than poetry».

Even in these words, though written in a moment of real grief, stands out the echo, impossible to suppress, of the idea Chizzolini had of the teaching activity, considered a vocation in its complete sense and characterized by a dignity comparable to that of a priest; it was a unique opportunity to serve, in humility and poverty, the «Cause» of school and of the human and religious education of children. The dramatic events that had marked the 40’s did not make him cease to operate for the mission to which he had decided a long time before to devote every instant of his life. He became a more and more authoritative reference point inside the Editrice and during the post-war years he inspired every activity and project even though he chose to remain in the background, with his by now proverbial discretion. «Scuola italiana moderna» remained his favourite field of action, it was always the paradigm and the vehicle of the values that had to feed the readers: the reference to friendship, fraternity, educative mission was continuous, as well as his commitment for the promotion of a pedagogy informed by Christian love.
A number of cultural and solidarity initiatives linked to the magazine published in Brescia are to be referred to the Professore: «Scuola fraterna», devised to assist the candidates to teacher examinations, integrated by the quarterly supplement «Itinerari» (1946-1970); the «Biblioteca Nazionale Circolante degli Educatori», dedicated to the memory of Rinaldini; the competitions for teachers; the campaigns to raise funds for invalid or elderly teachers; the financial support bestowed in various forms upon training teachers and teachers who had recently obtained their diploma; the creation of «Magistri itinera», in order to organize educational trips abroad to favour confrontation with other European pedagogical schools. A number of activities, not only strictly linked to publishing, spread around the most significant publication of Editrice La Scuola and all of them were shared and supported, when not directly inspired, by Chizzolini.
In the meantime «Paedagogium» had restarted its activities as well: as early as August 1945 in Tradate, near Varese, Olgiati presided at a meeting animated by Chizzolini, who highlighted the absolute need to take action for the reconstruction and the renewal of school and pedagogy in Italy. In 1946 the great educational residential meetings started again, all over Italy: Milan, Luino, Castelnuovo Fogliani, Pietralba, La Mendola, even in the south and in the islands, as a proof of the tenacious will of the members of the Institute to arrive everywhere, so as to favour a quick reconstruction of a pedagogical school in Italy. When in 1955 «Paedagogium» ceased to be published, the complex organisational machine of the courses went: the pedagogical group of «Scuola italiana moderna» introduced new residential courses for teachers, so that in the mid-50’s a summer school was founded at Centro Culturale Maria Immacolata, at Passo della Mendola, under the authority of Università Cattolica.
In July 1948 the so-called group of  «experimenting teachers of Pietralba» was founded, which took its name from the place in the Dolomites, location of a Marian sanctuary, where the scholars met the first time. This initiative, which went on until 1973, represented a direct expression of «Scuola italiana moderna», as Agosti was the scientific point of  reference, Chizzolini and Colombo were the organizers and don Tedeschi the spiritual assistant. It represented a significant opportunity of communion and improvement for scholars of pedagogy and teachers who felt a call for research, led in confrontation and dialogue by the intervention of authoritative speakers such as Aldo Agazzi, Mario Casotti, Giuseppe Catalfamo, Marcello Peretti, Roberto Zavalloni, Mauro Laeng, Gaetano Santomauro, Mario Mencarelli, Gabriele Calvi and Piero Viotto. At the same time, Chizzolini also gave fresh impetus to residential courses for teachers, an expression of the profound attention paid to young teachers. From then on, the commitment of the editorial staff of «Scuola italiana moderna» to give birth to a movement of young teachers increased and between the 50’s and the 60’s they were able to involve a great number of teachers coming from all around Italy.
It is amazing how, in spite of the enormous workload he had to bear daily at the Editrice, Vittorino still found enough time to offer his generous commitment to reconstruct school in Italy: he joined the association of Catholic teachers (AIMC) from the start, when it was founded by Carlo Carretto and Maria Badaloni in 1944, and he even became a member of its national council, uninterruptedly, from 1946 to 1968, and vice-president from 1946 to 1952, attending most meetings of the board of directors in Rome, making frequent trips to take part in numerous events organized by the association in local branches. He was not able to present the report he had been entrusted with at the national meeting in 1946, because of his poor health as usual, but at the 1948 conference he was able to intervene with a report on popular school, which had been instituted by Minister Gonella at the end of 1947: Chizzolini welcomed the resolution enthusiastically, as it was meant for the social, civic and cultural uplift of the lowest classes, as well as a try to fight illiteracy. As teaching in popular schools was addressed to very different people, as for age and experiences, special teaching methods were required, which had to consider, in particular, criteria such as «concreteness», «totality», «essentiality»,  «individualization», «cooperation»; the speaker made it clear that the «mother of all problems» was finding the right teacher to do the job, clearly outlining the characteristics of his action: pedagogic qualification, subtleness of soul and availability to sacrifice were the features of the «popular educator».        
In his contribution written for the Handbook of Popular Education (Manuale di Educazione Popolare), published in 1950, Vittorino went back to the same topic, lyrically and suggestively  outlining the profile of the ideal teacher, from which we can clearly see the educative spiritualism of the author:

