Eighty-five years after his death, a memory that still climbs
There are men who remain bound to the mountains like the most evident lines on a rock face: they are not erased by time, but become points of reference. Emilio Comici is one of them. Eighty-five years after his death, which occurred on 19 October 1940 in Val Lunga, his figure still speaks to those who approach the mountains with respect, silence, and measure.
In the small cemetery of Selva di Gardena, where Comici rests, time seems to slow down. His grave has long been a destination for a quiet and continuous pilgrimage: guides, climbers, young and old alike come here not for a ritual, but for an ideal encounter with someone who gave mountaineering a meaning that goes beyond conquest.
From the depths of the earth to great walls
Emilio Comici’s formation did not begin immediately on vertical rock. It began underground. A member of the Società Alpina delle Giulie, he started out as a speleologist with the GARS (Gruppo Alpino Ragazzi Speleologi). There he learned patience, attention, and trust in his companions—qualities he would later bring to the walls of the Julian Alps and, above all, the Dolomites.
The Dolomites became his true home. Here he chose to become a mountain guide and to live the mountains on a daily basis. He did not seek difficulty for its own sake, but the right line: the most direct, the most logical, the most elegant. A choice that was technical, but also moral.
Climbing as style
For Comici, climbing was not a violent challenge against the mountain, but a dialogue. Movement had to be harmonious, fluid, almost natural. Hence the name by which he is still remembered today: “the Poet of the Dolomites.”
His routes, still climbed and respected today, strike not only for their commitment but for the intrinsic beauty of their line. At a time when mountaineering was changing its face, Comici showed a new path: one made of style, restraint, and awareness. Values that remain fully relevant.
Teacher and man of the community
Alongside the great climber lived the teacher. Emilio Comici devoted time and energy to the education of young people, convinced that the mountains should be a school of character before being an athletic arena. In Val Rosandra he contributed to the creation of a true climbing school, leaving a deep and lasting mark.
He was also a man of public responsibility. In his institutional role he earned the respect and affection of the local population, demonstrating that love for the mountains can coexist with a strong sense of duty toward the community. This aspect makes him particularly close to the Alpine spirit.
A book that speaks again
Today, the voice of Emilio Comici is kept alive by the return to bookstores of Alpinismo eroico (Heroic Mountaineering), first published by Hoepli in 1942 and now reissued in an anastatic reprint of the original edition.
The volume, curated by the National Committee of the Italian Alpine Club (CAI) for the honors to Emilio Comici, brings together all of Comici’s writings, especially the accounts of climbs carried out between 1925 and 1940. These are not mere technical reports, but profound reflections on the meaning of mountaineering.
The new edition is enriched by a preface by Angelo Manaresi, historic president of the CAI; a postface by Spiro Dalla Porta-Xydias, a profound connoisseur of Comici’s life and a bridge between past and present mountaineering; and contributions from great figures such as Julius Kugy, Tito Piaz, and Giuseppe Pirovano. The volume concludes with the essay Comici and Sixth-Grade Mountaineering by Marco Albino Ferrari, which places Comici’s legacy within the broader history of modern alpinism.
Severino Casara’s letter and the “summit book”
In 1965, writer and mountaineer Severino Casara dedicated an intense and deeply Alpine letter to Emilio Comici, which remains one of the most authentic documents of remembrance. He wrote:
“On 19 October last (1961), the twenty-first anniversary of the death of Emilio Comici, I went up to Selva Gardena to his grave, which I found, as always, covered with flowers. An envelope contained notes and papers signed by many visitors—notes and papers that time will unfortunately soon consume. I would like to propose to the central office of the CAI that a summit book be dedicated to the grave of this great son, where all may place their signature and write a thought. To approach the grave of a fallen companion is like approaching the altar of a summit. Many years ago, on the grave of Cesare Capuis, another great soul of the mountains who rests in the cemetery of Fusine di Zoldo, within a hollow of dolomitic rock, we placed a summit book, and it is moving to leaf through it and read the names of friends, mountaineers, and villagers who have gone to visit him. I also hope that the municipalities of Selva and Santa Cristina will place a plaque on the wall of the Selva town hall to remember Emilio Comici, the mayor who honored the valley and was so loved by the population.”
In these words lies the full Alpine spirit of remembrance: the mountain as a sacred place, memory as a shared gesture, continuity between those who climbed before and those who climb after.
The memory of Cesare Capuis
Casara rightly recalls Cesare Capuis, another great soul of the Dolomites, renowned for his climbs and tragically killed on 26 June 1932 on the Torri di Alleghe. His grave, in Forno di Zoldo, is still today a place of reflection, set into dolomitic rock as if to remain part of the mountains he so deeply loved.
The summit book placed there, leafed through in silence, tells a living memory made of names, simple thoughts, and respect. A model that unites Comici and Capuis—two different men, but bound by the same way of understanding the mountains: with humility, courage, and style.
A memory that still climbs
Eighty-five years after Emilio Comici’s death, his teaching remains firm like a well-placed piton. It teaches restraint, respect, the beauty of gesture, and the value of the rope companion. Values that Alpini know well and continue to pass on.
As long as someone climbs toward a wall, or pauses in silence before a mountain grave, Emilio Comici will continue to walk with us, along the high paths of memory.