With great sorrow I inform the scientific community that on August 11, 2004, Dr. Lino Rossi passed away suddenly while on holidays in Innsbruck, Austria. Pathologist and cardiologist, Dr. Rossi (Fig.1) was worldwide known for his contributions on the histology of cardiac conduction system and innervation, of which he was truly a pioneer.

Born in Milan on December 31, 1923, son of a humanist Medical Practioner, who played a crucial role in Lino's pathologist vocation, he had a classic High School education and then graduated in Medicine at the University of Milan in 1947. During the 2nd World War he participated to the partisan struggle against the Fascist Republic of Salò. For the help given to the soldiers of the British Commonwealth of Nations, which enabled them to escape from a war capture by the enemies, he received an Award from the Supreme Allied Commander H.R. Alexander, Mediterranean Theatre. In 1951 the Director of his Institute at the University of Milan, Prof. Redaelli, sent him to Bristol for studying paratyroids with a scholarship of the Italian National Council for Research.

He trained in Pathology, achieving the Professorship in Pathological Anatomy in 1957, and then he qualified in Cardiology in 1959. In 1955, he married Graziella, a devoted and inspiring wife, a true "musa" along all his life, in whose arms he eventually died. Unfortunately they had no children, but this even reinforced their relation.

In the time interval 1948-1967 his career in morbid anatomy and clinical pathology moved from Assistant and Senior Assistant to Head of the Service in a Community Hospital. He then was associated to the University of Milan, becoming Director of the Cardiovascular Laboratory in the Institute of Pathology.

Soon after graduation, he pointed his interest to the study of the conduction system and innervation of the heart with several publications and original articles, culminated in the book Histopathologic Features of Cardiac Arrhythmias (Casa Editrice Ambrosiana, Milan, 1969) which represented an extraordinary example of correlations between ECG features and microscopic substrates of arrhythmias. The book had a second edition in 1979 with a little change of the title Histopathology of Cardiac Arrhythmias. The histologic pictures of atrioventricular block and ventricular preexcitation are still unique. The method of serial sections he introduced was quite novel, with only two large blocks of tissue embedded in paraffin, and still represents the only reliable way to investigate histologically the conduction system (Fig.2). He frequently did the sections personally at the microtome, a true artisan of research without any grants. He collaborated in the ‘70s with Dirk Durrer and Rudolph T. Van Dam in Amsterdam on experimental electrophysiology, an opportunity he considered foundamental and memorable. He corresponded with Jean Lenegre and, at difference from Rosenbaum, they were in agreement on the impossibility to establish a morpho-electrophysiological correlation of left bundle branch hemi-block. In 1980 Dr. Rossi was invited to the 53rd Scientific Session of American Heart Association to deliver the P.D. White lecture and was then elected Honorary Fellow of the Council on Clinical Cardiology. The British Cardiac Society nominated him as corresponding member in 1982. He had scientific relations with several prominent scientists working in the field of cardiac arrhythmias (Michael Rosen, Thomas James, Philip Coumel, Michiel Janse, Robert Anderson, Anton Becker).

Frontispiece of the book Arrhythmologic pathology of sudden death: the substrates of ventricular fibrillation seen at the miscroscope.

I got the privilege to have Lino as mentor, sharing with him memorable sittings at the microscope, where he trained me to recognize the sinus and atrioventricular nodes, the His bundle and bundle branches, as well as the cardiac nerves and ganglia. He was a fantastic teacher, transmitting me the curiosity of observation and the enthusiasm of discovery. He was a true cardiopathologist with the unique skill "to read the electrocardiogram at the microscope", a capacity which I keep as a legacy.

He taught me how sudden cardiac death is mostly an "electrical" phenomenon due to dyshomogeinicity of impulse transmission within the working myocardium, either in ischemic and cardiomyopathic setting. The writing of the book Arrhythmologic Pathology of Sudden Cardiac Death (Fig.3), which we co-authored, was actually for me an intellectual gymnastics for understanding the pathophysiology of cardiac arrest and preluded the advent of cardiac defibrillator.

In the beautiful colour atlas Clinico-Pathologic Approach to Cardiac Arrhythmias (CSE, Turin 1990), a true piece of art which he co-authored with Dr. Matturri and was illustrated with personal drawings, he collected the best of his pictures in the various cardiac pathologic conditions presenting with electrical instability.

This method of clinico-pathologic correlations was applied in the joint study of sudden death due to arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, which our group first reported with Lino in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1988 and then in several articles up to the book Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy / Dysplasia (A. Nava, L.Rossi, G. Thiene; Elsevier, 1997), the only monography published on the topic so far.

He received the Honorary Membership of the Italian Group of Cardiovascular Pathology in 1991 and of NASPE in 1993.

He held a tight collaboration with the University of Padua, becoming Honorary President of our Foundation which supports the investigation on arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathies.

Lino was not only a scientist, but also a humanist, a painter, a historian, in other words truly a "homo universalis". He enjoyed to modestly define himself "Jack of all trades and master of none". His interest in Roman Empire and Army culminated in the book Trajan's Column and the Dacian Wars, in which he gave an outstanding demonstration on how a morphologist is able to interprete the scenes sculptured in low profile in the stone column.

Last but not least, his expertise in Roman and Greek coins was so extraordinary as to deserve the fellowship of the Royal Numismatic Society of London in 1982.

For these cultural achievements, Lino was nominated Corresponding Member of the Olimpic Academy of Vicenza, to which I had the honour to introduce him. He delivered the last, outstanding lecture at the University of Padua in May 2003 on an historical topic he liked very much, namely on the Defeat of Quintilius Varus in the Forest of Teutoburg (Saltus Teutoburgensis) in 9A.D.

Lino Rossi was Professor of Pathology as L.D. (Libero Docente = Free Teacher), but he never held a permanent position at the University. The Italian Academy, although granting him as a first class Scientist, never offered him the honour to become Ordinary (=Full) Professor. He well deserves the motto "Nemo propheta in Patria" (nobody is acknowledged in his own country). However, a research center entitled to his name has been recently implemented at the Institute of Pathological Anatomy, University of Milan, thanks to the will and initiative of Dr. Matturri, Professor of Pathology, formerly student of Lino Rossi.

When I became Full Professor in 1990, he was so happy for my achievement (which I should not have got without his mentorship), as to give me a wrist-watch as present, with the printed writing of the Roman Centurion promotion, when back winner from the War in Empire Borders "Gaetano, primorum ordinum, libens laetus merito" (To Gaetano, holding to the Order of the Firsts, very glad because well deserved). Actually, he never recommended to fight for being the first. On the contrary he taught me that the engagement in a scientific contest is not comparable to a sports competition. What is important is to share a skilful and dedicated liability. He was usual to quote the popular saying "Who cares who came second?", here intended in an entirely positive, even laudative sense. His memory will remain in my heart, for ever.

Drawings of Lino Rossi on the method how to remove and cut serially the blocks tissue including the sinus node and the atrioventricular conduction system.