Returning to Italy in 1966, In 1967, Fabbri moved to the
University of Urbino as Professor of
Philosophy of Language. In 1970, he cofounded the university's International Centre of Semiotics and Linguistics (CiSS) with
Carlo Bo and Giuseppe Paioni, one of the earliest schools of semiotics. He was the principal collaborator of Greimas, his former teacher, and collaborated with
Erving Goffman in the mid-1970s. Fabbri moved to the
University of Bologna in 1977, teaching the Semiotics of Arts course in the degree for Arts, Music and Entertainment, over which he presided from 1997 to 2001. From 1990 until 2003, he was part of the Department of Visual Arts of the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy. Between 1984 and 1991, he collaborated in semiotician research conferences hosted at the
School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences. Fabbri taught at the
University of Palermo's Faculty of Education between 1986 and 1990. Between 2003 and 2009, he was Professor of Semiotics of Art and Artistic Literature at the
IUAV University of Venice's Faculty of Design and Arts. In 2013, Fabbri became director of CiSS. In 2017, Fabbri was made honorary professor at the universities of
Santiago and
Lima. Fabbri is remembered more as an educator than his writings. He developed a reputation for not publishing his research in the semiotic field, leading to his nickname of (the abbot who does not write), to which Fabbri replied that "the professor is oral", transmitting more knowledge through meeting than texts. Fabbri eschewed "-ism" labels. ==Cultural activities==