He would tell, remember, explain. Grumble, grunt. Burst out. And start again. Telling, remembering, explaining. Grumbling, grunting. Bursting out. And never stopping. While others would succumb to sleep, to time, to fatigue. He could have gone on all day and all night, the entire journey, the entire time.

Talkative yet silent. Those humanitarian missions during World War II, back and forth from Florence to Assisi, back and forth from Assisi to Versilia or Liguria, as if training, but instead transporting false documents to give a new identity to Jewish citizens persecuted by racial laws and deported to Nazi concentration camps. Never a word. At most half a word, slipped out and immediately retracted.

Bartali was a phenomenal rider, then a generous witness of races and riders, but also a silent hero in his activity as a messenger of peace, a lifeline courier, brother of Italy, father of the homeland, righteous among nations. And it is this "Bartali, silent hero" that Federica Molteni brings to the stage, from today until Sunday, at the Teatro della Cooperativa on via privata Hermada 8 in Milan (for information and reservations tel. 026420761 and info@teatrodellacooperativa.it).

Since 2016, Federica has been telling her Bartali story through the book "The Right Race" by Antonio Ferrara. Theaters and prisons, social centers and nursing homes, bookstores and libraries, festivals and events, Italian cultural institutes abroad and universities, especially schools, over 300 performances, elementary and middle schools, high schools, also in Switzerland, Austria, and France. Giro d'Italia and Tour de France, Rolle and Izoard, Fausto Coppi and Louison Bobet, pale in comparison to those kilometers in the dust, identity papers hidden in frame tubes or handlebars, checkpoints crossed only thanks to his popularity, arrest and interrogations at Villa Triste without giving an inch or a syllable, risks and dangers on his own skin, on that of his wife and children who didn't know, because no one knew, no one imagined, no one suspected.

"Good deeds are done but not spoken of", "Some medals are hung on the soul, not on the jacket", "Sports medals are pinned on jerseys and will shine in some museum. Those earned doing good are pinned to the soul and will shine elsewhere", "Why talk about these things? This is not history, these are things that should remain hidden. You don't do a favor for someone to then throw it in their face. I've told all these people. And I will always say it. If you do a favor for someone and then go tell everyone, what favor have you done?" "Good must be done but not spoken of, because if you speak of it, it spoils." Federica Molteni does not spoil it, but finds it, distributes it, gives it away.