He worked on short stories of the 15th and 16th century, and on the novel; in particular he dedicated to Italian poetry of the 20th century, on poets such Eugenio Montale, Giorgio Caproni, Alberto Vigevani and Edoardo Sanguineti.
He edited an anthology of the Italian Contemporary Poetry (Dopo la lirica.
He translated from English High Windows by Philip Larkin.
Testa was a visiting professor at Aarhus University in Denmark and a member of the PhD commission at Université Sorbonne Nouvelle of Paris.
[3] He published several books of poetry and dedicated some of his poems to his favorite football team, Sampdoria.