Rivista Mensile del Touring Club Italiano, Vol 12, No 12
Articles in this issue
- Notice that the 1907 subscription (L. 6 for members in Italy, L. 8 abroad) must be paid by 15 January, and that unpaid 1906 members will not receive the first four sheets of the Touring's Carta d'Italia due out in December.
- Review of the Italia Artistica series of illustrated monographs published by the Istituto Italiano d'Arti Grafiche of Bergamo under Corrado Ricci, from Ricci's own Ravenna to Guido Carocci's Il Valdarno da Firenze al Mare and Antonio Beltramelli's volume on the Po lagoons.
- L. V. Bertarelli explains the division of labour agreed with the Istituto Geografico De Agostini for the Touring's 1:250,000 map of Italy, and how consular information, altimetric corrections and itinerary capisaldi are fed back into the sheets.
- Explains the differential railway tariff in force since 1 November 1906 — reductions beyond 150 km, tickets no longer tied to a named train, validity of 24 hours per 100 km and up to five stopovers — and the forthcoming vicinale tariff for short journeys of up to 250 km.
- The Cyclist Company of the 7th Bersaglieri (captain Natali, lieutenant Barbieri, sub-lieutenant Ciard and 60 men) rode from Milan to Aosta, carried their machines to the Piccolo San Bernardo hospice (2188 m) and the Gran San Bernardo (2467 m) in wind and sleet, then returned via Ivrea to Milan.
- Standing department on attracting foreign visitors to Italy, opening with the Brunialti report on protecting Italy's scenery and monuments.
- Extract from Attilio Brunialti's applauded report to the Congress of the Association for the Concorso dei Forestieri, reviewing Italy's patchy legal protection of woods, landscapes and monuments; a Syracuse committee's circular urging teachers to instil respect for the city's ruins is quoted in full.
- The Automobile Club of Bourges has put an information board carrying all useful tourist notices at every entrance to the town; the Rivista commends the idea to Italian communes and foreigners'-traffic societies.
- Fernando Trasatti's July cycling tour from Rome via Venice and Trieste, through Carnia and the Cadore dolomites to Cortina d'Ampezzo, then Trento, Rovereto, Riva, Brescia and Bergamo to Milan for the international exhibition, on an itinerary sketched for him by Arturo Mercanti.
- Efrem Magrini's monthly motoring department, reviewing new Italian and foreign machines, accessories and shows.
- Description of the new Fabbrica Automobili Standard (F. A. S.) of Turin, which will exhibit at the Turin motor show: pressed-steel chassis of 2.750 m wheelbase, four-cylinder 85 x 110 mm engine of 10-14 HP, cardan drive and engineer Negro's new differential.
- Air-propeller vehicles reviewed: Zeppelin's 1900 use of an air screw to tow his airship on Lake Constance, a 12 HP Daimler-engined Zeppelin boat shown at Wannsee in 1902, and A. K. Schaap's American 3 HP propeller sledge reaching 30-35 km/h.
- A dynamo brake with armature-mounted movable field windings, balanced by a sliding weight and read with a tachometer, offered as a replacement for the Prony brake in measuring engine output.
- The Triumph speed indicator, geared off the front axle, shows current speed on scales up to 90, 125 or 160 km/h, records maximum speed on a red hand, and totals up to 10,000 km; built in aluminium and fitted beside the driver.
- A. Battigali of Viterbo, a Touring member, owns a pedal quadricycle the Rivista reproduces, arguing it would have fitted well in the Milan exhibition's retrospective gallery of ancestors of the modern bicycle.
- Hervey Kistmaeckers of La Vie Automobile answers the problem of the over-loaded touring car with a two-seater whose rear lid lifts to reveal two more seats, keeping room for spares and accessories.
- The IX Salon International du Cycle, de l'Automobile et des Sports opens at the Grand Palais on 7 December with F.I.A.T., Itala, Isotta Fraschini, Bianchi, Züst, Rejna Zanardini and Florentia showing; the T.C.I. again takes a hall, sharing it with the Milan 1907 cycle and motor show society.
- Regulations issued for the fourth Turin motor show at the enlarged Palazzo delle Belle Arti al Valentino, 16 February to 3 March 1907, covering cars, motorcycles, bicycles, motor boats and aeronautics; entries close 31 December 1906.
- The Milan cycle and motor show society, reconstituted for sixteen annual spring shows, is negotiating with the city and the exhibition committee to take over the Decorative Arts buildings in the Parco for its May 1907 event; Johnson, Crespi and secretary Achille Fusi sit on its administration.
- Report on the Berlin salon of 1-14 November, opened by the Crown Prince and repeatedly visited by the Kaiser: the striking feature is the rise of commercial and passenger vehicles, with Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft of Marienfelde showing a range of omnibuses, alongside six-cylinder engines and the new electric Mercedes.
- Congratulations to aeronauts Usuelli and Crespi, who left Milan in the balloon Milano and became the first to cross the Alps by free balloon.
- The monthly mountaineering department, carrying club excursions, ascents and Alpine notices.
- Carlo Sandoni describes the Bologna consulate's tenth-anniversary holiday colony for poor children at Vidiciatico (over 900 m, on the Porretta-Fanano road), visited by education minister Rava and by Bologna Touring members, which ran through August 1906.
- The first congress of the C.A.I.'s Stazione Universitaria took students from Milan, Florence, Padua, Pisa and Rome on a seven-day march from Pieve di Cadore over the Forcella Peronati, Laghi di Lavaredo, Monte Piana and Passo Tre Croci to Alleghe, led by Giuseppe Palatini; the next congress is set for Monte Rosa.