«subordinate; not scatter. It is preferable to grow vertically rather than expanding on a surface: to find the profound reasons and grow vertically.
So is school; but the main problem is the teacher. (…). As we know you do not teach what you know, but what you live, and you educate for what you are.
With us poetry and science, knowledge and duty, history and current affairs, past and future, earth and heaven must enter school. Need of living culture, large, fed with sincere human sense, aware of social emergencies.
Life only comes from life»

At the moment of the introduction of scuola media unica (middle school, for students from 11 to 14, with a single course of studies for everybody), in 1962, Chizzolini’s position, who was in favour of  a differentiated structure of the last three years of compulsory education, was on the losing side; counting on the support of «Scuola italiana moderna» and of the association of Catholic teachers, the Professore had matured his opinion particularly taking into consideration reasons of social realism, apart from cultural reasons: primary teachers, exactly for being expression of lower classes, would interpret better than secondary teachers the needs of humbler classes, in whose favour the school in question had been created. 
Vittorino also collaborated with the Ufficio Studi (Research Office) of the Ministry of Education, and took part in the national committee for the school reform, which was instituted by Gonella in April 1947 and split up twenty-four months later, giving the participants enough time to write a large plan to change the Italian system of education, which was included in a bill which was, however, never discussed: Chizzolini was actively involved in the publication of the magazine «La Riforma della scuola», which accompanied the work of the ministerial committee, and together with Marco Agosti he was included in the sub-commission for the reorganization of the five years of primary school. He was also a member of the Council of the national didactic centre for primary school and compulsory school attendance, created in 1953, whose head was, until 1956, padre Agostino Gemelli: the aim of the institute, located in Rome, was to stimulate studies and research on primary school teaching, to organize refresher courses for teachers, to promote pedagogical experiments.
His frequent wearing trips from Brescia to Rome and back did certainly not affect positively his always poor health conditions, but this did not distract him from the care he took in his work with the Editrice and «Scuola italiana moderna», which were always his first priorities: in any case it was only after Angelo Zammarchi’s death, in 1958, that Vittorino agreed to take on himself the official responsibility for the magazine, of which he had been the main inspirer for a long time, even though he associated to the direction his fraternal friends don Peppino Tedeschi and Marco Agosti, showing his usual discretion also in this choice. One of Chizzolini’s writings, including seven points and certainly composed before August 1951, which was addressed to the fraternal friends of the editorial office, conveys very well the idea of what the inspiring principles and the moral guidelines of his direction were:

