Rivista Mensile del Touring Club Italiano, Vol 15, No 5
Articles in this issue
- Argues that Petrarch was the first modern tourist, quoting his letters on Vaucluse and the Euganean hills and his house at Arqua, and crediting Boccaccio's dictionary with the first exact description of the Po from Monviso to the sea; illustrated with Alinari photographs of the Laurenziana portrait and Petrarch's tomb.
- Acqui in Monferrato unveils Eugenio Baroni's monument to the polar explorer Giacomo Bove, Nordenskiold's companion on the Vega, described in Ettore Cozzani's monograph; commander Roncagli lectured at the town theatre and avv. Raffaele Ottolenghi presided over the banquet.
- A tour of Rome's Castel S. Angelo as restored by colonel Mariano Borgatti: Hadrian's mausoleum and its bronze-peacock enclosure, the 1700-year-old helicoidal gallery, Leo X's lift, Cagliostro's cell, Della Porta's angel, Alexander VI's oil stores and the historic prisons, ending on the terrace beneath the bronze angel.
- Chariot racing in the Circus Maximus explained for modern racegoers: the carceres, spina and metae, the chalk calx finish line, the seven laps, the four faction colours, the sacred procession from the Campidoglio, and the Barcelona mosaic that names each quadriga's horses.
- Fourth instalment, 'Proverbi storici': 'Passare il Rubicone' and the rival Romagna streams claiming the name (Benedict XIV's 1756 bull settled on the Luso, now the Pisciatello), 'il soccorso di Pisa' dating from Daiberto's late arrival at the First Crusade, and the Buondelmonti feud in Florence.
- Dott. Mario Beretta on Mantua as the terminus of Po navigation: the Mincio's silted mouth, the floating 'cuorotti' islands of the lago superiore, the local 'colmata' and 'averta' manoeuvres, Gian Galeazzo Visconti's Valeggio dam, and the single modern quay; the Touring will go to Mantua in September to explore the Po mouths.
- Members' entitlements for 1909: the Annuario Generale reprint, eight Carta d'Italia sheets (Ravenna, Pesaro, Sciacca, Caltanissetta, Cuneo, Macerata, Chieti, Orbetello) and two illustrated regional monographs including 'Abruzzi', with arrears collected at L.6,20 in Milan, L.6,55 in the Kingdom and L.8,55 abroad.
- A single Italian aeronautical commission is formed from the Societa Aeronautica Italiana, the Societa Nazionale d'Aviazione, the Touring Club and the Automobile Club d'Italia, with the Touring given sole competence over aerial tourism (mapping, signalling, circulation, customs); its delegates are Federico Johnson, Gildo Guastalla and Arturo Mercanti.
- The Ministry of Finance confines trade-plate test running to the firm's own province and to four occupants including the driver; the Touring petitions for the rule to be revoked, arguing buyers demand trials of several hundred kilometres including mountain roads.
- The Touring's scheme for a single international carnet to replace the separate triptyques each country demands has been endorsed by foreign touring bodies and sent to the Foreign Ministry ahead of the Paris conference of May 1909.
- The Touring joins the fiftieth-anniversary commemorations: a members' muster at Magenta on 4 June organised with the Dante Alighieri, a ceremony at Melegnano on 1 June, and the Desenzano rally of 24 June leading to S. Martino and Solferino where two Touring plaques will be set.
- Italo Bonardi on fox-hunting over the Roman campagna with the century-old Societa della caccia alla volpe: meets at Cecilia Metella, Villa Doria Pamphili, Tre Fontane and Ponte Nomentano, forty English foxhounds and Irish horses, Gabriele D'Annunzio photographed at a jump, and the season closing with a red ball and the Tor Fiorenza horse show.
- The Volontari Ciclisti e Automobilisti now have fourteen recognised provincial committees (Bologna, Brescia, Como, Cuneo, Genova, Milano, Novara, Pavia, Piacenza, Reggio Emilia, Sondrio, Venezia, Verona, Vicenza); arms go only to units approved by the Comitato Centrale, and half-yearly returns on forms 2 and 3 are now demanded without further delay.
- The Desenzano consulate announces a general Touring rally on 24 June: L.3 entry buys the badge, commemorative medal, the municipality's vermouth d'onore, machine storage and rail reductions, with a visit to the Ossario of S. Martino della Battaglia where Federico Johnson's plaque will be unveiled.
- E. C. Costamagna on the sixth Monaco motorboat meeting: Saunders' Wolseley-Siddeley III took the 100 km Campionato del Mare from a stagnant Panhard-Levassor, Chantecler won the cruiser championship, Liselotte (Mercedes) and Sizaire-Naudin scored at Monaco, and Italy was absent after the Fiat-Gallinari burned at sea.
- Spring 1909 review of machines, experiments and races: Wright still supreme and teaching lieutenants Calderara and Savoia at Rome, the Olympia aeronautical show in London, Breguet's helicopter turned elicoplano, the pedal-driven aerocycles of count de Puiseux and the Englishman Gaumont, Santos Dumont's Demoiselle at Saint-Cyr, and the Brescia and Reims circuits.
- The Cefalu and Catania sheets complete the eight promised to 1908 members, bringing the Carta d'Italia to twenty sheets published since 1906; the block of twenty is sold at the head office for L.10 to members and L.20 to non-members.
