Rivista Mensile del Touring Club Italiano, Vol 13, No 6
Articles in this issue
- Pompeo Molmenti describes how eighteenth-century Venetians reached the mainland by gondola and burchiello, along the Brenta to Padua and the Livenza, Lemene and Sile from Pordenone, Portogruaro and Treviso, and explains the lizza carts and the sostegni locks at Fusina, Moranzan and Marghera that lifted boats between canal and lagoon.
- The Sixth Italian Geographical Congress is under way at Venice (26-31 May 1907), where the Touring exhibited its Carta d'Italia alongside papers on railway geography by I. Baroni, the Friulian Alps by O. Marinelli and Polesine cartography by E. Piva.
- Notes the Venice International Fine Arts Exhibition, where the influence of motoring on painting is unusually marked this year, and the seventh national Gymnastics Competition opened there on 9 May with javelin, discus, pole vault, weight-lifting and rope-climbing events.
- Opens a series on Italian castles worth a tourist's detour, with pieces on Sanguinetto, S. Angelo Lodigiano and the threatened Malaspina castle at Malgrate.
- Avv. Carlo Valle describes the moated medieval castle at Sanguinetto on the Mantua-Padua provincial road (61.5 km from Mantua's Piazza Erbe), a Dal Verme possession from 1370 where Iacopo da Carrara was imprisoned in 1405 and Tuscan students taken at Curtatone were held in 1848; it now houses the town hall, court, schools and carabinieri barracks.
- Pedrazzini Sobacchi Giovanni recounts the S. Angelo Lodigiano castle, whose tower Regina della Scala had built in 1381 and where Pirro Gonzaga was captured by the Marquis of Pescara's Spaniards in 1525; Count G. Giacomo Morando Bolognini has spent some thirty thousand lire restoring its Scaligero-Visconti tower to its original merlated form.
- Protests the sale of the fourteenth- to fifteenth-century Malaspina castle at Malgrate, which the buyers mean to turn into a church; the whole Valdimagra and the regional monuments office have taken up the campaign to save it.
- Stefano Johnson and Achille Negri, Touring consul in Milan, recount their winter 1907 crossing on the Hamburg-Amerika liner Amerika and their rail tour of New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St Louis, Denver, Salt Lake City, San Francisco a year after the earthquake, Portland, Vancouver, Chicago's stockyards, Niagara Falls and Boston.
- The Milan section of the C.A.I. honours Antonio Baroni, the 75-year-old Val Brembana guide, with a gold badge at its annual banquet; news follows of the XXXVIII alpinists' congress at Varallo, the Federazione Prealpina at Alpe Turati, the Alpinisti Tridentini's Carducci plaque on Monte Piana, and the Società Alpina delle Giulie's XXV meeting in the Giulie.
- Recalls the previous issue's article on the propaganda book Prof. Lino Vaccari is compiling in favour of reafforestation, and commends it to members.
- The Veneto regional section of Pro Montibus et Silvis is setting up a competition across five provinces for planting coastal poplars on the thousands of abandoned hectares of dune surveyed between the Cortellazzo and Tagliamento river mouths.
- The 5th Regiment's cyclist Bersaglieri rode from Bologna to Melegnano on 18 May to meet the 7th Regiment's company and the Milan Volontari Ciclisti squad, visited the 1859 ossuary, paraded past the Touring's headquarters and were received next day by comm. L. V. Bertarelli; photographs by ing. cav. Giovanni De Simoni.
- The Rivista opens two reader surveys, offering members two further ways of contributing to the magazine.
- Members are asked to name Italy's finest viewpoint, giving altitude, nearest town, means of access and a brief panorama note; candidates cited range from Monte Orfano above Rovato and Superga to Brunate, Taormina, the Mottarone, the Schlern and the Antelao.
- Signed o. b., this survey asks members for photographs, colour notes and answers on surviving regional dress, still worn in the Ossola valleys, Fobello, Tesino, Abruzzo, Calabria, Sicily and above all Sardinia.
- The Ciclauto opened at Milan's Parco on 18 May 1907 with the Duke of Genoa representing the King: run as a cooperative that returned 17 per cent to exhibitors in 1905, it now has 199 exhibitors, 149 stands and 7,000 sq m, the five leading Targa Florio cars on show, and a Touring stand selling the Annuario dell'Automobilismo and the Carta d'Italia.
- Railway department reporting two projected lines that would shorten Venice's links with the north: the Cadore-Toblach scheme and the Venezia-Bassano-Primolano (Valsugana) line.
- Deputies Brunialti, Loero and Magni put ing. Feliciano Bianchi's plan to Bellunese mayors for a 48 km Pieve di Cadore-Auronzo-Landro-Toblach railway tunnelling under the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, which would put Venice over 80 km closer than Trieste to Munich, Stuttgart and Nuremberg.
