Rivista Mensile del Touring Club Italiano, Vol 13, No 4
Articles in this issue
- A. Balletti's illustrated guide to Reggio Emilia ahead of the Touring's May meet, covering the city's history from the via Emilia to Matilde of Canossa, its Teatro Municipale jubilee, the Madonna della Ghiara and S. Prospero paintings, and excursions to Canossa, Rossena and Petrarch's Selvapiana.
- Manifesto of the Reggio Emilia executive committee, chaired by prof. Naborre Campanini, announcing the 18-20 May Touring meet with prizes for the largest and most distant squads, ladies, motorists and bands, a parade prize-giving at the Politeama Ariosto, and a Monday excursion to Canossa.
- Viareggio's cycling meet is put back to 14 April so as not to clash with Pietrasanta's Carducci commemoration; Lucca's tourist meet (25-26 May) is promoted by the Società Libertas, Trieste's international cycling meet (29-30 June) by the local consulate under avv. Carlo Mrach, and Perugia's general meet (25-26 August) coincides with the Umbrian antique-art exhibition.
- The Ferrovie dello Stato's new American four-cylinder compound locomotives from Baldwin of Philadelphia, assembled at the Cattori works in Castellammare di Stabia, run to 120 km/h; twenty Pullman-type first-class carriages come from Jackson & Sharp of Wilmington, and a luxury Vienna tramcar is also illustrated.
- Ing. Massimo Tedeschi sets out what the new Ministry of Public Works commission on national-road upkeep should tackle: contract specifications still based on an 1874 template with no provision for rolling or tarring, a graded cantoniere service with uniforms, an age limit of 65 and bicycles for head cantonieri, and traffic-census statistics.
- Ing. Ettore Accenti's paper to the XI Congress of Italian Engineers and Architects reports Milan's 1896-1905 road spending rising from L. 1,038,413 to L. 2,549,318, and finds S. Fidelino white granite and compressed asphalt (about L. 16 per square metre) the best surfaces, with Mac-Adam macadam still unavoidably dusty and muddy.
- The T. C. I. special commission, with Automobile Club di Milano delegates, has costed the proposed Milano-Varese motor road, to be built of broken stone with two further rollings over nine years as a full-scale experimental highway; local committees are to be appointed to raise the money.
- France has taken a traffic census every six years for over half a century; in Italy only Modena and the Milan provincial technical office have begun, so the Touring's Commissione Strade will draft standard rules for provinces wanting to measure vehicle, animal and tonnage traffic.
- Ing. Andrea Maggiorotti relates motor power to gradient and load for motor omnibuses — 10-16 HP on the flat, 22-28 HP for heavier loads, a 24 HP bus carrying 20-25 people at 18 km/h — and argues for a low centre of gravity, a chassis about 75 cm high, roughly 2,400 kg, accessible organs and dust-proof carters.
- Entries for Milan's cycle and motor show closed on 31 March; the Ferrovie dello Stato grant concession I fare and freight reductions, and Fratelli Gondrand are the official carriers for duty-free entry of foreign exhibits.
- The Automobile Club di Torino opens a reliability trial for 24-28 June, followed on 29 June by a speed contest over the Susa-Moncenisio course, with L. 12,000 and L. 8,000 in prizes for the two categories and entries closing 5 May.
- The Danish automobile club and the union of car makers and dealers will hold an international motor exhibition in Copenhagen from 28 September to 7 October.
- Giovanni Curletti, inspector of the Automobile Club di Milano, drove his car from Milan to Mestre and back with Achille Negroni, Giuseppe Sala and Enrico Bellazzi in little over eight hours despite deep snow to Verona, snowplough stops, heavy mud and no anti-skid tyres.
- The Società Alpinisti Tridentini's Trento assembly under Guido Larcher revised its statute (alternating seats at Trento and Rovereto, seventeen directors, half-price subscriptions for workers, a new "Audax" section); the Federazione Prealpina under Ottone Brentari created Volontari Alpinisti; and the Escursionisti Milanesi marked their fifteenth anniversary with 560 members.
