Date of birth: 29/10/1927

Date of death: 23/10/2008

Vittorio Ventrafridda was an anaesthesiologist from Milan, and one of the founders of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) during the 1970´s. Ventafridda was Scientific Director of the Floriani Foundation, which he founded the together with Virgilio Floriani, a foundation with the purpose of assisting and helping terminally ill patients.

A lot of his work focused on promoting palliative care throughout Europe, and he founded and directed both the Italian and the European Association of Palliative Care (EAPC). He authored more than 250 publications on pain control, palliative care and measurements of quality of life, and is known as one of the authors of WHO´s Analgesic Ladder.