Giacomo. Mirano
Where were you born?
I was born in Mirano. This is a city close to Venice with about 30 thousand people.
What did your parents do?
My mother is a teacher. She studied German and English at a university. My father is an administrator in a firm that designs and builds buildings.
This is an architecture agency?
Yes, but they also supervise the construction.
Do you have brothers or sisters?
I have three younger brothers. The first one is Gabriele. He studies economics at a university, but he also works part time. The second one, Riccardo, is in the last year of school. The last one, Giovanni, is 14 years old, he started this year the secondary school.
What are the stages in the school?
We have three stages in school. The primary school is usually from 6 to 10 or 11 years old. Then the middle school is between 10 or 11 and 13. Then you can choose the secondary school and you are free to choose the secondary school depending on what you want to do. It can be an institute, a gymnasium, or a professional school. I did an informatics school, Gabriele did economics school, the two younger brothers are doing informatics school, as I did.
What kind of other schools exist? Informatics schools also include natural sciences?
No, it’s more about computer science: how to develop a network, electronics, technology. It was really specific. We learned programming languages. There are different secondary schools in Italy: languages, economics, mechanics, and then there are professional schools, like a chef or a barman: how to work in a restaurant.
You start the school at 6, is there a kindergarten before?
Yes, I started at the age of 3. It was a nice place. We lived near a park that had a lot of animals, like chickens, deer, rabbits. The school was in the middle of the park. Every day I walked to the kindergarten through the park.
Did you travel, as a child, with your parents?
My mother comes from a family that travels a lot. My grandparents from the mother’s side were also teachers. Teachers in Italy have a very long vacation: 3 months of holidays. They had a camper and went all over Europe. With my parents we didn’t travel a lot outside of Italy, but we visited many places in Italy. I have cousins in Sicily, which is in the south of Italy. If you go with a car, then to reach Sicily you need to cross the whole Italy, more or less 1500 km. We stopped in many places. We stopped at Adriatic sea and we visited many castles and cities. It was funny, my mother always wanted to visit museum, churches, while my father was more relaxed. He wanted to play with us. So it happened a lot that we visited a church or a museum and then we would play soccer with our father right in front of a church or a museum. In particular we visited a lot of places in the south of Italy. My grandfather comes from a region called Calabria. This is at the very south of Italy, in front of Sicily. My last name, Principe, is a special surname. The translation in English is Prince. This last name is from Calabria.
What did your grandparents do on your father’s side?
My grandfather was at first a policeman. He worked in an office. He worked with communications technology to send the information inside the police. He went around to visit offices and repair machines, if something was broken. Then he changed and became a teacher, a professor in a secondary school. He taught mechanics. How to do things with hands.
In a sense, mechanical engineering?
Yes, but very basic. My grandmother also worked, but when she married, she stayed at home.
How did you decide to go to a university?
I did the informatics school. I have to say that most of the students from my class went to work after the school. I also got a couple of job offers. But in that summer before the university, I had a girlfriend, I helped her with the physics classes. At some point I realized that physics is something that I like. In the informatics school we studied physics inly in the first two classes, then the education was more specific about informatics. My parents had a friend who was a professor of physics in Trieste. I went to talk to him about going to the university. I really liked him and I thought that I wanted to be like him. At the beginning the university was very hard for me. I failed a lot of exams.
But you can retake the exams, right?
Exactly, in Italy we have this possibility to take the exams as many times as you want. We have 5 possibilities per year.
You can retake the exam five times?
Exactly.
In one year, and then in the next year you can take the exam again?
For example, mathematics 3, multidimensional integration, I took the exam 5 times before I passed it. We almost had a friendship with the professor. He knew me really well.
Do you have to do a military service in Italy?
Not anymore. There was a service, maybe 20 years ago. My father had to do a military service.
What were your favorite subjects in the University? Which ones you passed from the first time?
The first exam that I passed was English, because I already had a certificate. The first exam that I passed was Chemistry. I liked particle physics, cosmology.
During the school time what did you do apart from the studies?
