The Sports Library dedicated to Gianni Mura is born in a happy island. It is born in one of Milan's most popular and densely populated neighborhoods, in the district known as Isola and more precisely on via Federico Confalonieri, 3, where just a few mornings ago a multitude of friends of the great journalist who passed away on March 21st six years ago gathered together. A celebration among friends, with music and readings, phrases and memories, smiles – many of them – and countless hugs.

A Sports Library conceived not as a simple reading or consultation space, but as a civic laboratory where sport becomes culture and a space for dialogue. It opens with 2,173 catalogued volumes, but it is clear that this is only a starting number, because the Mura library is born as something living, destined to grow. Anyone who wishes to donate can do so, contributing to expanding a space designed for the city.

«The objective is also to make Gianni known to new generations, his vision of the world, his perspective on literature, his perspective on travel, his perspective on food and wine, his perspective on great champions and also on the underdogs because Gianni cared deeply about the perspective on the underdogs, both those at the bottom of the standings and the underdogs in general. This place will be the keeper of all these stories», explained Paolo Maggioni, the project's creator and face of 'La Domenica Sportiva'. «Gianni Mura teaches us that all those who chase, those who never win, have equal dignity», added Gianfelice Facchetti, actor and son of the historic and unforgettable Inter captain.

The Gianni Mura Sports Library was established in one of the spaces owned by the Municipality assigned through the "Sefémm" call for proposals program, activated since 2022 and dedicated to associations and non-profit organizations. All of this is part of the Altropallone initiative, the association that for almost thirty years, also through its namesake Prize, has promoted sport and play as tools for inclusion, social growth and combating racism and discrimination. The facility will be open every Tuesday and Thursday from 2 PM to 6 PM and every Saturday from 9 AM to 1 PM, and will become part of the Milan library system. It is possible to support the activities also through the purchase of an annual membership card costing 10 euros, directly at the venue.

«We wanted a simple and living space, where sport was not just results or news but story, memory and dialogue. Keeping Gianni's memory alive also means preserving his teachings: attention to people before champions», added Paolo Maggioni, who could not help but thank the many who worked to put this project together. Starting with Michele Papagna of Altropallone, Emanuela Audisio, Giuseppe Smorto, Aligi Pontani, friends and colleagues from Repubblica. «This library will be a collection of books, but also a stronghold on the relationship between sport, society and culture», Maggioni assures, while Tommaso Sacchi, Milan's Culture Assessor, says he is pleased to support a project that also had the patronage of USSI and GLGS. «It will be an open space, completely permeable to the entire city and this will enrich the cultural service we offer to our citizens – Sacchi explained -. This story, still entirely to be written, is already a winning story. Just from the view you get in this courtyard, you can understand how good the idea is. Gianni Mura, one of the great protagonists of twentieth-century culture in journalism and sport, inscribed in Milan's Famedio, today lives through this library», the assessor explained shortly before signing "a pact for reading", which puts on equal footing the entities and library institutions governed by the city and independent ones «which have the merit of offering a service for all, free and democratic».

Snippets, crumbs, confetti, fragments of Mura through Marco Pastonesi, who renamed these emotional intervals Murales… One of these, dedicated to Mario Fossati, one of Gianni Mura's great masters. «“Master to whom? Go sweep the sea” – writes Gianni -. I seem to hear him, Mario, the rough one, the generous one, the great Mario Fossati, I commit to using fewer adjectives as I can, because a tribute, and an obituary is a tribute, cannot and must not contradict the honored one neither in life nor in death. The good journalist is the one who writes the truth – he said – and the truth doesn't need to be dressed up». And on Mariangela Melato. «She fell in love with roles, with characters, she didn't choose based on the paycheck. She was free, wonderfully free, sometimes marvelously free, sometimes painfully free, but solitude was part of her choices. Or perhaps one could speak of "solitude", a coinage by Aldo Busi, which is a state different from loneliness. It is self-sufficiency, and not depending on others».

Among the speakers, her dear friend: Emanuela Audisio. «This is a beautiful place. It's a courtyard, Gianni would have loved it so much. He loved courtyards and streets. He gave us so many tips about the street, where to stop to eat, but also how to try to live. Quoting a phrase by Vinicius de Moraes: life, my friend, is the art of encounter, and it seems to me that today we are here to meet. Let's thank Gianni not so much and not only because he wrote beautifully, but above all because he read first».

Carlotta Moratti: «I am part of the Community Foundation Milan, happy to support this beautiful project. Milan perhaps today needs a library more than a stadium, since the stadium already exists. And the fact that it is dedicated to Gianni Mura, a person who has always been close to my family, is the most beautiful thing that could be done».

Raffaele Cattaneo, Undersecretary with responsibility for International Relations of the Lombardy Region, speaks of sport as a popular fact. «Sport is not just competition and agonism, it is a formidable tool for making culture. It is a vehicle of values, we saw this with the recent Olympics. It is a great bridge-builder and friendship-maker: this library goes in this direction».

Umberto Eco said: «Whoever does not read, at 70 will have lived only one life: their own! Whoever reads will have lived 5,000 years: they were there when Cain killed Abel, when Renzo married Lucia, when Leopardi admired the infinite… because reading is an immortality backwards». On via Confalonieri 3, at the Gianni Mura Library, in this fantastic courtyard of a Milan in continuous movement that increasingly looks upward, it takes just a book to take flight.