Violence at school, everyone in the streets for the first teacher killed

Massacred by his students with styli for writing on wax tablets. The patron saint of Imola, who is celebrated on 13 August, had a bad end. These days Saint Cassian he could very well be the protector of teachers beaten by their students. He would be the perfect martyr of the category.

Also because the violence at school still causes numbers. According to data from the Ministry of Education, in the 2024-25 school year there were 21 incidents of violence against staff, 19 in the previous year, decreasing to four in 2025-2026 (recorded in the September-December period). Where did they happen? Again according to the ministry, two in Piedmont and the same number in Emilia-Romagna, land of Cassiano.

From the Roman-Imola professorship to the invention of stenography

Lived in the 3rd century AD and killed at the beginning of the following century, it is said that the cultured prof he earned his living as a teacher in the Roman Empire. The Diocese of the Bolognese area itself remembers this. He had settled in “Forum Cornelii”, ancient Imola, to teach grammar to the children of rich Roman families.

Not only that. He also educated that young generation to exercise the “ars notoria” created by Tirone, a well-known freedman (former slave) of Cicero, lawyer and politician of Rome. In practice, a few signs on “paper” to summarize long speeches, as the Greeks already did. Shorthand was born.

Cassian was a scholar but also a Christian. Once the persecution broke out (the last, by Diocletian) against the faithful of Christ, he “refused to sacrifice to idols – the diocesan archives report – and was condemned to be killed in class by his own students. His martyrdom probably occurred in 303”.

Celebrations in Italy and abroad

Centuries after that murder, there will be a big celebration in Imola in honor of the saint. Starting today there will be “three days of religious, musical and cultural celebrations“, assures the Diocese. For the martyr there is also prayer and revelry in other parts of the country. For example, (the list is not complete) in La Salle (Valle d’Aosta), Bressanone (province of Bolzano), Macherio (Monza), Trecate (Novara, together with Saint Hippolytus), Piuro (Sondrio), Comacchio (Ferrara), San Casciano Val di Pesa (metropolitan city of Florence), San Casciano dei Bagni (Senese), Laterina Pergine Valdarno (Arezzo) and in the hamlets of the Lucca municipality of San Cassiano and Vico, Controne and Moriano. The venerable is also celebrated abroad: in Las Galletas, south of the island of Tenerife (Spain).

The protection of stenographers and the Italian tradition

Since 1952, by will of Pius XII Saint Cassian is the patron saint of shorthand teachersbut not of matter. Saint Genesio looks down on that one, specifies the super stenographer Sergio Sapetti, who in 1994 together with his colleague Riccardo Bruni inaugurated a course in Turin dedicated to the elderly “for the recovery and improvement of people’s graphic and mnemonic faculties”.

Since 14 March 1925, the Italian Academy of Shorthand has even existed in Milan, “founded – the headquarters reports – on the initiative of Ferruccio Stazi, a senior company manager and passionate scholar of shorthand. Since 1992 the Ministry of the Interior has recognized the Academy as a moral body.

The impact of technology and the profession today

Between algorithms and super computers, we wonder if San Cassiano will still have professionals to protect, if stenographers will resist the technological revolution. Certainly to transcribe the work in commissions and in the halls of Parliament yes, and also well paid. Below are the gross annual salaries of Senate employees disclosed by the Palace itself: 60,000 euros for new hires, which increase to 93,577 in the twelfth year of seniority, rise to 186,734 in the twenty-fourth and reach 247,180 after 36 years of work.