Francesco Durante

Francesco Durante was an Italian politician and surgeon.

He was the son of Domenico Durante, mayor of Gallodoro (Messina) from 1880 to 1884. The education of Francesco was entrusted to Don Di Blasi; his father wanted to see him graduate in engineering but one day he went to the university of medicine in Messina with his friend, who was studying here. The teacher, amazed at his comments and at his bent, urged him to study medicine. So he started to study medicine in Messina, but he graduated in Naples in 1864. He moved to Rome in 1872 after a lot of travels around Europe. He projected and founded with Guido Baccelli the general hospital Policlinico Umberto I in Rome in 1872.

Durante became Senator of the kingdom of Italy in the 16th Legislature. He was one of the first surgeons in Italy and in the world to successfully remove brain tumors. During the First World War, he gave his all and besides avoided the mutilation of thousands of soldiers. In 1908 he moved to Messina, just devastated by an earthquake, with a load of medical materials and with a group of volunteers and developed surgical pavilions. He followedHippocrates' doctrine; doctor has to heal and soothe without profit purposes. He became president of the Order of Surgeons in Italy. In 1919 he decided to leave Rome and to return definitively to Sicily. He retired to private life in his home in Letojanni where he died on 2 October 1934.

The "poor" in Letojanni, erected a monument, unveiled during a solemn ceremony in honor of Durante himself in 1923. It is a bronze statue by the sculptor from Palermo Ettore Ximenes, donated to the residents of Letojanni and that is located in what is today “Piazza Durante”.