«1. (…) The mission will be pursued through the Opera that God inspired to Giuseppe Tovini “for the salvation and the elevation of school”. (…)
2. Especially the effectiveness of co-operation increases together with our inner growth in the life of grace. Perhaps we could multiply magazines, books and initiatives endlessly, but everything would be nothing without that supernatural fecund power that the means can express but not substitute.
Our prayers, our toils, our suffering, almost invisible watermark, are printed on fragile paper, as the spiritual seal that makes our pages valuable. This is the secret dynamism that comes from our souls and makes “La Scuola” produce not only tons of printed cellulose, but waves of light and energy for the intelligence and the hearts of teachers. (…)
4. It is the solidarity spirit of our work that guarantees unity and purity of intention. Collective work ensures prestige and force which benefit all initiatives. We must be “School”, represent a movement of ideas and activities, co-operating to state and translate the universal pedagogical ideas of Christianity into teaching institutions.
5. The aims and the relationships of our actions imply high responsibility. We are responsible in front of history for school and the education of Italian teachers. Hesitations, inadequacy and mistakes can have far-reaching reflections. Somebody said: “Your microphones are open over the whole of Italy”. It is so, tremendously like that.
Every line of the pages we print can be read by thousands of eyes today, tomorrow, in many years to come.
And, above all, by the eye of God.
For this, we will never pay enough attention, scruple in the order of principles, the sense of consideration from the moral point of view, the desire for the better in any regard. Strong the foundation, let’s go forward with young, free steps!
6. Corda fraters! Let’s put our love, our will, our dream of good together. Our work, due to differences in competence and tasks, requires distinctions and divisions, but the feeling is unanimous, as well as its inner impulse. According to this spirit, mutual advice and mutual remarks are a proof of joint responsibility and friendship. In the clear, loving atmosphere, in the common desire for collaboration and growth will increase the inner wealth of our small apostolic community (…)
7. (…) May the inner living building of our Opera have the characteristics of the temples that best express the strive to reach heaven: humility, interiority, solidarity, in the light of the eternal sun: Christ!»

Reading the passage, we clearly understand the decisive value Vittorino gave to the ideal tension that according to him had to enliven durably the editorial staff in Brescia: starting from the end of the 40’s he intervened various times, from the pages of «Scuola italiana moderna», to show how worried he was because of the lowering of the same ideal tension in training teachers, besides the constant decrease of male students at teacher training schools. Then Chizzolini focussed his reflection on the thorny problem of  school counselling, suggesting intervening in three ways: first of all, renovating structurally and culturally the istituto magistrale (the existing teacher training school), so that it became a five-year liceo magistrale «organized to give the idea, conscience and love of the teaching profession» , perhaps including more than one course and characterized by the co-existence of study, observation and training; then urging teachers to foster with love and care the vocation to become teachers shown by their pupils; finally granting scholarships to poor pupils so that they could have the opportunity to enter teacher training schools. It looks as it is necessary to pay special attention to this last point.

His commitment for teaching vocations: Fondazione Giuseppe Tovini (1957-1984)

When he happened to talk about ‘his’ Vittorino da Feltre, Chizzolini used to remind that in 1414 the humanist had opened a contubernium near Padua, where there used to be a dissolute community of  university students; when this experiment of educational mission failed, he decided to found a hostel inside the boarding school “La Zoiosa”, with which he had been entrusted by duke Gianfrancesco Gonzaga, in order to form young princes together with the rest of the aristocracy of Mantua and forty poor boys, chosen according to their intellectual skills and their moral behaviour. In this ideal studium, this community of young boys, spiritual friendship was celebrated and teaching had the heart and the mind of the teacher as the centre of  effusion; the teacher took care of each of his pupils as if there were no others and he was the teacher of one only. Chizzolini could not count on the support of such generous patrons as Gonzaga, so he invested all he owned to create an Institute that would express as many forms of awards and incentive for new teachers.
The new project Chizzolini felt called to was ambitious and this can be understood from the missionary resolution the Professore composed during the night of 8th September 1946, shortly after pronouncing his “promises” of a consecrated life:

