Rivista Mensile del Touring Club Italiano, Vol 11, No 12
Articles in this issue
- Notice that the 1906 subscription — 6 lire for members in the Kingdom, 8 lire abroad — falls due by 15 January and should be sent by cartolina vaglia to the Touring at via Monte Napoleone 14, Milan; five-year subscribers paying 30 or 40 lire receive an exclusive silver badge.
- Presents L. V. Bertarelli's tenth regional guide, the Guida delle Puglie, with kilometric and altimetric profiles of 520 road sections in Foggia, Bari and Lecce, and surveys the three provinces — Foggia's Pitaffio and the Saracen citadel of Lucera, Bari's basilica of San Nicola and Castel del Monte at Andria, Lecce the "Firenze delle Puglie" — counting the cyclists and Touring members in each.
- Ottone Brentari's second Calabrian article: the 24 granite, cipollino and African-breccia column drums left lying before the episcopal palace at Mileto since the French took them from the old town in 1795, and earthquake-shattered Parghelia, where captain Baccaglini's engineers lowered the 1704 bell from the split campanile before a cheering crowd.
- Ing. Giovanni De-Simoni, the Touring's delegate to the September-October colonial congress at Asmara, reports on Eritrea's carriage roads to Cheren, Adi Ugri and Saganeiti — passable by car and motorcycle and in places by bicycle — and on the wheat at Saberguma and Godofelassi, cotton at Filfil and Ghinda and gold at Cherem and Medrizien.
- The Italian hoteliers' sixth congress in the Palazzo Ducale at Genoa, 5-7 November, attended for the Touring by councillor Lorenzo Bertolini, voted motions on railway fares (relatore Maggiorino Ferraris), the marine passenger tax, a training school for hoteliers and a combined museum ticket; the closing cruise on the Sicilia to Rapallo was wrecked by a gale.
- Ing. Massimo Tedeschi's monthly roads department, continuing the Rivista's campaign on Calabrian road-building and reporting the new maintenance programme adopted by the province of Naples.
- Answers Enrico Caviglia's argument in the Nuova Antologia that no more should be spent on Calabrian roads, quoting Adolfo Musco in La Stampa and the Ministry's statistics: Catanzaro, Cosenza and Reggio average only 0.296 km of road per square kilometre, the lowest in Italy alongside Puglia, Basilicata, Sicily and Sardinia.
- Ing. A. Balsamo, chief engineer of Naples province, proposes 2,400,000 lire of resurfacing, mechanically rolled hard stone and curbs on carts with narrow tyres; the provincial council approved his scheme by a large majority in October.
- Summarises the Bollettino Ufficiale on the Eritrean roads built since 1902 largely by colonial troops — Asmara-Mai Atal, Asmara-Cheren, Asmara-Adi Ugri, Asmara-Saganeiti, Decamerè-Teramni — and the regrading of the Mahio and Meshalit camel tracks under captain Torcili and lieutenant Rolfo.
- Domenico Vitali of Bellagio built and gave the commune a road from the Valassina provincial road up to Brogno, crossing the Perlo torrent on a 24-metre stone bridge of 14-metre span; it was inaugurated on 12 November with prefect Ferri, mayor Sancassani and the Touring's Achille Negri present, and named after Vitali's late wife and his brother Benvenuto.
- The Senate-approved bill on tree planting along national, provincial and communal roads goes to the Chamber; relatore Mezzanotte's report cites the fruit-tree avenues of central Europe and France, and articles 1-3 limit plantings to deciduous trees under 10 metres with branches and roots no more than 3 metres over the road boundary.
- Results after a year of the nine trial pavements laid in via Legnano by porta Tenaglia: San Fedelino granite setts, Ragusa and San Valentino compressed asphalt, asphalt tiles and Valganna porphyrite all held up, while the caoutchouc asphalt and the fused asphalt on reinforced concrete wore out and had to be replaced; four new trials follow, including Etna lava and Cuasso al Monte porphyry.
