San Benedetto del Tronto (Ascoli Piceno), July 27, 2026 – “Today is your day, Matteo, and my mind inevitably goes back to 12 years ago”. This is how the Facebook post by Nicoletta Sprecacè, Matteo Brandimarti’s mother, begins. Matteo was the boy who died after being sucked into the jet of the hot tub at the Duca di Montefeltro hotel in Pennabilli. The accident occurred on the morning of April 5, Easter day, and Matteo died five days later at the Rimini hospital. Today, July 27, Matteo would have turned 12 years old.
“You had a special light in your eyes”
“Only the two of us – writes mom Nicoletta – really know what we lived through that day: I was about to die, but I fought with every single fiber of my body. I couldn’t give up, I couldn’t lose the greatest joy of my life: being your mom. You were wanted like no one else in the world. How many times I joked with your father saying: “Everyone has one and I don’t…”. Then you came, and you were much more than we could ever dream of. An angel on earth, a handy child always ready to offer help or a sweet word. You came with that special light in your eyes that only you had, and with such a pure smile that I often thought we didn’t even deserve it.”
“The joy you gave us never fades”
“The joy of having you with us – continues Nicoletta – and of being your parents lasted little, far too little. An absurd injustice, that missing grate in the pool, tore you away from us, breaking a future that was still all yours. But the love you gave us never fades. Your light, your memory, and that smile will remain cherished inside me forever, until we embrace again. Happy birthday, my Matteo. Fly high among the angels.”
The investigations: three people involved
For Matteo’s death, the Rimini prosecutor’s office has opened a file for manslaughter, registering three people as suspects in various capacities linked to the hotel in Pennabilli.
Nicoletta Sprecacè has publicly intervened several times, among other things with an open letter to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in which she asked for new safety regulations for pools. Meloni has made an official commitment on these regulations. Meanwhile, on July 17, a very similar tragedy occurred: the victim was an 11-year-old girl, Alice, in a pool in Sestri Levante; in that case too, Matteo’s mother intervened to ask for a specific law. Different, however, is the case of Magdalena, the 4-year-old girl who died in a pool at a hotel in Milano Marittima: in this case, the little girl, left alone for a few minutes, entered the pool and drowned.
