Reggio Emilia, August 8, 2026 – Died on the road at 24 years old, Silvana Fontana: she was in the car with her boyfriend on August 2, 1966, when she was involved in a crash on the A1 near Reggio. The couple was taken to the Santa Maria Nuova hospital: she gave up three hours later, he got away while two people from Bologna in another car lost their lives instantly.
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Silvana, the girl who would be 84 years old today, actually never disappeared: thanks to Francesco Guccini, who was a friend of hers, she became eternal. The singer-songwriter who died Thursday, 60 years after the tragedy, was able to transform that wreckage of metal and the few lines of news in the newspapers into poetry, into music, into a message capable of speaking to everyone about the precariousness of life. It was precisely to Silvana that Guccini dedicated one of his best-known songs, “Canzone per un’amica”, later performed by Nomadi. She was from Reggio: Silvana lived in San Valentino di Castellarano where, despite the time passed, there are still those who remember her.
The girl was born on March 18, 1942 to father Angelo and mother Olga Marconi. Anna Guidetti, who is 84 years old today, lived in the same town: she keeps a photo from 1958 in which she hugs Silvana along with two other young relatives, the twin sister Rita Guidetti and cousin Marina Bernabei). All four are smiling, wearing elegant light dresses: a serenity broken just a few years later. Silvana’s gaze seems to have inspired Guccini: “I want to think she still listens to me, that like then she smiles”.
Guidetti recounts: “Silvana was from San Valentino like me, she lived with two of her aunts. We were very close friends. As a child, she used to come play at my house. I saw her in town, at church, at mass. In the evening we put on little plays for those who lived there.” What was Silvana like, the girl who inspired Guccini’s masterpiece? “Pretty, brunette, with shoulder-length hair. I know she studied in Modena, where her boyfriend, whom I never met, was also from.”
The reference is to Augusto Artioli, then 21 years old driving, newspapers of the time report, a Rover 2000 that jumped over the A1 median strip crashing into the other car. The woman recalls a detail: “Silvana had told me about Guccini as a singer. Then I got married early, at 18, and moved first to Castellarano and later to Magreta. A few years later I heard from friends in San Valentino that Silvana had died: such bad memories, better not to think about it. Then my cousin Marina also passed away young, from illness. Now from that photo only my sister Rita and I remain.” Guidetti hums some lines of Guccini’s song on the phone and gets emotional: “Sometimes I go back to look at that photo and think about the past…”.
And it is a memory also kept by the sons Ermanno and Riccardo Corsini of Castellarano: “We have always listened to Augusto Daolio: after our mother’s story, Silvana also represents a special memory for us.” Moris Dallini, 67 years old from Castellarano, a freelancer active in the music world, recalls an episode: “Silvana lived with two aunts, the Fontana sisters, in an apartment on the second floor owned by my mother Vincenza Rubbiani, in Castellarano, near Rocchetta square. I was very small, but I remember Silvana gave me a tin box with crayons.” Also in this family the tragedy, and Guccini’s song, left an indelible mark: “Sometimes my mother talked about it even in the following years as a great misfortune. And she said she must have still kept somewhere the little souvenir from the funeral.” He also keeps a photo of the girls from Castellarano: here too Silvana smiles together with the Dallini aunts, Ida Rubbiani and Luisa Rubbiani (the latter passed away). Guccini, along with other artists and friends, used to frequent a bar in Modena, the “Grande Italia” in Largo di Porta Bologna, a meeting point for young creatives and a hotbed of beat. Here crossed Equipe 84, Nomadi, Caterina Caselli and Bonvi.
As far as is known, Silvana Fontana also went there. Franco Ceccarelli, from Equipe 84, recalled a sad memory: “We were at the Festival dell’Unità in Ferrara. A few minutes before going on stage they told us that Silvana, one of the company from the “Grande Italia”, had just died in an accident. But in front of us there were 50,000 people waiting who didn’t know that Silvana was a dear friend of ours and had passed away…”.
Since 2018 the bar has been taken over by Alex Gelatti, 26 years old: “I know this place was an important center for musicians back then. Sometimes some customers ask us about that era.” Guccini included the track dedicated to the unfortunate 24-year-old last in the album “Folk beat n.1” released in 1967. The original title, “In morte di S.F.”, was later changed to “Canzone per un’amica”, apparently due to pressure from Anas who feared bad publicity about road safety. But Silvana Fontana has become eternal like beautiful and fleeting things, poignant like precarious happiness, herself a new Silvia of Leopardi.
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