- From the Monitore tecnico: in Milan's new via Tommaso Grossi compressed Ragusa asphalt has been laid against the Phoenix tram rails with Australian tallow-wood blocks 22 x 8 x 10 cm as an elastic buffer, following practice at Frankfurt and Berlin, with drainage holes cut in the rail groove.
- A committee of the shopkeepers' association at Sant'Ambrogio in Val di Susa is studying a funicular or a carriage road with electric tramway to link the station with the abbey 1,000 metres above, putting it an hour from Turin.
- Sub-prefect count Enrico Scapinelli circularises the mayors of the Gallarate district on the deplorable state of their communal roads, blaming the cheap pit gravel used for maintenance and the absence of drainage on a plain where traffic is heaviest.
- P. Biraghi replies to the October article "I paracarri", arguing the roadside stones shelter cyclists and pedestrians from bolting horses and skidding cars; the unposted roads round Busto, Legnano and Gallarate, invaded by carts and stripped of their verge, show what removing them would cost.
- After its 200 motor-omnibuses carried four million passengers in London, the company plans a tourist service to Monte Carlo by way of Dieppe, Rouen, Lyon, Avignon, Marseille, Nice and Mentone, with the Newhaven-Dieppe leg made by yacht and the return through Paris.
- Diego Angeli in the Fanfulla della Domenica on the inscriptions cut along Italy's highways, and his hope that motor cars and bicycles, having restored the main roads the railways dethroned, will bring readers back to the lichen-blackened stones.
- The signpost department: new donations from baron Guido Ravà-Sforni, march. Filippo Torrigiani and the municipality of Genoa bring the running total to 1,356 signs and 17,900 lire, and signs 307-328 are recorded at Tavernelle, Serravalle Pistoiese, the Futa pass, Ventimiglia, Pieve di Teco, Taggia, San Remo, Diano Marina and Scorzè.
- Presents the team of the Milanese physical-education society Voluntas, which won outright possession of the Coppa Johnson in the Giro di Milano walking march organised by the Gazzetta dello Sport.
- The organising committee's first circular for the exhibition of Italians abroad at the 1906 Simplon exhibition in Milan, with sections on emigrant industry and agriculture, the Dante Alighieri society, expatriate newspapers and mutual-aid societies; entries close 31 December 1905 and exhibits are due between 1 January and 28 February. Chaired by prof. Giovanni Celoria, with the Touring's ing. Alberto Riva on the committee.
- Prof. ing. Effren Magrini's monthly motoring review of new machines, suspensions, tyres and accessories.
- The trailer sidecar built by the firm G. Guaraldi of Lodi on a steel-tube frame, its seat carried on double external leaf springs and internal coil springs and joined to the machine by three adjustable crossed-tube couplings; the 3-4 HP Fafnir-engined motorcycle runs from 5 to about 60 km/h and has a crank-and-chain starter on the sidecar.
- A car suspension in which a double piston in a glycerine- or oil-filled cylinder, worked by a linkage off the axle, damps the shock; the tapered port makes the damping progressive and a needle valve allows hand adjustment.
- A sprung front fork needing no alteration to the original: a curved special-steel arm carries a stout coil spring down to a short lever pivoted at the fork end, with a second spring between lever and arm; built for both motorcycles and bicycles, agent D. Folignano & C., via dei Mille 21, Turin.
- Lars Anderson of Chicago replaces the usual cast cooling fins with rings of metal cord threaded through holes in the cylinder wall, making the cylinder easier to build and the air cooling more effective — the system American makers prefer to Europe's water cooling.
- A detachable chrome-leather over-tyre riveted with a longitudinal band and held to the rim by metal beads, saving the pneumatic without spoiling the wheel's lines; the same house makes the Durandal "Bende Express" leather patches fixed by a clamp for roadside repairs.
