in reviving its reputation. Honours He was member of several academies, notably of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, the Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze detta dei XL and of the Russian Academy of Science. Teachers His lifelong friendship with his teacher Mauro Picone is remembered by him in several occasions. As recalled by , his father Giuseppe was an assistant professor to the chair of Picone while he was teaching at the University of Catania: they become friends and their friendship lasted even when Giuseppe was forced to leave the academic career for economic reasons, being already the father of two sons, until Giuseppe's death. The young, in effect child, Gaetano, was kept by Picone in his arms. From 1939 to 1941 the young Fichera developed his research directly under the supervision of Picone: as he remembers, it was a time of intense work. But also, when he was back from the front in April 1945 he met Picone while he was in Roma in his way back to Sicily, and his advisor was so happy to see him as a father can be seeing its living child. Another mathematician Fichera was influenced by and acknowledged as one of his teachers and inspirators was Pia Nalli: she was an outstanding analyst, teaching for several years at the University of Catania, being his teacher of mathematical analysis from 1937 to 1939. Antonio Signorini and Francesco Severi were two of Fichera's teachers of the Roman period: the first one introduced him and inspired his research in the field of linear elasticity while the second inspired his research in the field he taught him i.e. the theory of analytic functions of several complex variables. Signorini had a strong long-time friendship with Picone: on a wall of the apartment building where they lived, in Via delle Tre Madonne, 18 in Rome, a memorial tablet which commemorates the two friends is placed, as recalls. The two great mathematicians extended their friendship to the young Fichera, and as a consequence this led to the solution of the Signorini problem and the foundation of the theory of variational inequalities. Fichera's relations with Severi were not as friendly as with Signorini and Picone: nevertheless, Severi, which was one of the most influential Italian mathematicians of the first half of the 20th century, esteemed the young mathematician. During a course on the theory of analytic functions of several complex variables