Rivista Mensile del Touring Club Italiano, Vol 13, No 5
Articles in this issue
- Dott. G. C. Manzutto, T.C.I. consul at Trieste, previews the city for the club's general rally of 28-29 June 1907, leading readers past the Roman baths of Monfalcone, the Timavo, the ruined castle of Duino and the bathing beach of Sistiana to the Piazza Grande, the Palazzo del Comune, the Teatro Comunale, the Lapidario and Civico Museo, and out to the caves of S. Canziano.
- Numbered list of exhibitors at the Milan cycle and motor show, from Carlo Glockner (Adler) and Ricordi e Sessa (De Dion-Bouton) through De Vecchi Strada & C., Garages Riuniti Fiat-Alberti-Storero, De-Luca Daimler of Naples, Mors and Fabrique Nationale motorcycles to Bianchi, Frera, Officine Türkheimer ("Otav"), Nieuport magnetos and the Giuntini and Talbot tyre houses.
- The Rivista's standing roads department, edited by ing. prof. Massimo Tedeschi, reporting here on the roads section of the Italian engineers' and architects' congress held in Milan.
- Massimo Tedeschi summarises the roads papers of the Milan congress of Italian engineers and architects: Emilio Gola of Milan on urgent reform (835 million lire of road capital kept up on 42 million a year), Antonio Albertini of Modena on testing metalling materials, ing. Ciani's scheme to surface roads in cement mortar and sheathe wheel rims in a replaceable wearing cover, and Saro Cutrufelli of Messina on steam-rolling 33 km of Trapani provincial roads from 1905.
- The road bridge over the Po at Piacenza, designed by ing. Pio Cantù to avoid all three level crossings and built by the Società Nazionale delle Officine di Savigliano for a lump sum of 1,953,500 lire — about 2,900,000 with the approaches — shared equally by the provinces of Piacenza and Milan; a caisson accident killed one workman, and the 6 December 1906 flood carried away the pier-6 launching castle and 13 pontoons of the boat bridge.
- On ancient road signing, taken from the Touring Club de Belgique's bulletin: Carthaginian paving, the Roman milestone introduced by Caius Gracchus (the Roman mile of 1485.75 m), Augustus' gilded milliarium aureum under the temple of Saturn, a Greek measured post and a 1730 English milestone on an old road near Skipton in Yorkshire; socio G. Cassoni of Milan asks consuls to get the lettering of old crossroads stones re-blacked.
- The Rivista's standing railway department, carrying this month the differential-tariff ticket and the State Railways' new rolling stock.
- L. V. Bertarelli explains the State Railways' differential-tariff single tickets of 1 November 1906 — issued above 150 km, valid a day per 100 km, with free stopovers and alternative routes — costing 96.10 lire first class for Milan-Florence-Rome-Milan against 125, cutting a Milan-Messina return from about 264 to 162.40 lire, and taking a third-class rider from Milan to Trapani for 36.80.
- The new 20-berth first-class carriage built for the Rome-Palermo night service, combining a 12-berth Pullman saloon with four compartments: hand, rapid Westinghouse and Henry brakes, electric light from Hagen-Hensemberger accumulators, thermosiphon heating, 20.32 m over buffers and 39 tonnes tare.
- The Rivista's standing motoring department, opening this month with the Monaco motor-boat exhibition, the quality of petrol and a miscellany of practical motoring.
- Mario Morasso reports from the fourth Monaco motor-boat exhibition and races, where the Gallinari yard of Livorno shows the finest hulls of the meeting: its 9-metre Sec passes 40 km/h on a little over 40 HP, the 6.50 m two-and-a-half-litre cruisers average 29 km/h, and twelve 7.65 m government picket boats are exhibited beside Tellier racers and Despujols craft.
- Reproduces the new 50-heller postage stamp issued for Austrian-occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina, which carries a motor car.
- Opening of the Touring's study into which petrols suit cold carburettors: density readings prove nothing on their own, so a volatility diagram is needed, and a spirit distilled between 80° and 100° C at 0.715 kg per litre will outperform one distilled from 70° to 110° C at the same density, heavy fractions leaving harmful residues.
- Illustrated motoring miscellany: the Marconi mobile wireless station on a car, the motor ambulance given to Milan's Ospedale Maggiore by the Automobile Club di Milano, the motor omnibuses of the Milan Exposition and the 10,000-lire Premio Reale won by Serpollet Italiana, the Touring's own delivery van, veteran voiturettes at the Paris meeting of 11 November 1906, an Austrian army telephone-laying motorcycle, and 1907 Paris Salon coachwork.