- Magrini fitted and tested the Sehringer patent motorcycle gearbox: a sliding key in the shaft off the flywheel gives direct drive, a geared-down drive through the wheels C''-d'''-d''-C''', or neutral, and the low ratio doubles as a progressive brake on steep descents, the whole enclosed in an aluminium oil-filled case.
- The Chapelle petrol filter: a sealed glass chamber holding a four-holed central tube, so the fuel first settles by decantation and then passes through a chemically impregnated sponge that takes out the last moisture and dust, fitted in the pipe between tank and carburettor.
- A motoring curiosity: a tricar bodied as the forequarters of a trotting horse, driven by a 6 HP petrol engine on the front wheel, which covered three-quarters of a mile in 5 minutes 15 seconds.
- The boycott call raised in Berlin, to be argued at the Paris congress: Uri, Valais, Grisons and part of Thurgau refuse the inter-cantonal motoring convention, so a driver leaving Bellinzona for the Splügen is stopped at San Vittore, has his car seized and is fined 500 francs. A. Navazza of the Touring Club Suisse dismisses the threat, while the ban has pushed motor traffic into the Val d'Aosta, Trentino and Cadore.
- Compares the motoring rules of Europe: France's commission wants eyesight tests, a bell instead of a horn, unremovable painted numbers and the owner's name, with a minimum driving age of 16; Britain's 32 km/h limit brought £218,000 of fines in 1904; Holland sets no limit, Austria 45 km/h, Spain 27.5, Italy 12 in towns and 40 in open country.
- Rail concessions obtained for Touring members travelling to the Paris show and congress: 40 to 60 per cent off on the Italian State Railways to Modane or Ventimiglia between 1 and 15 December, and 50 per cent on the P.L.M. for parties of at least twelve, with tickets and congress cards issued from via Monte Napoleone 14, Milan.
- After the resignation of president cav. A. Massoni and the whole council, the Automobile Club of Milan elected on. Silvio Crespi president on 23 November, with marchese Di Soragna and cav. Leone Beaux as vice-presidents; Massoni was made an honorary member and given a parchment signed by every member.
- The bicycle and motor tax bill before the Senate finally concedes the movable plate the Touring campaigned for (articles 2 and 14), and the club will now press for the tax to be cut to 5 lire, citing France's 1899 reduction from 10 to 6 francs, which lifted taxed machines from 463,414 in 1898 to 838,856 in 1899, and the fall in a bicycle's value from 500-600 lire to 150-200.
- The railway department: the experimental season-ticket tariff running from 1 December 1905 to 30 June 1906, the Rimini-Mercatino-Taiamello line, the projected Milan-Bergamo direttissima backed by the Banca Commerciale, the finished 3,297-metre Gattico tunnel, electrically driven road trains in Death Valley, the Simplon opening expected in May, and the Erie Railroad's railway school at Elmira.
- Effren Magrini describes the airship designed by student engineer Franz Miller of Messina: a silk envelope divided into hydrogen, coal-gas and air compartments so that temperature changes cancel out, four small propellers on two shafts each coupled to two light engines, a pendulum-driven pump shifting water ballast for longitudinal trim, and a rubber-tube guide-rope fillable with air at sea or water on land.
- The rally department: Ciclo Sport Albese's first year of medals at Santo Stefano Belbo, Cuneo, Costigliole d'Asti and Cherasco; Bologna's consulate closes its season with a run to Panico; flag inaugurations at Cherasco, Chieri, Fratta Polesine, Gemona and Loano; Livorno's Libertas raises 77.95 lire for the earthquake victims; and Varallo's meet during the Esposizione Valsesiana, presided over by comm. Lattes.
- Prof. U. Valbusa's proposal, applauded at the close of the alpine congress at Belluno, for a photographic album-ricordo to be offered to the Venice section and the Società degli Alpinisti Tridentini, subscribers paying 1 lira; the Touring asks members to send it their photographs too.
