“Ti sia lieve la terra, genio” (May the earth be light for you, genius) was a Facebook comment by Ivo Germano, a Bolognese sociologist and university lecturer. from now on, this month of March will be remembered not only for the birth but also for the death of Lucio Dalla.

Lucio was born in Bologna Il 4 marzo 1943 (March 4, 1943) – the date became the title of an extraordinary song presented at the Sanremo festival in 1971 – and the death of this crazy and incredible “dwarf” is an event that goes well beyond the world of music.

News of his death came on the web last Thursday and soon spread by word of mouth under the porticoes of this mediaeval Italian city. “Lucio Dalla is dead, felled by a stroke. He died in his sleep,” it was said.

Bologna had reacted to the news incredulously at first, then with grief and dismay to news of the sudden death of one of its most talented, inspired and irreverent sons.

The news arrived suddenly also in the halls of the library of the Sala Borsa where a competition themed Getting Lost In…. was under way as part of the International Comic Strip Festival to look at the contemporary urban landscape.

Lucio Dalla’s death in Switzerland was the last whimsical provocation of this great artiste to the city’s official cultural circles. Thus, soon echoing around the hall was a verse from one of his songs, namely, “Nel centro di Bologna non si perde neanche un bambino” (in the centre of Bologna not even a child gets lost).

“Bologna is my city because even if I have been away from it frequently and every time I go back it is a bit like the return of Ulysses”, Lucio Dalla had stated in one of his last interviews. Yet, this artist, so very famous all over the world, had a very close, popular and provincial rapport, made up of nocturnal encounters under the porticoes and in the taverns with friends or in summer in the kiosk run by Agnesa delle cocomere (the title of one of his songs).

For those who live in Bologna it was almost impossible not to meet Lucio Dalla, not to pose for a picture with him. He was a refined intellectual, of unusual intelligence, besides being one of the greatest Italian artists of the last few decades.

In the heart of the city is his house, known to the people of Bologna and at which everyone today, passing by his last refuge, gives one more look, full of nostalgia and memories. I had known Lucio Dalla in Rome at the RCA studios in the 1960s. He was already a talent musician then and I an occasional keyboard player for an untalented music group who had got to the recording studio for a test.

Then, one evening, in a smoke-filled eating-place which was a cheap restaurant, speaking of a musician who could not make a successful breakthrough, he made the telling comment: “He is not successful because he was not provocative enough”.

I reflected at length on this statement and I tried to understand why he perhaps continued to look at me with some caution, without ever asking me whether I still played. Perhaps he did this not to offend me or perhaps he did not share my view of the sea. He remained a shy person, even if a successful one.

Lucio Dalla had loved Bologna, its atmosphere in the 1970s and 1980s, with the wine bars where jazz was played, his encounters with the greatest musicians who, with their instruments, went through Vito, the cheap tavern that became a regular meeting place for lovers of Italian music.

Francesco Guccini was always there – he lived about 100 metres away in Via Paolo Fabbri 43, which, besides being his home address, is also the title of one of his songs – but everyone used to call at Vito’s late in the evening. Some were looking for a booking, others to pick up ideas, or simply to play cards.

Lucio Dalla was there often but Bologna was not enough for him. He needed something else. He was a man of a new Renaissance of the Mediterranean, an eclectic, a man of culture and a visionary; he loved the sea and islands.

The sea features in all his songs and Bologna was his Ithaca, even if he often liked to repeat that “it is no longer a cheerful city”, but it was his family, the place of his most authentic affections, of his support for the football team and of his musical inspiration – Piazza Grande.

Bologna acclaimed him for the last time two weeks ago, when, at the Arena del Sole, the city’s most important theatre, he sang the Italian national anthem so movingly. It was, perhaps, a farewell to his land.

Lucio Dalla has traversed with delicacy, irony, histrionics, talent, genius, awareness and wisdom the history of music, of television and of the theatre, sharing his art with poets, actors, operatic singes, writers, University lecturers and film and theatre directors.

He was constantly surprising. This is why he did not want to die as an old artiste.