- The Rivista's standing department on trees and reafforestation, argued as a tourist question of both landscape and road maintenance.
- Dott. Lino Vaccari, natural history master at the Tivoli lyceum, backed by the Pro Montibus et Sylvis (president conte senatore L. Sormani Moretti, with Giulio Grünwald junior of Vittorio Veneto its moving spirit), plans an Italian answer to Henry Correvon's Nos arbres, opening with medallions of historic trees from the Castagno dei Cento Cavalli on Etna to the lime of Sant'Orso at Aosta.
- The Rivista opens a new monthly itinerary feature, granted at members' request and entrusted to comm. Bertarelli, with a page reserved in every number until October.
- A thirteen-day cycling tour of Sicily from Messina to Palermo: Taormina, the circuit of Etna by Linguaglossa, Randazzo, Bronte and Adernò to Catania, the sulphur mines of Comitini and Racalmuto on the way to Girgenti, then Solanto, Monreale and Solunto, with an optional steamer round Lipari, Vulcano, Salina, Panarea and Stromboli. The Comitato Panormitan's ten-coupon card, 10 lire but 9 to Touring members, gives 75% off Sicilian fares.
- The rally calendar: the Reggio Emilia general meeting of 18-20 May with its ride to Canossa, Trieste on 25-26 June with an excursion to the Adelsberg caves, Perugia on 26-28 August during the Esposizione di Arte Antica, and Parma on 21-22 September. Also fixtures at Agnone, Biella, Cantù, Mede and Milan, the Greek cycling tour now leaving Brindisi on 12 May, and the V.C.A. tactical exercise with the bersaglieri ciclisti at Rome.
- The Rivista's standing legal-advice department, conducted by avv. Bortolo Belotti, delegate councillor to the club's legal section.
- Motorists and cyclists have rights against communes as well as duties towards them: citing a Nîmes appeal-court decision of 26 March 1906 reported by the Revue du Tourisme et des Sports, in which one Cammas, whose car struck an unlit toll chain entering the city by the Arles road at night, was awarded 100 lire in damages against the commune.
- A French parliamentary candidate, M. Laurençon, sued the firm that hired him a car for 4,430 lire of material and moral damages, blaming its breakdowns for losing him the election; the Tribunal de la Seine on 20 December 1906 saw no causal link and acquitted the hirer.
- Whether a bet between two spectators at a cycle race is enforceable: art. 1802 of the civil code bars actions on gaming debts, and while art. 1803 excepts games of bodily exercise, the writer holds it covers only the competitors — though a recent Milan tribunal judgment extends it to spectators too.
- A member reports a railway charging the higher art. 72 rate for a car by treating it as a heavy wagon or tramcar rather than a wheeled vehicle with its own tariff; the Touring asks the Direzione generale to fix a uniform rule, and the lower rate.
- The Swiss Federal Tribunal held on 27 January 1906 that a tourist who falls ill of an infectious disease at an inn, with no symptoms on arrival and willing to accept any treatment, owes the innkeeper nothing for the flight of the other guests — the risk belongs to the trade.
- Avv. Bortolo Belotti renews his appeal to the club's legal correspondents to send in judgments and cases so the rubric can be kept useful and varied.
- The Rivista's standing customs department, dealing with triptyques and frontier formalities for members' machines.
- Italian manufacturers report how much the Touring's triptyque eased the customs formalities for temporary importation of their cars for the Targa Florio in Sicily; the club also issues triptyques for the Kaiserpreis on the Taunus circuit in Germany in June.
- Book notices — only works sent in duplicate are reviewed: Henry Kistemaeckers' motoring comic novel Will Trimm e C. in Eugenio Bianchi d'Espinosa's translation, Luigi Brasca's monograph on the mountains of Val San Giacomo, the 940-page Annual 1907 of Baudry de Saunier, G. A. Pos's L.I.A.T. reports, Pro Familia's Milan 1906 album, Lattes' L'automobilismo nel 1907 and R. Namias' Annuario del progresso fotografico.
- The periodical Lega Navale announces that the society, which met at Milan in April, has been made a body corporate; and in fascicle III of the ministry's Bollettino d'Arte prof. Paolo Orsi describes new acquisitions for the Syracuse museum.
