Rivista Mensile del Touring Club Italiano, Vol 10, No 4
Articles in this issue
- Reminds annual members that the subscription deadline, extended to the end of February, has passed and that from 1 March the Touring began collecting by postal draft at L. 6.20 in Milan, L. 6.55 elsewhere in Italy and L. 8.55 abroad. Members are urged to remit directly to the head office at piazza Durini 7, Milan, in exchange for the violet 1904 membership stamp.
- Five-year members (L. 30 for Italy, L. 40 for abroad) receive a free silver badge, and anyone who has already paid the annual quota can convert to five-year membership for L. 24 or L. 32.
- Boxed title of the issue's four-part lead feature on the Abruzzo, prompted by the success of D'Annunzio's La figlia di Jorio, covering the poet's imagined landscape, existing and forthcoming guidebooks, the region's climatic resorts and the engravings that illustrate the series.
- The Rivista adds its voice to the praise for Gabriele D'Annunzio's pastoral tragedy, arguing that by setting it in the Abruzzo "between the mountain and the sea" the poet has done Italian tourism a great service. It discusses the invented place-names Acquabona, Capracinta and Norca, the Marsi and Peligni customs the play preserves, and Francesco Paolo Michetti's painting of the same legend.
- Reviews Enrico Abbate's exhaustive Guida dell'Abruzzo, presented to the Rome section of the C.A.I., faulting only its unwieldy thousand-page bulk and its unpopular price of 12 lire, and announces the road-itinerary guide to the Abruzzo that Luigi Vittorio Bertarelli is preparing for Touring members.
- Reprints a passage by Ferdinando de Cinque of Casoli from Napoleone Colaianni's Rivista Popolare, lamenting that the whole Abruzzo has only two health resorts, Roccaraso and the thermal Caramanico, and that the region could be turned into "a Switzerland" if its inhabitants learned to make the visitor welcome.
- Notes on the plates accompanying the Abruzzo feature: Gabriele D'Annunzio, born at Francavilla al Mare in 1864, and the painter Francesco Paolo Michetti, born at Tocco di Casauria in 1851 and once a Touring consul, plus the Valle del Sagittario, the sanctuary of the Madonna del Lago near Scanno, the city and castle of Aquila and the 1308 church door at Paganica.
- Prof. Rodolfo Namias reviews photographic novelties useful to travelling amateurs: the Berlin Actien Gesellschaft's "Unal" single-powder developing capsules, Bayer of Elberfeld's gold toning-and-fixing salt, Mario Ganzini of Milan's yellow developer for working in near-daylight, Vidil three-colour roll films for trichromy, and his own ferric/vanadium chloride formula for green tones.
- Announces an elementary theoretical and practical evening course in photography, taught by Namias himself, opening in April at the Scuola del libro's new premises in via Kramer 4, Milan, backed by the Societa Umanitaria and to be followed by courses in photomechanical processes.
- Standing department reporting on exhibitions of interest to tourists and to the trade.
- The Touring's national tourism exhibition at Bologna is budgeted at over L. 60,000, will be visited by the King and has minister Luigi Rava as patron. The organising committee under prof. Balbo Beccari appeals to Italian artists to send drawings, paintings, sculpture, etchings and advertising posters on touring subjects to the art section running 15 May to 27 June.
- Standing department on measures to attract and handle foreign visitor traffic.
- The society for promoting visitor traffic in the Trentino has grown moribund outside the Rovereto committee; at the Riva committee's assembly president R. Picht proposed transferring its general management to the Rovereto Chamber of Commerce as a special section, on the Bolzano and Innsbruck model.
- Practical guidance for hotel-keepers on building a garage, opened by an anecdote about an innkeeper who lost all his motoring custom to a neighbouring "ostariaccia" that had one. Three worked designs are given with plans, longitudinal sections and facades, specifying the inspection pit and pump, the walled petrol tank with vapour vent, the workbench, iron-framed boxes and a traversing platform, at an estimated L. 4,000 to L. 12,000.
- Describes the Rete Adriatica's new four-cylinder compound locomotive with only two valve gears and the firebox carried ahead of the chimney over the leading bogie, first built at the company's Florence works and shown at Paris in 1900; sixteen more followed, hauling over 400 tonnes at up to 100 km/h. It also describes the matching bogie carriages with side corridors, covered gangways, electric light and steam heating.
- Boxed recruiting notice: a member who introduces ten new members is declared benemerito and gets a silver medal, fifty earn the large silver and a hundred the gold medal, and the best recruiter of 1904 will be named "recordman". Benemeriti also enter a May prize draw for a Bianchi motorcycle, a Stucchi bicycle, twenty-five Bayer photographic sets, a Browning pistol, an electric fan, American meters and Brentari's four-volume Guida del Trentino.