- Consul Ernesto Felici writes from Arce that Touring members from Arce and the Polverificio cycled to Patrica and climbed Monte Cacume (1095 m) in the Monti Lepini, with views over the Pontine Marshes to Monte Circeo, returning through Frosinone and Ceprano.
- The Touring's information office reports the Monginevro, Cenisio, Piccolo and Gran San Bernardo, Sempione and Tonale passes closed to motor traffic by snow since the first half of November.
- The Touring's roads department, reporting on road-building experiments, surfaces and traffic questions.
- M. T. describes the experimental road laid past the agricultural and road exhibits at the Milan exhibition, and the haulage trials run over its various pavements with the Ministry of War's 10-tonne Cantono military road train with its powered fore-carriage and third motor.
- The Touring commission's report on tyre-width trials concludes that widening cart tyres from 50 mm to 80-100 mm cuts the traction effort by about 17 per cent, with little further gain beyond 80 mm; the findings will appear in an illustrated booklet sent free on request.
- The department covering vehicle taxes, excise duties and customs formalities affecting cyclists and motorists.
- Results of the Touring's referendum of members of parliament on cutting the bicycle tax from L. 10 to L. 5: some forty deputies, among them Brunialti, Torrigiani, Angelo Pavia, Numa Campi, Bernini, Marazzi and Pinchia, reply favourably and their letters are quoted.
- Finance minister Massimini having asked the T.C.I. to test the ministry's petrol denaturant, the joint commission of the Touring and the Automobile Club di Milano has met and sent him a memorandum.
- Customs notes for members, opening with the Austrian customs pass for cyclists and motorists.
- The Touring's customs section warns that motorists increasingly fail to have their exit recorded, leaving triptyques undischarged and the club liable for heavy foreign duties; a new expiry register will now warn holders by registered letter fifteen days before the triptyque falls due.
- The Ponte di Legno customs post (Valcamonica, Brescia) is to move about 600 m onto the Tonale road; the observation post 9 km away can stamp triptyques and levy petrol duty up to 20 lire but cannot issue temporary-export bills.
- Germany is reportedly studying a further five-mark plate for every car in circulation, withdrawn on leaving the country and thus good for one journey only, along with an absolute ban on studded and other anti-skid tyres.
- The Touring's legal advice department for members.
- Digests of court rulings of touring interest, including the Livorno tribunal's 22 October 1906 acquittal of New York chauffeur Faron Giuliano Wisch over a fatal collision and its finding that a revolver kept in a car counts as luggage, and a Strambino judgment of 3 November 1906 against Guido Bigio of Turin for running down Dominetto Antonio.
- The book rubric, opening with Verga, Nebbia and Marzorati's Milano nella storia, nella vita contemporanea e nei monumenti (Cogliati, 1906), a Belluno guide, and the Swedish Tourist Traffic Society's Sweden.
- Periodical notes: Th. Chèze on La Bicyclette Educatrice, the Illustrazione Bresciana on Fortunato Canevoli's Risorgimento medal collection, Vittorio Pica in Emporium on decorative art at the Milan exhibition, and The Motor Boat of New York on motor boating in Canada.
- Report of the jury on the road-monograph competition announced in October 1904: sixteen entries were received, and the L. 1,000 first prize was divided ex aequo between N. 8 « Italia » (Padua) and N. 10 « Italico » (Milan), with N. 3 and N. 15 taking the second prizes.
- The Fédération des Sociétés des Pyrénées' international distress code, adopted at the Pau congress of 14 August: six optical or acoustic signals a minute followed by a minute's pause, answered by three a minute, recommended to cyclists and motorists as well as alpinists.
- Official club news, council minutes, membership lists and consular notices.
- Minutes of the council meeting of 31 October 1906 under president Johnson with secretary Mercanti, recording the 1906 ballot that returned councillors Binda, Riva, Favari and Zaffaroni and auditors Turrini, Soffredi and Magnocavallo, and discussion of ing. Riva's resignation from the Direzione.
- Account of the club's stand at the Milan exhibition, visited to the last day by members including the Duke of the Abruzzi; the Touring took the Gran Premio in the land transport section, two diplomas of honour in the road section, and gold medals from the foreigners'-traffic association and the Milan chamber of commerce, while Bertarelli and Candiani were made Commendatori.
- Bertarelli's address to Dante Alighieri members visiting the Touring's headquarters after their Genoa congress, placing the 1:250,000 Carta d'Italia under prof. Celoria's geodetic auspices and asking their help with toponymy in the border regions the map covers.
- Fortieth list of new consuls, from Arcidosso and Assisi to San Vito al Tagliamento.
- Forty-first list of affiliated chemists, T.C.I. mechanics and garages, including pharmacies at Adria and Mondovì and the Garage Anglo Italiano at Bologna and Gran Garage de Venise at Mestre.
- Affiliated hotels with tariffs and facilities, among them the Albergo Beretta at Gardone Val Trompia, the Scudo di Francia at Ivrea, the Scudo di Savoia at Leyni and the S. Michele at Madonna di Tirano, most offering a ten per cent discount, a garage and a darkroom.
- New subscriptions towards signposts from donors including Attilio Cassoni of Codogno, the Gozzano consulate and the communes of Carugo and Arosio, with lists of signs erected in the provinces of Ferrara and Florence.
- Candidates who applied for membership between 1 and 31 October 1906, life members first — among them the Deputazione Provinciale di Napoli and the Società Anonima Terme S. Pellegrino — followed by annual members by province.