«The long years of apprenticeship at La Scuola have allowed me to get to know and appreciate the importance of the action that It accomplished in the past and will always better accomplish in the future.
I can recognize in it the Opera I have to serve to glorify God and go on following the path of Christian virtues. I will try to serve humbly and generously.
I mean to be poor and I will donate my entire fatherly legacy to the opera, in order to support initiatives meant to spiritually form educators. If we elevate our teachers, we will elevate School and good will come from that.
In particular teaching vocations will have to be promoted and cared for, the missionary sense of School will have to be lighted and widened, through publications, conferences and other forms that will be considered suitable to this aim.
There are many dreams and resolutions – if the divine grace supports them – will not fail.
Mary, divine Mother of all children and Teacher of all teachers, may bless hopes and vows expressed in the name of Christ King of Love»

On 11th September 1947, being in Assisi in the occasion of the first anniversary of his father’s death, Vittorino showed his resolution in a letter to monsignor Angelo Zammarchi, his confidant, counsellor and guide:

«Venerated Monsignore,

in the anniversary of the death of my dear Father, I dare to express the innermost intentions of my heart.
I will never thank the Divine Providence enough for the privilege that I was accorded in serving the cause of Christian education. I feel unworthy, but little as I am I consecrate myself to Opera Tovini, as I wish to collaborate to its activity until the last breath of my life.
Even though the legal conditions have not been accomplished yet, I beg You to consider effective, from 11th September 1946, the switch of the total legacy of my beloved parent to the Opera, in his memory and for his soul. (…) I would very much appreciate to be dismissed as an employee of “La Scuola” and to be put in the number of collaborators, as a lay friar assigned to religious service.
I dare add the following vows and suggestions:
May Opera Tovini, in the form that will be considered most cautious, take its position and its function, without too much publicity, but so that its historical origin and its mission are known, and it can be loved for its good deeds and helped when in need, which will be more and more the case as its action spreads.
After the vague mention in the occasion of Tovini’s golden jubilee, let’s give official communication to friends, letting the programme and the immediate aims of activity known.
Let’s 16th January be the date of the yearly meeting of the Opera. After the Mass for the soul of the Founder, the Opera will define its yearly budgets.
With the blessing of the Lord, the Opera will flourish again and will contribute to the spiritual elevation of teachers and the growth of Divine Love in the world of school. It will be the living apology for Giuseppe Tovini’s sanctity!
Please forgive, dear Monsignore, the pettiness and the hurry of these late-night lines, come from the heart, after hours of intimacy, in prayer, with Jesus, unique and eternal Teacher»
 
To his father’s legacy, Chizzolini added his own royalties and the money from the rent of the flats received in exchange for the area of via XX Settembre, and he gave everything to the Foundation to be built: at the beginning of the 50’s «Scuola Italiana Moderna» started the experimental allocation of scholarships and the free hospitality service for middle school students who had the intention to continue their studies at istituto magistrale and for older students who were already attending such schools. This system of support for training teachers was perfected, spread and made more organic in 1957, with the creation, nearly ten years after the inspired intuition, addressed to monsignor Zammarchi, of Fondazione Giuseppe Tovini, which became a no-profit organization on 3rd June 1959. The Statute states that the Foundation’s aim is «to contribute to the education of teachers and educators according to Christian pedagogical principles and the progress of human sciences», with  assistance meant to support «the preparation and the improvement of operators in the educational, teaching, cultural, social fields». The dream Vittorino had been cherishing for such a long time had come true: he was able to see the birth of an institution, different but not separated from the Editrice and dedicated to the local apostle of the Catholic movement, which had the aim to favour, in different ways, the education and the improvement of students, teachers and pedagogues.
It was the start of the first initiatives of the Foundation, among which the Istituto Tovini for poor people who wanted to become teachers: starting from October 1957 four poor boys who deserved it were hosted in Brescia and assisted in every need in the rooms of the parsonage of S. Faustino, in order to let them start their teacher training studies.

