One of Naples' favourite sons, the late great comic and film director Massimo Troisi, on Monday received a posthumous honorary degree from his home town university. Troisi, who died at 41 in 1994 a few days after wrapping his last great film Il Postino, for which he got two Oscar nominations, graduated in "Discipline of Music and Entertainment, History and Theory' at the Federico II University in Naples where he started out in cabaret in the 1970s.

Troisi, born in nearby San Giorgio a Cremano, would have turned 70 Sunday and a special new Rai documentary on his life and work was shown at the weekend. Long-time friend and colleague Enzo Decaro said at the graduation ceremony: "His dad, Don Alfredo, will be happy with this degree, he was always asking us to help him in his studies. "And today the top recognition possible has arrived".