A leading figure in both professional and amateur astronomy in Ticino, former director of Specola Solare Ticinese, with 64 years’ experience in solar observation, and heir to the Zurich tradition which, over 170 years of research and measurements, from Wolf, Wolfer, Brunner and Waldmeier, led right up to him; one of the founders and then long-standing president of the Ticino Astronomical Society, Sergio Cortesi is no longer with us. We shall miss him terribly.