Roberto Cafarotti - L’ingegnere

Roberto Cafarotti recently won the Fabrizio De André Prize in the painting section, in its twenty-fifth edition.

The Engineer
Oil on canvas, 50 × 40 cm, 2026
Roberto Cafarotti

Her name is Sofia.
She is twenty-six and is studying engineering.

On her chest, just below the collarbone, there is a tattoo of Mir..
It is not a stage name, not an abstract idea: they are the first three letters of Mirella, her daughter.

Sofia was seated at the table with her arms crossed, the shirt open and her gaze straight ahead.
She wasn’t posing.
She was simply holding everything together: exams, late-night study shifts, expenses, deadlines, and above all that little one who slept in the other room.

Sofia does not ask for compassion.
She has no time for talks about the “difficulty of being a woman.”
She studies, works, raises her daughter, and keeps the family going with the same precision with which she calculates structures: without drama, without excuses, with a quiet and stubborn strength.

That evening, Sofia did not smile.
She only kept her gaze fixed, as she always does.

Because women like her do not need to be saved.
They already bear everything that matters on their shoulders.
And they carry it.