May 2006 was a very sad month for the italian geolo- gical community and for the University of Siena, for To- nino Decandia passed away after a strenuous fight again- st a degenerative disease. Tonino, together with his colleague and good friend Gaetano Giglia, was one of the very first geologists to systematically pioneer structural analysis in Italy. Many contributions have been written, and many others will follow, to attempt outline the uni- que personality of Tonino as an inspired and gifted Earth scientist. But there’s yet another side of Tonino that is of- ten obscured by his contributions to science: the figure of a great advisor devoted to lecturing geology and supervi- sing the work of his students. And this is the profile of To- nino Decandia that we, a group of his former undergra- duate and graduate students spanning for over three decades, wish to portray with these few lines