- The Valsugana line is being built in two sections: Mestre-Bassano, 51 km on the flat and ready by January 1908, and Bassano to the Austrian frontier between Primolano and Tezze, 31 km with 18 tunnels due in May 1910; the international customs post will be at Primolano, not Bassano.
- Roads department carrying the Touring's wheel-rim traction trials, a campaign against glass and nails left on the highway, a draft highway code and a note on Abruzzo's communications.
- On 16 May a second series of eight traction-resistance trials was run on the muddy Comasina road beyond Affori, comparing 6, 10 and 15 cm wheel rims under a 22-quintal load with a dynamometer inserted between a Pirelli cable wagon and the test cart, before engineers Gola, Pozzoli, Pinciroli, Poggi and Cattaneo.
- Eugenio Picotti, Touring consul at Ampezzo di Carnia, circularised local councils and the Udine Genio Civile about broken glass and nails on the roads; the chief engineer replied that instructions had been given to all staff on the national roads.
- The Touring's legal section is adapting to Italian law the road code published by Perrigot, president of the Automobile Club Vosgien, and summarises the French primary-school pamphlet's rules for country pedestrians: keep to the verge, stop rather than run in front of a car, and never throw stones at passing vehicles.
- Quotes Rosmunda Tomei Finamore in La Favilla of Perugia on Abruzzo's wretched communications: villages reached only by stony torrent-bed tracks and cramped four-seat carriages, in contrast with the branch lines and carriage roads of northern and central Italy.
- Motoring department carrying the Touring's petrol investigation and road itineraries to the Taunus and Dieppe racing circuits.
- The Touring's technical commission, with the analyses entrusted to prof. Gianoli, tabulates the first sample from the Società Italo Americana per i Petroli (density 0.717) and shows that fractions boiling above 100 °C need air at 35-50 °C to carburate, so a petrol that works in summer may fail in winter.
- Gives the shortest routes from Milan to Homburg over the Gotthard via Schaffhausen and Durlach (729.8 km) and to Dieppe via the Simplon, Lausanne, Pontarlier, Dijon and Paris (1,064 km), with the Chiasso, Bargen, Stühlingen and Gondo customs posts and the triptyques the Touring alone issues in Italy.
- Round-up of Touring meets held and forthcoming, at Reggio Emilia, Agnone, Empoli, Trieste and Padua.
- Rain and hail spoiled the Touring's general meet at Reggio Emilia on 19 May: speeches at the Teatro Municipale by mayor avv. Rossi, prof. Naborre Campanini and comms. Johnson and Candiani, a banquet for about 150, and the Canossa excursion replaced by a visit to the Mauriziano; Campanini was acclaimed capoconsole for Reggio.
- Reminder that a cycling and motoring meet will be held at Agnone (Campobasso) on 14 and 15 July.
- The second Esposizione Campionaria Nazionale at Empoli has prompted a national Touring meet there on 23 June, with numerous prizes for visiting squads.
- The Trieste meet programme: reception of squads and a parade of flower-decked cars, motorcycles and bicycles on 29 June, then cycling, running and boating events, a steamer trip in the gulf and an excursion to the caves and chasms of San Canziano, closing with a torchlit cycle procession and fireworks.
- The Touring has its own stand, tended by consul A. Gribaldo, at the Veneto tourism exhibition open at Padua until 16 June, alongside displays by the Aporto, Cadore and Venice sections, the C.A.I. university station, the Trentino and Pro Cadore.
- Count A. Visconti di Saliceto, Touring consul, read verses at the Cernusco sul Naviglio cycling meet of 19 May praising the steel machine, the pedals that devour bad communal and provincial roads, the saddle and the warning bell the stubborn pedestrian ignores.
- Further detail on the new Piacenza bridge: ing. Pio Cantù's metal-girder design was preferred to a reinforced-concrete one and the work given to the Officine di Savigliano, while ing. Italo Vandone's viaduct variant for the left-bank approach, approved by the Consiglio superiore on 16 December 1906, costs only 150,000 lire more than a continuous embankment.
- A wry note that in America a professional beggar, seeing his takings fall as motor cars sped past, bought a motorcycle so he could chase them and put his affairs back in order.
- Department of suggested outings, opening with a Sunday cyclo-alpine round from Bergamo through the Val Brembana.
- A Sunday cyclo-alpine outing from Bergamo to S. Giovanni Bianco (37.1 km), carrying the bicycle through the Enna gorge past the Orobia power stations, up to Sottochiesa and the Forcella di Bura (907 m) and back by Sedrina, with a stop at San Pellegrino whose Grand Hôtel shipped 2,121,936 bottles of water in 1906.
- A committee formed at Bologna by the local foreigners' movement association and the Touring consulate convenes the first national congress there on 22-24 June 1907 to found an Italian counterpart of France's Comité des Sites et Monuments pittoresques.
