In addition to teaching University students, former professor Candido Zanoni taught evening classes at the Stillwater prison and Mayo clinic.
He taught until he was 70 years old. Zanoni died April 26 of complications from Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 75.
Zanoni earned his master’s degree from the University in the late 1950s and later returned to teach philosophy for 35 years.
He graduated from Chisholm High School in the mid-1940s and spent three years in the Navy as a signalman in Guam. In 1952, he received his bachelor’s degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., before attending the University of Minnesota.
In 1960, he studied in Milan, Italy, his family’s homeland, on a Fulbright scholarship.
After returning to the University, Zanoni received his doctorate in philosophy and ascended from assistant professor to become the chairman of the philosophy department in the early 1970s.
Zanoni also taught for the University’s Neighborhood Programs, which allows nontraditional students to take college-level courses from their neighborhoods.
“I find these people refreshing after a day with the kids,” Zanoni said in a 1990 Minneapolis Star Tribune article. “Many people bring in anecdotes in their own lives that are germane to what we’re talking about.”
Zanoni is survived by his wife, Laura, and daughter, Lisa Neumann.

— Compiled from staff reports.

Erin Ghere welcomes comments at [email protected].