- The jury's award in the 1908 Rava-Sforni mountain-waymarking competition: first-class silver medals to cap. Celestino Bes, marchese Vincenzo De Peco, Cesare Morlacchi, cap. Giuseppe Almasia and others, L.25 expense refunds to Morlacchi, Desio-Camesasca and dott. Uziel, L.5 to each soldier employed, and a medal of merit to the Alpini regimental commands.
- Rules for the second Rava-Sforni competition, closing 30 November 1909: three classes — alpinists and alpine clubs (L.500 fund), Alpini officers and NCOs (L.300) and hoteliers and local improvement societies (gold medals and diplomas) — with every route to be notified to the Consorzio in advance and written up as a monograph.
- Mr Burt's American motor-caravan, a five-seat double phaeton whose seat backs fold flat into a bed screened by celluloid curtains, with electric light, a gas stove for cooking and a week's provisions, meant for touring the interior of California; a faster answer to English caravanning. From The Car.
- The roads department for May 1909, carrying the Touring's parliamentary campaign for road reform, the delegates' report on the Paris road congress, the forthcoming monograph on Italy's roads, and news columns of new roads, motor-bus lines and railways and tramways.
- The Road Improvement Commission voted on 2 April to circulate to deputies and senators ing. M. Tedeschi's memorial for the Touring, asking for a Codice Stradale covering everything from trunk roads to farm tracks, steam rolling and tar-spraying on national roads, and larger maintenance votes in the public works budget.
- The Touring delegates' report on the first international road congress, discussing each resolution and devoting a chapter to what Italy could adopt: further trials of elastic macadam (tarmac and tarmacadam) and wider use of cylindering and tarring, the latter an Italian engineer's idea first tried in Italy.
- A forthcoming Touring study of Italy's 140,000 km of roads, built from returns supplied by sixty provinces and divided into three parts — development, classification and law; provincial roads; national and communal roads — with heavy emphasis on cylindering and tarring.
- New roads voted or begun: Comeglians–Rigolato and Forni Avoltri–Sappada in Udine province, Tavernola–Castro on Lake Iseo, the proposed Lipomo–Brivio consortium agreed at Inverigo, and Lavena's approach road to Porto Ceresio station.
- New motor-bus services: Viterbo–Orvieto opened 12 April, Rapallo–Zoagli on 11 April, Adria–Ariano–Cavarzere–Piove on 15 April, plus Belluno to the Cadore, Sestri–Borgotaro–Spezia, Piacenza–Bobbio, Cortanze–Torino and Urbino's Macerata-Feltria–Pesaro contract.
- Rail and tramway news: a projected Verona–Legnago and Montagnana tramway, the Padova–Bagnoli line's extension to Rovigo, the Como–Cernobbio electric tram, the opening of the Padova–Fusina electric railway, the 661 m Bergamo–S. Vigilio funicular, and a L.1,200,000 company for the Biella–Oropa line.
- The English painter S. H. Sime's nightmare drawings, from his 'Paesi delle fate', 'Paesi dei sogni' and 'Paesi degli incubi': the rich man at the narrow gate of paradise, a greed-monster crouched on a crag above a man building his fortune, a striding giant, and a Poe-like pine forest with wolves slinking away. From the Strand Magazine.
- How the Cowlairs incline on the Edinburgh–Glasgow line is worked: a 4,800 m steel cable of 13 cm diameter weighing 20 tonnes, wound by a 650 hp stationary engine, drags 200-tonne trains up the 2 km bank of 25 mm per metre and releases the locomotive automatically at the summit. From La Nature.
- Book notices led by d'Estournelles de Constant, Painlevé and Buttiaux's 'Pour l'aviation', the new weekly 'La grande Italia' which will carry a column on the Touring, F. A. De Benedetti's 'Verso la meta', the Club Alpino Accademico's Annuario Sportivo 1908 and Emilio Tons' 'Enciclopedia dello sport', with a long list of further titles received.
- Photo page of the month's events: the Oxford–Cambridge boat race with the crowd packed along the bank and the two crews racing, and Wilbur and Orville Wright talking with their sister Kate beside a shot of Wilbur in flight.
- Council business: thanks to consigliere ing. Pugno for the report he presented to the Public Works Ministry commission on wheel-rim widths in relation to vehicle loads, and approval of the office's proposal for a permanent inquiry into road conditions in Italy.
- New Touring consuls appointed at some fifty places from Alassio and Ancona to Milan, Padova, Torino, New York, Costantinopoli, Valparaiso and Zurigo, with new medical consultants at Bogliaco, Corchiano, Fossombrone, Ozieri and Susa and a legal consultant at Treviso.
- The legal advice column reports a Chieri magistrate's ruling of 17 February 1909 on an owner's liability for his chauffeur's speeding, argued for cav. Alfredo Rostain of the Societa Brevetti Fiat by avv. Roberto Clarotti.
- The Pretore of Chieri acquitted cav. Alfredo Rostain, prosecuted under art. 67 of the 1905 road police regulation after car '63-51 in prova' raced through Andezeno, holding that art. 60 of the penal code cannot reach an owner who was not aboard and could not have prevented the offence.
- The month's admission list, opening with life members from Chicago, Grosseto, Macerata, Maglie, Mogadiscio, Piacenza, Roma, Siena and Venezia, and running province by province through the annual members from Alessandria and Ancona to Sassari, Siracusa, the Eritrean colony and members abroad.