
Ercole Canale-Parola, 83, professor emeritus of Microbiology, died March 29 in Amherst, following a brief illness.
Born in Frosinone, Italy, his early years were heavily impacted by the loss of his father at age 5, and the hardships of World War II. As a child, he witnessed first-hand the Nazi occupation of Rome, the aerial bombing of the San Lorenzo neighborhood, the partisan attack in Via Rasella and the triumphant entrance of American forces into the fallen city.
After the war, in 1951, he left his studies at the University of Florence to join his mother, who had moved to Chicago and