Farewell to Tinin Mantegazza, great illustrator and set designer, father of Dodò and Milanese cabaret

Illustrator and set designer Tinin Mantegazza, best known for being the father of the very famous Dodò from the popular RAI children’s program L’albero azzurro, passed away yesterday in Cesenatico at the age of 89. The artist passed away following an illness: this was reported in the Romagna press (Mantegazza had long lived in Cesenatico).

Born in Varezze in 1931, Tinin Mantegazza had grown up in Milan, where he moved when he was six years old and where from a young age he had worked at the Corriere dei piccoli, specializing in illustration for children and producing several projects for theater and television: the most famous is the friendly puppet Dodò, invented in 1985, a bird similar to a dodo (hence the name) that each time led children to discover the world and nature with games, riddles, and manual activities. In the 1960s he had been among the animators of the Milanese cultural scene: at the La Moffola gallery he organized evenings with entertainers that would later lead to the birth of cabaret (in Milan, Mantegazza linked up with artists such as Lucio Fontana, Giorgio Gaber, Enzo Jannacci, Bruno Lauzi and many others).

In the 1970s he founded Teatro Verdi and the Il Buratto theater company and was eventually hired by RAI, where together with his wife Velia he created and built hundreds of puppets. As RAI set designer, his long collaboration with Enzo Biagi is remembered.

Last year, the Museo Civico delle Cappuccine in Bagnacavallo had dedicated to him the exhibition Tinin Mantegazza. The Seven Lives of an Irreverent Creative, organized in collaboration with the Fondazione Tito Balestra Onlus and Accademia Perduta/Romagna Teatri and curated by Diego Galizzi and Flaminio Balestra, which traced the history of his long career, and also in 2019, the Museo della Marineria in Cesenatico, his adopted city, had celebrated his birthday by presenting his latest book of short stories, Restituiamo Roma al Vaticano (with many apologies), published by Corsiero.

“We lose a unique artist who was also able to convey so much in values,” said Matteo Gozzoli, mayor of Cesenatico. “However, I want to remember Tinin with a smile and the memory of his ’sail of light’ that we were able to rekindle and will light up on the port of Cesenatico at every sunset.”

Farewell to Tinin Mantegazza, great illustrator and set designer, father of Dodò and Milanese cabaret

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