- Signpost department: the Touring is turning out signposts and poles in the national colours bearing the club's arms, and many are already erected. A new subscription list (Padua's provincial deputation L. 1,000 for 50 signs, the Rome municipality L. 300, Padua L. 200 and others) brings the running total to L. 11,205 and 860 signs.
- Standing department on roads, their administration, construction and upkeep.
- Summarises the proposals of the English road-improvement society, set out in a report by its secretary ing. Jeffrey, for a separate roads directorate within the Ministry of Public Works, a state grant covering half the maintenance cost of main roads, amalgamation of highway authorities, simpler expropriation and clear liability for neglected upkeep.
- Reporting ing. Emilio Gola's article in Il Politecnico, ing. M. Tedeschi argues that Italian road administrations keep no inventory of the depth or quality of their macadam and vote money at random, whereas in France sample sections are analysed every six or seven years to give the engineer a real picture of the road capital.
- Standing mountaineering department, headed by an Art-Nouveau engraving of an alpinist with ice-axe.
- Discusses Béthoux's essay in the Revue Alpine on how mountaineering has changed since the heroic age before huts, waymarks and alpine clubs, and on the crowds who now reach the foot of the Matterhorn or the summit of the Jungfrau by rail. The Rivista rejects his description of tourism as "l'alpinisme des paresseux" and invites readers to send their own definition of tourism for publication.
- The S.A.T.'s seat moves from Trento to Rovereto for 1904-05, with dott. Carlo Candelpergher re-elected president and Touring capoconsoli Maddalena and Larcher among the councillors; the annual meeting will be held at Cavalese and Battisti and Rizzoli will write a monograph on the Val di Fiemme. A portrait and biographical sketch of Candelpergher accompany the note.
- The young women of the Mediolanum femminile, led by their president prof. Amelia Cavalen Mazzucchetti, climbed through deep snow to the Capanna Escursionisti Milanesi (1380 m) below the Grignetta, leaving Milan at 7.40 and returning at 19.50; their group photograph is reproduced.
- Celestino Usuelli of Milan narrates his April 1903 ascent of Ecuador's Chimborazo, the first since Whymper and the Carrel guides in 1880. Camping successively at 5,301, 5,365 and 5,694 metres with the arriero Rinaldo Aldas, he fell some 400 metres down the ice on 26 April, and on 27 April reached the summit plateau at 15.10 and planted the Italian flag on his ice-axe.
- Standing motoring department. The editors devote this number to Italian-made products, judging them equal to the best foreign machines after the showing of F.I.A.T. and other national marques at the Paris Salon and the Turin exhibition.
- Describes the Milanese firm's 12, 16 and 24 HP four-cylinder touring cars: water cooling through a large fan-assisted radiator, mechanically operated valves, automatic lubrication and carburettor, four speeds and reverse on one lever with direct drive on top, a leather-lined cone clutch on a universal joint, a metal-reinforced wooden chassis and two brakes acting in both directions.
- Section of the motoring department devoted to the 1904 Italian motorcycles.
- The 1904 Bianchi has a 2 1/2 HP engine supplied with either mechanical or automatic inlet valve, a Longuemare-type automatic-air carburettor needing no control lever, ignition switching built into the handlebar grip, wide flat chrome-leather belt drive to a rim pulley, a 55 cm frame and 65 cm wheels.
- Stucchi and C. of Milan, already known for their bicycles, offer a much refined 1904 model with a 2 3/4 HP engine whose inlet and exhaust valves sit symmetrically either side of the cylinder, the carburettor behind the engine so that the sparking plug is shielded from water, and a choice of accumulator or rotary magneto ignition; it drew admiration at the Turin exhibition.
- Türkheimer's 1904 machines carry vertical Stella engines of 2, 2 1/2 or 3 HP mounted low by the bottom bracket, FN-1904 or Longuemare carburettors, trapezoidal belt drive, pump lubrication from a three-compartment tank holding a litre of oil, the accumulator and coil, and five litres of fuel, and two handlebar-operated brakes; they weigh 45 to 60 kg on 65 cm wheels.
- Department on public motor transport services.
- Console F. Gattini of Castello sopra Lecco describes the new Lecco-Casargo omnibus service over the 34 km provincial road, worked by a 10 HP single-cylinder Union of Nuremberg vehicle with frontal friction drive and a single chain giving continuously variable speed. Ing. Tondini's estimate puts capital at L. 30,000 and running cost at L. 0.346 per vehicle-kilometre, so that the Lecco-Taceno return would cost L. 4.50 against the L. 12 now charged by carriage.
