It was 7 January 1945 when Enrico Catellani, aged 88, was found dying in his house. Immediately brought to the municipal hospital, he died a few hours later, abandoned by everyone, a poor man among the poor, as a journalist from a local newspaper wrote a few months after the liberation. His wife, Lina, who had never abandoned him during the dark years of the regime, had passed away a few days earlier, on 4 January.
Unclear causes of the couple’s death.
The few facts are confused and no trace of Enrico Catellani’s medical records have been found. There is only one medical report stating the cause of death as cardiac arrest, but nothing is known of what may have caused this final event.
The University of Padova covered the expenses of the funeral, held on 13 January, after having requested the consent of the Comunità ebraica to bury the couple in the Greater Municipal Cemetery.

The Rettore Egidio Meneghetti – who granted the funds to the Faculty of Law for the acquisition of the Catellani library – underlined the importance of remembering and honoring illustrious personalities such as Enrico Catellani and Giulio Alessio, who, in opposition to the fascist regime and died during the war, did not receive the right and proper commemoration.

So he spoke to the people in the Aula Magna, as cited in the yearbook for the academic year 1946/1947, p.115: “in this solemn moment, here, in our noble temple, it is a good thing to join in memory, in gratefulness, in love, to the name of the glorious students died for liberty that of the worthy teachers who, died during the grey period of tyranny, arrogance and ruling cowardice, had no honor and, like plague victims or criminals, they were buried in secret, cared for by very few friends. Whoever looks through the yearbooks of those years, with bitterness and shame notices that their disappearance is not even remembered, although the tradition would impose it. They are glorious names: Giulio Alessio and Enrico Catellani:  to everyone an example and a reproach. We join the pupils and the teachers in memory and in purpose: the only memory would be an empty ritual and almost blasphemous, if it were not accompanied by the solemn promise to not allow such ignominy to be repeated ever more, ever more, at any cost.

A memorial service was held on Friday, 16 May 1947, in Hall E of the “central university building”, where Anton Maria Bettanini publicly recalled the Professor’s many merits.