I played soccer for many years. Soccer was a big part of my life. I played in a team, but also with friends, when we met, we played soccer. We also played computer games, FIFA. Another important part of my life comes from religious point of view. My parents are catholic. But when I was a child, I was just following. My parents are members of a movement “communion and liberation”. It was found in the middle of the last century. Now there are about 150 thousand members around the world. This movement organizers some holiday trips every winter and summer. In the summer we went to the mountains, while in winter we visited cities. Until I was 14 years old, I was going to these meetings because my parents suggested me to do that, although it was nice to meet friends and to spend the holidays together. Then something happened when I was 14. In that summer I was working. There was a secretary in the office of my father, but she got married and they needed someone to substitute her. They invited me and my cousin to work in the place of that secretary. For me it was the first experience of work. Everything was amazing, very different from the school. Also in this period there was a meeting with the catholic movement, but I didn’t want to go, because before I was going only because of the suggestion of my parents. This time I didn’t want to go, but my parents already paid for the holidays, so if I wouldn’t go we would lose the money. Then I decided in the last few hours to take the bus with the others. Usually there were 200 or 300 students. That year the students were not only from Veneto, the region where I come from, but also from Calabria, a completely different region. During these holidays I fell in love with a girl from Calabria. One night we were sitting outside looking at the sky in the mountains. So I guess that I fell in love not only with her but also with the sky. After we came back from the vacation, she sent me a letter, where she said that more important than our relationship is “the mystery of Christus”. For me it was something strange, I couldn’t understand it. The relationship didn’t go one, we were more than a thousand kilometers away and only 15 years old. But this letter and also how she lived and the friends return a lot in my memory. In the informatics school there were mostly boys. We were a bit crazy, almost every Saturday we went to a disco. Most of the time, when I went to the disco in this year, I had a feeling that I was missing something. The disco and the fact that I was there with the friends didn’t make me as happy as I was during the holidays with that girl. Then I started to search the students from that movement. They appeared to live in a way that I wanted to follow. Then from the age of 15 I started to follow the movement. Even here, I came here not only because I got the offer, but also because there were a couple of friends that I knew from the university. Here, I had a feeling as if I were at home from the first day that I came to Erlangen.
Are there a lot of people from the movement here? Do you have meetings?
When I arrived there were only two people. Now there are a lot. Other Italians came here also for jobs. Now were are 13 – 14 people, plus there are children from 0 to 5 years old. We meet every week.
The team that you played as a child, was it a sports club?
Yes, that was a club.
You played against other cities?
Exactly, so for me this was also like a battle against other towns, which were close to our town. We were traveling around in the region around Venice. In particular, it was challenging to go in the islands inside Venice. The people inside the islands are close to each other, they have a strong friendship, they had really strong teams.
Was it the old town in Venice or some other islands as well?
There were Lido, Murano, Burano.
Was it a team from all islands together or each island has its own team?
Each island has a team. I played close to Spinea. When we went to the islands it was really a battle.
I wonder, there is so little space there. How are they playing? Or they find a little square that they make into a football field?
For example, there was a team, Sant. Alvise team in Venice, the field was not a regular field. It didn’t have official dimensions, it was really smaller, but also it did not have grass, it had sand. This was more complicated for us. Because they were used to play on the sand.
It was a beach?
Right, for us it was something new and challenging. When I was young we played soccer a lot in the streets. Now there are more cars, but 20 years ago there were not so many. When I was younger we played every day in the street with the other friends.
Did you advance to all-italian championships?
The regions are divided in provinces. I was playing in a province. If you win the championship in the province, then you go to the region level, then also to the national level. I was not so special. I played in the province and in the regional level, but not more. Only people who want to become professional players usually play there. Also it was nice because we went to many little towns and villages close to my town. I also play here in Erlangen with the Atletico Erlangen team. We play against the villages around Erlangen or the teams in Erlangen, because there are several teams here.
Is your team related to the university or is it independent?
It is independent. This is an association.
How did you decide to do astrophysics?
Since it was very difficult for me to study physics, during the third year in the university I was thinking about getting a job. But then I met a professor at the University of Padova. I was a student representative. We met the first time when I took a lab course in electronics, it was not so special. But when I met him in these meetings of professors and student representatives, I got to know him much better and I was surprised how he is passionate about physics. Then I decided to do the bachelor thesis with him. During the bachelor thesis we became friends. After the bachelor thesis, there was a party. He came not only by himself, but with the family, his wife, their child and also with au pair (the girl that was taking care of the child). From then, also my parents started a friendship with the professor. During the master work, the friendship grew. I also met other professors as a student representative. One professor is working on the high luminosity upgrade in LHC, another one is a professor in Baltimore, working on James Webb telescope. I was influenced by their passion about physics. So I started to be passionate as well. Then I started to ask myself: why not the research?