- A standing department joining cycling to horse racing, opened here by the Touring's new cycle shelter at the San Siro racecourse.
- Having pressed the Società Lombarda per le corse di cavalli to cut San Siro's 50-centesimi bicycle parking charge, the Touring took on the shed itself, opening it on race day, Sunday 28 April: it holds over 100 machines, up to 200 on big days, at 20 centesimi, through a spring meeting running to 2 June with the 50,000-lire Premio del Commercio.
- Results of the 23 February draw of the twenty prizes given to 1906 recruiting members: Hensemberger of Monza accumulators to Urbano Mongini of Bombay, Ferrarini of Capri and others, Festina watches to Stefano Castagnino and Cesare Baratta of Buenos Aires, a Bellani "Cosmos" camera to Giulio Dini of Spello, Marucelli medicine cases, Caimi acetylene lamps, and Carloni, Tolusso and Vigor bicycle brakes.
- The Genoa plate-makers "La Luminosa" patent a dark-room-free holder and packing system for photographic plates, offering members catalogues and sample plates free; and a 90 HP Gordon Bennett-type Mercedes is for sale at Ravenna on the owner's death.
- Resolutions of the Direzione Generale: ing. Pugno to represent the club in unifying prealpine waymarking with the Club Alpino and the Federazione Prealpina; papers to the L.I.A.T. congress at Munich on tourist taxes, Austrian customs and unified road signals; patronage for the Trieste rally and a general meeting at Parma in September; a cabinet and folders for the 58 sheets of the Carta d'Italia; and a monthly itinerary in the Rivista.
- The Istituto Nazionale per l'incremento della educazione fisica in Italia is surveying gymnastic teaching, halls, apparatus, rifle clubs and sporting societies, and the Touring asks its consuls to report to the provincial committees or direct to the institute in Rome.
- New affiliated garages — Auto-Garage "Italia" at Bologna, Chierici Manzani e C. at Imola, Autocommerciale at Mestre and Turin, Francesco Bagnoli at S. Giovanni in Persiceto, the Società per Imprese Elettriche at Siena — with a correction of the Garages Riuniti Fiat-Alberti-Storero entry printed under Genoa, Naples and Padua, followed by affiliated mechanics and chemists.
- Although the cut in the petroleum customs duty relieves petrol of 24 francs a quintal, dealers' stocks bought at the old 48-franc rate and a price rise by the refinery trust are swallowing the saving; the Touring's inquiry finds its affiliates hold little stock, warns that prices in the Annuario Generale are last year's, and lists new affiliates at Boscolungo, Cernobbio, Casale Monferrato and elsewhere.
- New gifts to the signpost fund from the province of Como, the municipalities of Fontanella, Roncade, S. Massimo all'Adige and Farra di Soligo, Piero Porta of Milan, baroness A. de Gunderrode of Florence, the prince of Lucedio Franco Carrega and conte E. Luserna di Campiglione, bringing the totals to 2,266 signs and 318.73 lire.
- The Touring has nearly completed its customs signposting, having despatched all the boards and supports to the receivers of customs; those at Maslianico and Ponte Tresa refused reimbursement of the costs they had met themselves.
- List of members who have taken the five-year subscription, from Carlo Alinari of Florence and Emilio Ammannati of Galluzzo through avv. Astorre Baccarini of Fano to Biagio Barberis of Turin and A. Barbiano di Belgioioso of Milan.
- The 1907 fourth edition of the club's motoring yearbook, the only one of its kind in Italy: addresses of Italian and foreign makers, agents, garages and hire firms, a list of every car owner, the motoring clubs and public motor services, circulation and customs rules, transport and telephone tariffs, and advice on building garages — 2.50 lire to members, 5 to others.
- A walnut-stained cabinet with five shelves for the 58 folded sheets of the Touring's Carta d'Italia at 10 lire, and a half-leather portfolio for the sheets kept flat, to Montalti's design, at 12 lire de luxe or 5 plain; orders to the Sezione Economato in via Monte Napoleone 14, Milan.
- Members who applied to join the T.C.I. between 1 and 31 March 1907, opening with the life members — cav. Giuseppe Tosi of Bardonecchia, Gustavo Amosso of Biella, Silvio Gagliardi of Buenos Aires, the provincial deputation of Como, and from Milan the Società Anonima Lombarda Vetture Automobili and the Società Italiana Automobili "Darracq" — then the ordinary members province by province.