Rivista Mensile del Touring Club Italiano, Vol 12, No 1
Articles in this issue
- L. V. Bertarelli announces that the Touring Club Italiano has commissioned the Istituto Geografico De Agostini to produce an entirely original 1:250 000 map of Italy — eight sheets a year for five years in editions of about 60 000, some 2 400 000 sheets given free to members — with the first four to be shown at Milan's 1906 International Exhibition.
- Report from the eighth Paris motor show of December 1905, hailing the Italian stands of Fiat, Isotta Fraschini, Itala, Bianchi, Florentia, Züst, Rapid, Türckheimer and Zanardini, noting the Deutsch prize for self-starting devices and describing the Touring Club Italiano's own stand run by secretary avv. Bernardo Garbati and cav. Minetti.
- Review of Ugo Baldini's new Hoepli volume Automobili stradali e ferroviari per trasporti industriali, illustrated with Crespi of Milan's Daimler goods wagon and the Oldsmobile railcar bought for the ex-Rete Mediterranea's Roma-Viterbo line, urging motor transport for Calabria, Puglia, Basilicata and Sardinia.
- Prof. ing. Effren Magrini's technical miscellany: the Kaup and Felice Karmeli hub-motor motorcycles, the Zenith Bi-Car shown at London's Crystal Palace, the Hauchard oil filter, elastic wheels by Thos McWilliam of Kings Park and Raoul Bernet of Bordeaux, Seiberling's Akron rim and the Ideal Auto Tire Company's Spiral Spring Tire.
- The 12-metre "Onondaga", bodied as an American battleship with a funnel-shaped exhaust stack, entered by the Automobile Club of Syracuse, N.Y. and driven by H. W. Smith at the Kanoono Kornivol; designed by ing. Giorgio Dewey of the Webb Naval Academy on Franklin mechanics.
- The A.C.I. sporting commission chooses the Brescia-Montichiari-Castiglione-Strada della Fame-Lonato-S. Eufemia circuit of 61 km, to be lapped nine times for 549 km, and names an executive committee under mayor conte Vincenzo Bettoni with Arturo Mercanti, Enrico Minetti and Vincenzo Florio.
- The Paris calendar meeting fixes Italy's 1906 season — the Gazzetta dello Sport voiturette contest to San Remo, the Monaco-Palermo motorboat race for the Mediterranean cup, the Targa Florio on 6 May, the Cenisio hill climb on 17 July and Brescia week with the Coppa Florio — and the clubs unanimously advise motorists to avoid crossing Switzerland.
- The Swiss federal railways sign with Brown-Boveri of Baden for electric traction through the Simplon, which councillor Zemp expects to open to traffic on 1 June, while the new 15.6 km Borgomanero-Arona line with its 3 297 m Gattico tunnel, built under ing. Mangiarotti, is inspected on 19 December.
- A rack-assisted electric line from the Stresa steamer pier to the 1 494 m summit of the Mottarone, climbing gradients of about 25 per cent through Vedasco, Carpugnino, Gignese, Levo and Alpino, is sought by the Lake Maggiore navigation company and the Banca del Credito Italiano without any state subsidy.
- Timetable changes agreed at the Florence European conference: a faster Paris-Turin express by the Cenisio, an earlier first Simplon train into Milan, a new Luino-Bellinzona pair linking Turin with the Gotthard, and new Verona-Bolzano and Trieste-Milan connections via Cervignano.
- Extracts from ing. cav. Cesare Corazza's report on road maintenance in the province of Turin, pressing for test pits into the macadam, statistics of cartage, and steam-roller compaction on provincial roads consuming 100 m3 or more of gravel per kilometre.
- Anti-dust returns: some 36 000 m2 of roads in the canton of Geneva treated with hot tar, cold gas tar, asphaltine, westrumite and apulvite; tar-spraying steam machines demonstrated on the Paris-Versailles road on 28 October; and tarring at Bologna, Ascoli Piceno and, by ing. Rimondini, at Lugo.
