Friends pay tribute as they visit the private funeral chapel at the Biomedico Campus.

These will be the highlights of the tribute to Pippo Baudo, a symbol of Italian television who passed away yesterday. Today, a private funeral chapel was held at Rome's Campus Biomedico. The Teatro delle Vittorie, one of the venues where he performed so often, will receive Baudo's coffin for a final farewell from the audience who loved him so much throughout his sixty-year career. This tribute, desired by RAI executives in consultation with his family, also includes the opening hours of the chapel: from 10:00 a.m. on Monday, August 18th, until 8:00 p.m.; and from 9:00 a.m. until noon on Tuesday, August 19th. The funeral will be held in his beloved Militello Val di Catania, on August 20th at 4:00 p.m. in the Church of Santa Maria della Stella.

"He was deeply connected to our community, and the affection was mutual. Our citizens loved him, and we were proud to have such a prominent figure who had established himself on the national scene," Giovanni Burtone, mayor of Militello in Val di Catania, told Italpress.