- Round-up of Italian motor services: the improved Spoleto-Norcia connection now costing L. 3.60 through to Cascia; a proposed motor mail service from Maglie and Gallipoli in the Lecce province; a projected Aquila-Ascoli line powered from Amatrice; ing. Vittorio Sambolino's scheme linking scores of Lombard and Piedmontese towns to railheads; trials of the Purrey steam railcar on the Rome-Viterbo line; and Sicilian studies of petrol and denatured-alcohol railcars.
- Italy had only 1,870 motor cars at 31 December 1903, against 10,000 in Paris alone. A province-by-province table gives the figures, headed by Turin with 350, Milan 239, Florence 169, Genoa 137 and Rome 94, and trailing off to single figures in the south.
- Notes on motor shows: the Vienna exhibition with Darracq, Panhard et Levassor, De Dion Bouton, Renault, Mors, De Dietrich and Clément among the exhibitors; the Motor Manufactures and Traders' decision to exclude motorcycles from the Crystal Palace show; and shows at Lille, Marstrand in Sweden, Amsterdam and Nice, where Fiat, Mercédès and Bayard-Clément have entered.
- The Automobile Club Italiano of Milan will hold an international touring-car meeting on 11-15 May 1904 with endurance, free-running level and hill-climb trials, classification resting on the combined result; the regulations come with the Touring's map and profile of the Passo dell'Aprica, where the trials will be run.
- The France Automobile's Nice-Rome caravan of 18-25 April is divided into six stages: Nice-Turin 203.4 km, Turin-Milan 141.9, Milan-Bologna 219.0, Bologna-Florence 131.3, Florence-Perugia 187.1 and Perugia-Rome 178.8.
- La Gazzetta dello Sport plans a motorcyclists' outing to Sardinia, probably timed with the Touring's Cagliari rally, and a 1,000 km trade contest of four 250 km stages from Milan through Bologna, Florence, Rimini, Ravenna, Padua and Verona to Brescia, each maker entering three machines.
- The mayor of Pavia writes that squads of motorcyclists and motorists from Milan tear through the town's main street without warning, and that excise agents have been ordered to close the gates and send competitors round the outer ring road.
- Reproduces the charcoal caricatures by cav. Carlo Biscaretti di Ruffia, shown in the first hall of the Turin motor exhibition, of fifteen leading Turin motorists dressed as the various arms of the Italian army, among them count Emanuele di Bricherasio, the Duke of the Abruzzi, cav. Scarfiotti and cav. Giovanni Agnelli.
- Standing cycling department, headed by an Art-Nouveau engraving of a rider at sunrise.
- Presents an eight-column table of the bicycles taxed in each of the 69 provinces at 31 December 1903, running from Milan's 26,721 down to Potenza's 22, with Ravenna (225.05 per 10,000 inhabitants) and Ferrara ahead of Milan and Turin in relative terms. Touring membership per province is set beside the cyclist counts, showing that in Benevento and Potenza the club has more members than the province has cyclists.
- Prof. Federico Castelletto of Chiavari contributes two nomograms for reading off a bicycle's gear and development from the numbers of chainwheel and sprocket teeth: one in Cartesian coordinates for the usual 0.70 m rear wheel, worked through for 48 by 16 teeth, and one in parallel coordinates covering 0.50, 0.60 and 0.70 m wheels, worked through for 26 by 9.
- Standing department announcing club outings and rallies.
- Announces the Sardinian rally at Cagliari on 30 April to 2 May, following the Nuoro meeting, timed to coincide with the Sant'Efisio festivities and the island's traditional costumes; much of the 600-strong Sardinian membership is expected, mainland members are urged to come, and return rail tickets are half price from 28 April to 4 May.
- The Agnone consulate, backed by local young cyclists, will hold a regional rally on 14-16 August under a committee headed by console Pietro Tirone, any surplus going to the town's infant school. A note describes Agnone (10,189 inhabitants, province of Campobasso), its copper, ironwork, bell-founding and cloth industries, and its probable identity with the Samnite Aquilonia.
- Terms issued by the Rome consulate for the national Rome-Puglia-Montenegro-Dalmatia tour to be made in July: L. 250 from Rome or L. 200 from Bari, entries taken by rag. Fernando Trasatti from 20 March and closing 31 May with a deposit of L. 20-25. A letter from the chemist A. M. Valle promises that members at Ragusa will ride a hundred kilometres to meet the party.