- Ing. Massimo Tedeschi on roads reserved for motoring: the Audax italiano and the Touring's road commission take up dott. Giliberti-Cosenza's proposal, while a bill goes to Parliament for sir Douglas Fox's 40-mile motor road from Norbury to Patcham on the London-Brighton line, with no speed limit.
- Extract from G. Q. Kuata's piece in Bologna's Resto del Carlino arguing that vehicles have outrun the roads, and that oiling and tarring — tried in via Indipendenza, at the Foro Boario and in the Giardini Margherita — are the answer rather than anathemas against the motor car.
- The French Touring Club's Revue Mensuelle complains that pre-1789 rules and the laws of 9 ventôse an XIII and 16 December 1811 requiring roadside trees go unobserved and France's avenues are being felled, while Italy's Senate has a bill to encourage planting.
- At Milan's city council on 16 December, councillor Sala asks that cycling be restricted on the busiest streets; L. V. Bertarelli replies that bicycles take less room than tram cars and carriages, and in corso Vittorio Emanuele or piazza Mercanti endanger only the riders themselves.
- New gifts to the signpost fund from barone Davide Leonino, the municipalities of Zoagli and S. Massimo all'Adige, Gola & Conelli and others bring the running total to 1 382 signs and L. 18 170, followed by seventeen warning boards placed by the province of Ancona on the Flaminia, Arceviese and Clementina roads.
- The Audax section of Turin closes its season on 15 October with the Madonna del Pilone-Pino Torinese hill climb, at which capoconsole cav. Rostain has a new Touring signpost erected on the Chieri hill — Piedmont alone having received 279 in 1904-05.
- Milan's municipality and the Touring have put keep-left boards at every entrance to the city, but carters ignore them, as carriages, carts and even omnibuses ignore the no-vehicles notice at the narrow entrance to via degli Orefici.
- From Torre Pellice, via La Lanterna of Pinerolo: eight Touring signs placed by the municipality along viale Dante and the Bobbio-Pellice road plus four by the Unione Alpinistica, and an appeal to authorities, teachers and priests to stop local boys damaging them.
- Municipalities complain that motorists, motorcyclists and cyclists ignore the "rallentare" boards at village entrances; one mayor threatens to resume prosecutions, and the Touring begs tourists to respect the signs for the sake of tourism itself.
- The detailed sectional programme of the Milan 1906 exhibition of Italians abroad, covering emigrant writers and artists, colonies and their trade, Italian hospitals and mutual-aid, military and Dante societies, schools abroad and the Touring's own overseas consulates, with photographs of the Cernavodă bridge and the Zurich emigrants' shelter.
- On low-lying refuge-hotels: the Società Escursionisti Milanesi' hut on the southern Grigna, the Società Rododendro's planned 30-bed rifugio-albergo on Cima Roda of the Paganella above Trento (funded partly by the illustrated one-off Paganella), and the C.A.I. Monza section's new stone Rifugio Monza at Poiat on Moncodeno, ready for summer 1906.
- The Senate approves the new bicycle and motor tax on 6 December; the Touring's memorial to senators argues that the L. 10 bicycle tax is disproportionate now that workmen and shop assistants ride, against L. 150 on a 24 HP car worth 15 000-30 000 lire, and wins the removable plate it had long demanded.
- Interview from the Roman paper La Vita with vice-president comm. Benvenuto Cagli: born of on. Maggiorino Ferraris's idea, the association has grown from 46 to 1 270 members, among them government ministries, the Banca d'Italia, the Banco di Napoli and the municipalities of Rome, Naples, Turin and Venice.
- The Roman section of the foreigners' association asks restaurants, cafés and food sellers to keep premises clean, install modern lavatories, hand money on small metal trays rather than tableware, and abolish the waiter's arm-napkin — advice the Touring had already circulated in its hotel-improvement pamphlet.