- Book notices: Carlo Alberto Combi's Il problema ferroviario senese, the Deutscher Automobil Verband yearbook, Ravenstein's cycling and motoring guide to Germany in 278 road sections, Milan's statistical volume (bicycles up from 9,359 in 1898 to 20,405 in 1904), Pedretti's Manuale dell'automobilista from Hoepli, Molinari's Carnia e Canal del Ferro and the Pro Valle Camonica guide.
- Ing. avv. Bernardo Garbati's law column: the Brescia magistrate ruled on 26 September 1905 that wheeling a bicycle by hand is neither circulation nor use, so Clarisetti needed no tax plate; and the Milan tribunal acquitted cav. Augusto Massoni of injuring Enrico Contenti with his car in the Parco. Garbati signs off, handing the column on as he takes up the post of secretary general.
- Customs warnings for members: temporary duty-free importation must have its re-export certified by the customs office itself, holders of the Austrian tessera must demand the discharge slip on leaving, and cars admitted on a triptyque must be re-exported within six months with coupons A and C endorsed.
- Miscellany: Cesare Cantù's remains moved after ten years from Milan's Monumentale to the cemetery at Brivio, marked by avv. Pietro Manfredi's volume reprinting Cantù's 1847 Venice congress paper on railways; and the King and Queen's visit to Genoa's dock labourers and coal porters at the cooperative Emancipazione restaurant.
- The club bulletin opens with the council meeting of 8 November 1905 under Federico Johnson: Bertarelli's plan to gather foreign touring associations round the Touring's stand at the 1906 exhibition, the proposal to move the 1906 general assembly from March to June, delegation of Johnson, Silvestri and Guastalla to the Paris congress, and Camillo Magnocavallo replacing the resigning Romeo Riva as auditor.
- The Touring's deputy director-general ing. Alberto Riva, seriously ill for some months, has been convalescent for several weeks and is out of danger.
- Ing. Oreste Lattes, the Touring's consul at Rome, is awarded a gold medal for his long recruiting work, having just enrolled his hundredth member.
- Within the first ten days of December members who paid the 1904 subscription will be sent free the profiles and maps of the Stelvio and Mont Cenis passes, each with an illustrated monograph — the start of a new class of Touring publication.
- A ballot paper bound into this issue asks members to postpone the 1906 ordinary assembly from March to June so it can coincide with the Milan exhibition, and a commission of Johnson, Bertarelli, Guasti, Silvestri and Vigliardi will draft the statute changes to put before it.
- On. E. Ottavi in the Giornale Vinicolo Italiano of Casale Monferrato praises director Bianchi's service order on the wine sold in station buffets and urges the Touring's 50,000 members to run a referendum prize for honest publicans; the Direzione promises to study the idea.
- Members complain of missing copies of the Rivista and of parcels arriving without the commemorative medal they should have held; the Touring will lodge claims with the post office and asks that money be sent only by registered letter or postal order.
- A joint commission of the Touring and the Automobile Club di Milano under director-general Federico Johnson — Beaux, Pirelli, Conti and Sorniani for the A.C.M., Guastalla, Moldenhauer and Silvestri for the T.C.I. — began work on 27 and 30 November on the programme for the 1906 international motoring congress in Milan.
- The thirtieth consular list for the 1905-1906 biennium, adding consuls at Acireale, Feltre, Ferrara, Jesi, Osimo, Pieve di Cadore, Pontremoli, San Severino Marche and elsewhere, with the medical and legal lists, approved mechanics at Cossato, Imola, Mantova and Palazzolo sull'Oglio, and the fifteenth list of petrol suppliers.
- The list of candidates who applied for membership of the Touring Club Italiano between 1 and 31 October 1905.
- The Touring passed the 50,000 mark in October, closing the month with 50,008 members; all received the commemorative medal given by director-general comm. Federico Johnson, and the club now sets its sights on 100,000.