- L. V. Bertarelli reports on the Touring's map: the proceedings of all 69 provincial councils are being indexed for road and water data, ministries have given works such as L'idrografia d'Italia, and consuls Oreste Lattes (Rome's electrical plants), De Angelis (Naples' free zone) and Ettore Baiocco (Terni) have supplied updates.
- The Civitavecchia and Frosinone sheets are printed and go out to members at once, ahead of Roma and Napoli; De Agostini's daytime printing and a slightly cooler hachure tint have much improved the legibility of the contour lines.
- On 1-2 June the Volontari Ciclisti join Bersaglieri detachments from Rome, Naples and Ancona in a coastal tactical exercise with a torpedo boat over about a hundred kilometres, plus a shooting match; the article reviews the V.C.A. since the Touring's 1897 resolution and the Milan, Turin, Como and Cremona units under General Sismondo's central committee.
- Resolutions of the Direzione Generale: comm. ing. Oreste Lattes replaces Prince Prospero Colonna on the physical-education institute committee, the Civitavecchia and Frosinone map sheets are despatched first, Barrère of Paris takes a depot of Touring publications, an international auxiliary language is declined, and fresh pressure is put on the Finance Minister to cut the bicycle tax.
- Third list of new Touring consuls, headed by capo console on. Raineri Giovanni at Piacenza, with regimental officers appointed at Acqui, Asti, Belluno, Bologna, Caserta, Cremona, Naples, Rome, Turin and dozens of other garrisons, continued on the next page with the medical section and legal consultants.
- New offers for the Touring's signposts, from the Province of Naples, the Automobile Club of Turin (1,000 lire for 100 signs), Fratelli Borsalino of Alessandria, the Cotonificio Leumann and others, bringing the running total to 2,398 signs and 34,813 lire.
- The municipalities of Turin and Pavia appear among the life members in this issue's candidate list, which the Touring hopes will encourage other councils to follow.
- The 1907 edition of Rodolfo Namias' photographic yearbook is out; Touring members writing direct to the author in Milan, via Malpighi 3, may have it for 1.50 lire instead of 3.
- The cyclists' shelter built at the San Siro racecourse on the Touring's initiative has been well used; the spring meeting closed on 2 June and the summer meeting opens on 9 June with the 100,000-lire Gran Premio Ambrosiano.
- Warns members that one Giuseppe Barbul is travelling in Italy and abroad claiming to collect subscriptions for the Touring; he holds no commission, is no longer even a member, and will be prosecuted once his address is found. The Touring has no travelling agents: pay by post to the direzione.
- New affiliated pharmacists, hotels, garages and mechanics, with tariffs and members' discounts, including the Hôtel Brun at Bologna, the Italia e Cappello at Cremona, the Pension Lyskamm at Gressoney-St-Jean, the Meublé Moderne at Milan and the Grand Hôtel Continentale at Siena.
- Complaints that members buy petrol from dealers the Touring has not recognised; approval of dott. G. Volpato's Fahrol oils; and new supply points at Adria, Arona, Bergamo, Busca, Cremona, Foiano della Chiana, Genoa, Meda, Milan, S. Daniele del Friuli and S. Pietro di Cadore, with price cuts listed for some thirty other towns.
- Reviews G. Marietti's I progressi tecnici in relazione all'avanscoperta (Rome, 1907), which argues for volunteer cyclists and the military value of the motor car, and Vincenzo Orlic's Guida pratica della provincia di Portomaurizio (Oneglia, 1.25 lire) with its new appendix for the Giovanni Ruffini centenary.
- Yearbooks and works received as gifts, from the Touring Club de France (with its four-volume Sites et Monuments), Touring Club Suisse, Union Vélocipédique de France and Española, Automobile Club of Klagenfurt and Turin, the Cyclists' Touring Club of London, the Dutch A.N.W.B. and Enrico Penna's Indicatore generale of Italian postal, rail and tram services.
- Announces the enlarged 1907-08 edition of the Touring's motoring yearbook, the only one published in Italy, covering Italian and foreign circulation and customs rules, transport and postal tariffs, garages and hire firms, every Italian car owner and club member; 2.50 lire to Touring members, 5 lire to others.
- Describes the walnut cabinet made to hold the 58 folded map sheets (58 x 43.5 x 18 cm, 10 lire at the Sede) and the half-leather portfolio, to a Montalti design, for unfolded duplicate sheets, correcting the prices misprinted in the May issue.
- Lists the year's prizes: five nickelled acetylene lamps with separate generator given by Fratelli Santini of Ferrara, five five-year Touring subscriptions and 50 lire of photographic plates from the Società La Luminosa of Genoa, and an 'Expo' watch-shaped pocket camera with its enlarger from Toletti e Ferretti of Milan.
- Roll of April 1907 membership candidates, life members first — among them the municipalities of Turin and Pavia, on. Pompeo Molmenti of Moniga del Garda and the Mitteleuropäischer Motorwagen Verein of Berlin — followed by annual members listed province by province.