- Pallanza on Lake Maggiore is preparing grand autumn 1906 festivities to mark the opening of the Simplon tunnel, complementing those planned by Milan around its International Exhibition.
- Hotel notes: Milan's new Corso Hotel on corso Vittorio Emanuele, built on the site of the Teatro Milanese by ing. Giacomo Santamaria with decorations by prof. Cattaneo, thermosiphon heating, lifts and a restaurant salon opened on 21 December; the closure of the Grande Albergo delle Indie at Brindisi; and Orlandoni's new "Italia" at Ferrara.
- Book notices: captain Camillo Pagliano's Come può l'automobile servire all'esercito?, Emilio Marenco's L'accumulatore elettrico nella pratica, Dante Mattiuzzi's Bologna directory, Ugo Baldini's Hoepli volume on road and rail motors, de Graffigny's L'Électricité dans l'automobile and Champly's Le trésor du chauffeur.
- Gifts to the Touring's library, including Gustavo Benucci's commercial guide to Perugia, the Société des Touristes du Dauphiné annuaire and Michele Cioni's study of the vicarial archive of Certaldo, with notice of the new Paris fortnightly Automotion.
- The Lima committee for the Milan 1906 exhibition of Italians abroad issues the first of twelve parts, prefaced by minister plenipotentiary cav. Tommaso Carletti and carrying a portrait of president Giuseppe Pardo, printed by Carlo Fabbri of Lima.
- Two rulings by the pretore of Busto Arsizio, avv. Boneschi: no offence in wheeling a bicycle by hand with a broken tax plate on the way to the town hall (Albini Calisto), and none in riding with a valid denunciation certificate issued in another person's name (Grianti Carlo).
- The Military Geographical Institute warns that its 1:75 000 map, a photozincographic reproduction of the 1:100 000, is no longer kept up to date and will be sold only while stocks last, sheets 51 and 65 being already exhausted.
- The Christmas number of Milan's Illustrazione Italiana is given over entirely to the Simplon railway and road, with illustrations and articles by specialists.
- Legal replies to members: no vehicle may travel at night without a lamp under art. 36 of the 8 January 1905 regulation; a fine for cycling on a pedestrian walk in a public garden stands even without a prohibition board; and foreign cars entering Italy are covered by the customs certificate of art. 69.
- Council decisions: a small gold medal to the Macerata consulate after the Touring's grand prize at that exhibition, a contract with Cesare Lovati for T.C.I. pennants at L. 6 for cars and L. 7 for boats, support for a ski meeting at Introbio, a 60 per cent reduction on the Como-Brunate funicular, and new Brentari route profiles for the Pian della Fugazza and the Pordoi.
- The Touring's competition for hygienic hotel bedrooms at the Milan 1906 exhibition attracts the Fabbrica Italiana di mobili, Pantalini, Monti, Unione Decorativa, Volonté, Arnaboldi, Paleari, Besana of Milan, Valabrega of Turin, Rizzi of Pergine, Zucchi of Desio and Chiesa of Palazzolo.
- The Club Alpino Italiano's Rivista Mensile devotes an entire issue to the XXXVI congress of Italian alpinists at Venice, written by Carlo Ratti with prof. Ugo Valbusa on the Antelao and Marmolada ascents, and thanks the Touring for the de luxe September number distributed to delegates.
- At the Paris tourism congress held with the 1905 Salon the Touring was represented by councillors comm. G. Silvestri and dott. G. Guastalla, and at the L.I.A.T. congress by secretary-general avv. B. Garbati, who will report in the February Rivista.
- The Military Geographical Institute has suspended printing the first sheet of the Touring's map of the Italian-French frontier — 19 000 copies sent, 18 000 in store and 13 000 still awaited — while rail congestion into Milan has delayed despatch of the Stelvio and Cenisio route profiles.