- New clubs: a society of Ciclo-Alpini formed at Florence, all of whose members belong to the Touring, and the Unione Velocipedistica Gemonese founded at Gemona by console Ermes Edoardo Disetti under president count Buffardo Gropplero, already some thirty strong.
- Standing book department, headed by an Art-Nouveau engraving of books, inkstand and quill.
- Praises the Bergamo publisher's illustrated monograph series, above all the Italia Artistica series edited by Corrado Ricci, with volumes on Ravenna, Ferrara e Pomposa, Venezia, Girgenti, Urbino and San Marino at L. 3.50 each, and the Serie Geografica opened by Ubaldo Moriconi's Da Genova ai Deserti del Mayas and Scipione Borghese's In Asia, Siria-Eufrate-Babilonia.
- List of books received, including Candiani and Castiglioni's pamphlets on reorganising Milan's railway services, Mario Tarenzi's report on the Società Forza e Coraggio of Brescia, the Automobile Club de Nice's 1904 annuaire with the Semaine de Nice regulations, the Automobile Club of South Africa's yearbook, De Marchi's Giacomo l'Idealista and Luigi Barzini's Nell'Estremo Oriente.
- Standing miscellany department of short illustrated notes.
- Publishes Guigoni e Bossi's latest photograph of the Italian royal family in a motor car, and quotes count Francesco Caracciolo's Victor Emanuel III intime on the King as one of Italy's motoring pioneers, whose first machine, a 12 hp Panhard, was regularly driven on the road from Rome to Castelporziano.
- Reprints Umberto Passerini's piece in Il Marzocco of Florence praising the Touring for acting at once on a member's February proposal that its publications mark the tonic accent on proparoxytone and oxytone place-names, a reform the Direzione hopes to introduce in the 1904 Annuario.
- The Visconti castle and rocca at Vogogna, founded at the end of the fourteenth century by Giovanni Visconti, bishop of Novara and later archbishop of Milan, is badly decayed although its round tower, curtain walls and gloriettes survive; the regional monuments office for Piedmont and Liguria is beginning studies to preserve it.
- Standing department of official club communications and news.
- Reports the work of the ministerial commission convened by public works minister Tedesco on 2 March to replace the 1881 road regulations: the Touring's two memorials and its delegate comm. Giovanni Silvestri, the rejection of comm. Miceli's 40 km/h proposal in favour of a 12 km/h limit in built-up areas, provincial registration plates, the horn reserved to cars and the bugle to motorcycles, and the adoption of keeping to the right throughout the kingdom.
- The organising committee of the Turin international motor exhibition awarded the Touring the Ministry of Public Works' gold medal, the only prize it granted; the letter of 2 March 1904 signed by secretary Caimi and president Goria is reproduced, together with La Stampa Sportiva's comment.
- The first three railway guides, Milan-Turin, Milan-Genoa and Milan-Bologna, have gone out to subscribers at 50 centesimi each or three post-free for L. 1; a second group covering Genoa-Pisa and Genoa-Ventimiglia is in hand, and members are asked to send photographs of buildings, monuments and scenery visible from the lines.
- Count di Bricherasio sent the King a respectful greeting on behalf of the newly formed U.A.I., and the minister of the Royal Household, general Ponzio Vaglia, replied with the sovereign's thanks and good wishes for the new union.
- Presses members holding triptyques or special customs cards to complete the re-export formalities before leaving Italy, since neglect risks the withdrawal of hard-won concessions, and restates the Swiss, Austro-Hungarian and French rules for bicycles, motorcycles and cars.
- Twelfth list of approved repairers in three categories, from F.lli Marchand at Piacenza in the first category to shops at Alessandria, Biella, Como, Cuneo, Ivrea, Lucca, Novara, Parma, Pisa, Spezia, Varese and Vercelli.
- Seventeenth list of affiliated hotels with room and meal tariffs, service-staff rates, the standing ten per cent discount and garage capacity, covering Bagni di Montecatini, Bagni di Lucca, Cuneo, Pallanza, three hotels and a restaurant at Trento, and Saluzzo.
- Fifth list of five-year members, from Guido Baj of Milan to Mario Wilhelm of Lecco, with a foreign section including members at St Petersburg, Bucharest, London and San Francisco, bringing the total to 1,042 at 15 March 1904.
- List of members who have introduced at least ten new members, from Ancona to Vittorio Veneto, bringing the total to 663 at 15 March 1904.
- Candidates who applied for membership between 15 February and 15 March 1904, opening with life members such as comm. Eugenio Bona of Carignano, Giorgio Michetti of Francavilla al Mare and Arturo Turkheimer of Milan, followed by annual members arranged by province.