- Tourist-promotion news: 260 passengers off the German steamer Meteor tour Bari; avv. Michele Palatini launches a Belluno alpine exhibition for 1908; Pro-Canavese is founded at Castellamonte, Pro Benaco on Lake Garda, and Ligurian and Pisan sections of the Associazione Nazionale pel Movimento dei Forestieri at Genoa and Pisa.
- On road signing: The Car reports farmers as the group most indifferent to signposts, and in Italy they damage them believing they only serve motorists and cost them paid directions; the T. C. I.'s blue-enamel types 2418-2422 and the customs sign 2420 are described, with Reggio nell'Emilia ordering 81 signs for L. 1,150.
- Latest subscriptions for signposts, including L. 1,150 from the province of Reggio Emilia, L. 740 from Milan and L. 240 from Rome for "Tenere la sinistra" plates, plus Isotta Fraschini and the Brasier agency, bringing the running total to L. 30,998 for 2,207 signs.
- Tables ranking Italian provinces and regions by members per thousand inhabitants — Milan leads with 9,687 members (6.33 per thousand), then Turin, Genoa and Novara, Reggio Emilia seventh — followed by average per-member spending from 1901 to 1906.
- Minutes of the general meeting of 17 March 1907 in the upper hall of the Esposizione Permanente, opened by Johnson and chaired by prof. Celoria, covering the council's report, the 1906 balance sheet, the Carta d'Italia debate and three members' motions.
- Secretary Vigliardi Paravia reports assets of L. 337,457.60 at 31 December 1906 (L. 127,425 held for life members), 9,225 new members including 322 life members, and twelve years in which L. 2,014,000 of subscriptions produced L. 2,235,000 of spending, plus work on bicycle carriage by rail, level crossings, hotels and the Carta d'Italia.
- Customs department covering the Gabelle circular on temporary export papers for cycles and cars and the renegotiated French triptyque.
- A Direzione Generale delle Gabelle circular signed Busca: since the removable plate of the law of 10 December 1905 ended free re-entry on a fixed plate, owners need a temporary-export bolletta, now valid for a year and reusable for repeated crossings on a simple entry and exit visa.
- The French customs cut the triptyque's validity to three months in reciprocity for Italy's treatment of the French document; after lengthy negotiation the Touring will issue from April a new French triptyque valid six months from the car's original date of import and good for several successive entries.
- The legal advice column conducted by avv. Bortolo Belotti, delegated councillor for the Sezione Legale.
- On what counts as "suitably moderated" speed under art. 67 of the road police regulations: the Tribunale Circolare di Trento on 15 February 1907 acquitted avv. Ehrenfreund of Venice, holding that 12-14 km/h in Val di Fiemme was moderate given the gradient and bend even though two horses bolted.
- An affiliated firm asks whether advertising that a race was won on one make of machine, when it was actually won on another, is unfair competition; Belotti answers yes, since it rests on deception and confusion, and the winning maker has an action in damages.
- A judgment of the pretore of Arezzo, 14 February 1907, repeats that carrying the cycle plate in one's pocket rather than on the steering head does not defraud the law, though the Cassazione takes a stricter view.
- At Treviglio a man riding his motorcycle-registered bicycle with the motor removed was convicted for carrying the (dearer) motorcycle plate; the Rivista argues the fiscal law of 23 December 1905 should be read with equity, since the machine's normal destination was as a motorcycle.
- Whether the State railways can be sued through a stationmaster for damage done by a shunting engine to a car at a level crossing: the stationmaster's representative capacity extends only to the contract of carriage, under art. 872 of the commercial code and art. 137 of the tariffs.
- Book notices including Giulio Carotti's Corso elementare di storia dell'arte (Hoepli, 590 engravings), Evelyn's Antichi pittori italiani, the fourteenth French edition of Baedeker's Italie Méridionale, the Jovinelli brothers' Guida pratica di automobilismo and Cherpillod's Manuale di Jiu-Jitsu.