«If, for the time being, the intention is to form a few pedagogically and above all apostolically educated teachers, so that they can enliven and guide other teachers, the hope remains to discover and form new forces for scientific studies and the progress of Christian pedagogy, also in order to foster with new collaboration the magazines and the manifold activities of  “La Scuola”.
(…) Among the youth who are richer in apostolic impetus, the Holy Spirit will be able to mature the correspondence to a higher consecration»

The tiny boarding school was later moved inside the bigger boarding school “Cesare Arici” and finally in the rooms of a palace rented in Piazza del Foro, where it was named “Famiglia Emi Rinaldini”. In 1965, in via Gambara, the “Famiglia Universitaria Cardinal Giulio Bevilacqua” was opened, which was originally meant to host students enrolled at the section of Brescia of the faculty of Magistero of Università Cattolica, and which had been instituted thanks to the continuous industriousness of the Professore, who was finally able to carry out what the activity of «Paedagogium» had started decades before, with the first experiment of co-operation between educators in Brescia and Milan: on 29th November 1965 Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore officially started its academic activity in Brescia, and Vittorino sent the rector Franceschini some suggestions in order to characterize the opening ceremony adequately:

«we will have to display large images of padre Gemelli and monsignor Olgiati, Tovini and monsignor Zammarchi, who will keep watch over the future developments of Magistero,
 where the Lord will help fervent wits to be used in the educational mission to live together»

As in the following years fewer people asked to become teachers, two new faculties were opened in Brescia, and the two Families opened their doors to students enrolled at all the universities present in town, both Italian and from developing countries, to whose care Vittorino already referred to in a letter sent to monsignor Zammarchi in 1955:

«a recent appeal by the Comitato Internazionale dell’Apostolato dei Laici makes not open to challenge on our side the commitment to contribute to the education of missionary teachers requested by the Bishops for schools in mission countries»

On this significant basis, which shows how much attention the founder paid to the people of third world countries, which he also showed in the pages of «Scuola italiana moderna», it is not surprising that in 1967 Fondazione Tovini enlarged its geographical field of action, making an agreement with the apostolic Vicariate in Mogadiscio to allow volunteer teachers to reach Somalia. In 1974 an agreement was signed with the Salesian Order, which supported some teachers who left Brescia to reach some schools in Cairo. According to Chizzolini, in fact, to be up to the changed times, the teacher had to take part in the new sense of  internationalism and universal brotherhood, in order to root the ideals of solidarity, peace and justice in the hearts of the young pupils.
In his last years the Professore devoted all his free time to the Foundation, to his university students, for whom he was a guide, an inspirer, a brother. He also toiled for the physically and mentally disabled, who were the object of his love, and not of his pity: after attending the courses organized by Istituto Toniolo for the education of the disabled, he travelled everywhere for them, visiting schools, studying teaching methods and even publishing a series of books on the topic.

Vittorino Chizzolini died in Brescia on 24th May 1984, more then twenty-five years after writing his spiritual will, which, according to those who knew him well, is the «moving synthesis of a whole life»:

«Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, 1958. Will.
In the name and the love of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I consider it a great privilege to have been called, without deserving it, to collaborate to “La Scuola”, created by the apostolic genius of Giuseppe Tovini and developed by the sanctity and the prodigious toil of Monsignor Zammarchi.
Due to my inadequate talents and my lack of virtue, unfortunately, I hardly corresponded to the resolution and the task of a better contribution.
May the inadequacy and lacks be redeemed by the love that inspired the offer of the service and the good dreams that have nourished it. Those who have loved and love our Institution – my heart shook with joy when this title was pronounced by Pope John XXIII – look at its future with confidence: its origins and its history, the aims that inspires the pedagogical work, the editorial one and the initiatives linked to it make it deserve the title of operator of the Church in its educational mission.
How comforting is the vision of further development for the farewell of an operator of the past! Faithful to the Vatican’s guidelines, fatherly followed by its Bishop, “La Scuola” will deepen, spread its action, giving an answer also to the most demanding services according to the signs of times, to Him who guides us in the name of the Divine Teacher.
It is joyful to offer your life and death for such a great and decisive cause for the future of Christianity»