A few days ago, Professor Gianfranco Dalla Barba, a lecturer at the University of Trieste for many years, unfortunately passed away prematurely.

Born in 1957, Dalla Barba was a scientist, neuropsychologist and, in his younger years, a top-level fencer who was an Olympic champion in saber fencing: an authentic example of a dual career.

As a scientist, he wrote and published more than 100 foundational studies in the field of memory disorders, consciousness, confabulations and Alzheimer's disease. He is also the author of two neuropsychological tests to assess confabulation (the Confabulation Screen, the Confabulation Battery).

After graduating in medicine and surgery (1985) and specialising in neurology at the University of Padua (1990), he obtained a PhD in neurological sciences at the University of Siena (1995) and later moved to France, where he became a first researcher at the INSERM in Paris (Chargé de Recherche de Première Classe).

In France he also worked as Attaché (consultant) at the Neurological Clinics of the Universities of Paris VI, Paris XII and Paris XIII. In 2007 he returned to Italy as Associate Professor of Psychobiology and Physiological Psychology at the University of Trieste, where he remained until 2023.

In his sporting career he achieved the most prestigious success for an athlete, winning the gold medal in the men's team sabre at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles with the Italian colours. Four years later, in Seoul, he stood on the Olympic podium again, winning bronze together with his teammates. In the same discipline, Dalla Barba also won three silver medals (one individual and two team) and two bronze (both team) at the World Championships.

As a university student, he also won four medals in three different editions of the Universiade: one gold, one silver and one bronze in the team sabre category and an individual bronze.