- Periodical notes: a Norwegian cycling tour by Obskurus Clement in Der Radtourist, Olinto Marinelli on the Mittagskofel-Wischberg-Montasio nomenclature in In Alto, the Touring Club de France on Pyrenean deforestation, the new Lo Sport Nautico, and the Illustrazione Bresciana on preparing the track for the 1 September 1907 motor race.
- Gifts to the Touring library, among them an 1820 Vallardi Itinerario Italiano given by member Roberto Sarlo of Naples, Augusto Righi's La moderna teoria dei fenomeni fisici, Michele Berardelli's La Sila di Calabria and offprints from prof. Paolo Revelli.
- Club notices and the council's resolutions of the past month: support for the Reggio Emilia and Perugia meets and the Siena-Perugia national run, the Touring stand at the Turin Salon, Bertarelli's paper on the Carta d'Italia for the Venice geographical congress, the 1907 budget, and a new boundary signboard for communes.
- Despatch of the 704-page Annuario Generale began on 25 March at 2,000 copies a day, 76 pages up on 1906 with customs posts, carriage and horse hirers, sporting associations and climatic stations added, plus the chief novelty of resorts just beyond the frontier in the Trentino, Ticino, Grisons, Valais, Savoy and Venezia Giulia.
- Free distribution of the first four sheets (9-10-13-16, Torino-Milano-Venezia-Genova) is complete to provinces beginning with M and due to finish in early April; series II is Civitavecchia-Roma-Frosinone-Napoli and series III Como-Brescia-Pisa-Bologna-Firenze, due about the end of November.
- The enlarged 1907 motoring yearbook, ready about mid-month, lists makers, agents, garages, parts, tyres and ignition apparatus in Italy and abroad, circulation and customs rules, transport charges for cars and motorcycles, and club addresses; L. 2.50 to members, L. 5 to others.
- On 2 March the King received a T. C. I. deputation of Johnson, Bertarelli, Vigliardi-Paravia, Zaffaroni, the prince di Scalea and prince Colonna, was presented with the first four sheets of the Carta d'Italia and the Rome proof, and later visited the Istituto Geografico De Agostini where the map is produced.
- Agevolezze nel Pagamento Quota 1907 pei Soci abitanti in Francia o in Svizzera. (opens in a new tab)Thanks to the Lyon consul G. B. Balbi, the Crédit Lyonnais and its French branches will accept members' subscriptions from 1 April; in Switzerland the Banca Mario Pasquali of Chiasso takes the same task and will also collect by draft throughout the Confederation.
- The serious illness of the finance minister on. Fausto Massimini halted talks begun in September and continued on 25 February for cutting the bicycle tax, despite over 250 deputies pledged to vote for it; on. Mira's question failed and the Touring will revive the campaign at the Reggio and Perugia meets.
- The VI Italian Geographical Congress will meet at Venice between 26 and 31 May, with the Touring officially represented and the Carta d'Italia formally presented to it.
- Answering the Bergamo consulate, the Valle Brembana electric railway will let Touring members send their kit as baggage even when not travelling on the train, as the State railways already do.
- E. Bianchi e C. of via Nino Bixio 25, Milan, will send its new 1907 bicycle catalogue free to Touring members who mention their membership when writing.
- Forty-fifth list of the medical section: dott. Pietro Lugiato at Legnago, chemists at Alano di Piave, Carignano, Gualtieri, Suzzara, Pontedera, Piacenza, Ravenna, Sondrio, Udine and elsewhere, and legal consultants avv. Luigi Zotti of Bologna and avv. Silvio De Dominicis of Penne.
- New affiliated second-category mechanics at Battaglia, Borgone Susa, Borgosesia, Cagliari, Casale Monferrato and Vercelli, and a benzina list with prices per kilo at Milan, Pallanza, Pistoia, Verona and other towns, with a plea that members buy from affiliates.
- List of candidates for membership between 1 and 28 February 1907, life members including Vincenzo Lancia of Turin, the Società Geografica Italiana of Rome and Antonio Fraschini of Milan, followed by annual members by province.