Naples is planning to devote a museum to local actor Toto', a comic genius ranked alongside greats like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton by many.
Toto' (1898-1967) was the stage name of Antonio de Curtis, a rubber-faced Neapolitan comedian who starred in over 100 much-loved movies that made him the nation's favourite comic actor, along with Alberto Sordi.
These classics are still frequently screened on TV here and continue to have modern viewers in stitches.
Like Sordi though, Toto' never achieved fame beyond Italy's borders.
Mayor Rosa Russo Jervolino broke the news about the museum Monday at the inauguration of an exhibition on Toto' at Naples' Antisala dei Baroni centre, one of the events the city is holding to mark the 40th anniversary of the actor's death.
"We have to help people understand who Toto' was and what he represented," said Jervolino.
"His comedy was avant-garde and his quips are still part of our daily life".
The mayor said work on the museum project will start soon, once some financing problems have been ironed out.
It will contain film scripts, posters, props, costumes and the trademark derby hat that rocked atop his head at will.
The actor was born on February 15, 1898, in Naples, the illegitimate son of a minor aristocrat.
As well as acting, Toto' also produced poetry, and wrote and recorded some of the songs from his films.
He began as a stand-up comic and cabaret artist, and moved over to cinema in the late 1930s.
Toto' could contort his body and face, and parade silly walks like the best of them.
He was a master of the double-take, the rolling eyeballs, and a vast repertoire of facial and hand gestures associated with Italians.
He tickled people's funny bones with his linguistic high jinks too.
Unfortunately, much of his word play is untranslatable.
Like Chaplin and Keaton, his work often had a deeply poignant tone, focusing on the little guy's tragicomic search for respectability.
"Toto' continues to play a part in our lives in many ways," said Antonio Bassolino, the president of the Campania regional government, "in his gestures, in his words and in his films".
On Sunday Jervolino will unveil a statue of the actor in the centre of Naples.
Local authorities are also preparing a Toto' night next month, when a selection of his best movies will be screened non-stop from dusk to dawn at the city's top cinema complex.
