Rivista Mensile del Touring Club Italiano, Vol 18, No 6
Articles in this issue
- Illustrated survey of Rhodes on its passage to Italy: the 1,460 sq km spindle of limestone rising to Monte Attairo (1,249 m), the twin artificial harbours of Agoras and Mandraki, a population fallen from 200,000 to 30,000 (20,000 Greeks, 7,000 Turks, 2,000 Jews), the 305 B.C. siege by Demetrius Poliorcetes with 370 ships, and the Knights of St John who held the island from 1309 until Suleiman's attack of 1522; illustrations lent by the Sovereign Order of Malta.
- Two-page photogravure plate of the Italian occupation of Rhodes: the old harbour, a well at the camp of the 57th Infantry, the 5th Fusiliers' camp outside the city gates and the road down to the port.
- A literary cruise through the ancient Aegean, opening with Telemachus's departure in the Odyssey and taking in the Cretan palaces of Knossos, Phaistos and Haghia Triada, the temple of Apollo at Delos, and Astipalea (Stampalia), whose marble treaty of alliance with Rome (Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum II, 2185) is quoted against the arrival of the Italian fleet.
- Filippo Tajani on colonial railway building: metre and 60 cm gauges in the Belgian Congo, at Otavi and on the Beira–Fort Salisbury line, the 2,700 km trans-Sudan route of French West Africa, Paul Leroy-Beaulieu's abandoned trans-Saharan scheme, Cecil Rhodes's Cape-to-Cairo, and Italy's 118 km Massaua–Ghinda–Asmara (35,000 native passengers in 1911) and the new Tripoli–Ain Zara line in Libya.
- A. Ceradini's medical guide to motor touring: furs and a floor radiator fed from the engine in winter, goggles against the blepharitis and conjunctivitis caused by dust, a folding rubber bath at each stage, days of 250 km at a 40 km/h average and 60 km/h maximum, the rise in red cells and haemoglobin it produces, and its contraindications — epilepsy, febrile tuberculosis, gallstones and the first and last months of pregnancy.
- The Direzione declines the flood of requests for free propaganda copies of the monograph, offering both Il Bosco il Pascolo il Monte and Il Bosco contro il Torrente to members alone at one lira post-free, sent direct to whatever recipients they nominate.
- Photo plate of the action of 17 May 1912 at Psithos on Rhodes, showing Italian riflemen with the colours on the ridge and the surrendered Turkish garrison drawn up below.
- Four photographs by the member Torcolin: the village of Psithos under Italian artillery fire, a mountain battery marching on Psithos, the mosque of Asgurù serving as the Turks' munitions dump, and the column of Turkish regulars going to surrender.
- News-photo pages: the aviation dead — Conte di Robillard near Nice, Verrept at Chateaufort, Lt Volle d'Avray at Verdun — and Harriet Quimby's Channel flight; the Michelin aerocible bomb-dropping trials; Védrines electioneering and his wreck at Épinay; seaplanes at the Weymouth naval review; the Stockholm Olympic stadium under construction; the Italian racing winners Alceo, Rembrandt and Makufa; and the Simplon now open daily to cars.
- The Rivista's monthly news digest, grouped by subject from aeronautics and alpinism through motoring, aviation and railways to geology, the Olympic Games and roads.
- Dr Elias's spherical balloon flown without suspension cords to save weight, Austria's purchase of four 9,000 cubic metre German airships probably of Zeppelin type, Japan's acquisition of the Parseval XIII, and the ten military dirigibles Russia will hold once the Astra-built ship joins the Lebed, Krechet, Golub, Sokol and Kobchik.
- Tendopoli, the S.U.C.A.I. student alpinists' tent camp, moves from the Graian and Pennine Alps to Selvapiana (1,550 m) in the Comelico superiore above Padola, within reach of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, the Cadini and Misurina; the organising commission sits at Venice's Museo Commerciale under the student Frazzi.
- The Royal Automobile Club of Belgium's Ardennes circuit of 20–21 July, for teams of three cars over 600 km a day; 286 km/h reached at Long Island by a car with a 300 hp Fiat engine; and the 1,050 km Giro di Sicilia promoted by L'Ora of Palermo with the Gazzetta dello Sport.
- Newly opened motor services — La Morra–Verduno–Bra, the 234 km Ragusa–Chiaramonte Gulfi–Vizzini, Firenze–Montesenario–Bivigliano, Ascoli–Acquasanta–Amatrice–Aquila and Fermo–Petritoli — with public motor cabs inaugurated in Florence and the Colle–Caprile–Gattorno run suspended over the state of the road.
- The Consiglio Superiore dei lavori pubblici approves motor-service concessions to Ottavio Rovere (Albenga–Pieve di Teco, 29 km), Panissidi Tindaro (San Piero Patti), Antonio Passarelli (Castelnuovo Vallo–Laurito, 42 km), the Giaccherò brothers (Acqui–Ponzone) and Luigi Jacquemond (Courmayeur–Piccolo San Bernardo).
- The Aéro-Club de France's 100,000-franc Grand Prix over the Angers–Cholet–Saumur circuit; the Irish Sea attempts by Allen, Corbett Wilson and Hervitt; General Roques's tougher French military brevet distances; the Aero Club of America's 2,913 km Chicago-to-Detroit circuit; Le Matin's 155,000-lire Peking–Paris flight along the Transiberian; and Admiral Twining's anti-aircraft gun throwing a 450 g shell to 5,500 m.
- The Tripoli–Ain Zara military line reaches the entrenched camp on 10 March and Ain Zara on 17 March, 11.39 km with passing loops and a 16 km branch to Fort Tagiura; Senator Gauthier's electric Tangier-to-Juba trans-African project powered from Lake Chad; Leipzig's new 13-platform station covering 82,000 sq m at 170 million francs; and Horace's 16-day Rome–Brindisi journey now done in under 15 hours.
- Italy's 1910 mineral output — 2,815,511 tonnes of sulphur worth 32,383,409 lire, then zinc, iron, argentiferous lead, mercury and copper, 80,367,479 lire in all; E. A. Martel's descent of 40 chasms in the French Basses-Pyrénées; thalassographic surveys off Tripoli, Derna and Homs by the Ciclope with Massimo Sella and Antonio Manuelli; and Mawson's Antarctic party finding no trace of Clarie Land.
- The Fifth Olympiad at Stockholm, 29 June to 22 July 1912: the 320 km cycling road race round Lake Mälaren on 7 July, rowing in the fjord on 18–19 July, yachting at Nynäshamn, a 383 m running track, and a gold medal for the finest feat in hunting or mountaineering between 1908 and 1911.
- The carriage road from Enego to the Valsugana railway nears completion, and new roads are opened from Ubiale to Brembilla station, from Vigolo to Tavernole and from Schignano to Argegno (7 km at a maximum gradient of 7 per cent), with the Schignano–Cerano continuation agreed.
- Reviews of the Annuario d'Italia 1912, Estella Canziani's Costumes traditions and songs of Savoy, Stettiner's Roma nei suoi monumenti, Douglas Sladen's How to see Italy by rail, Mathuisieulx's La Tripolitaine d'hier et de demain, Gian Giacomo Roseo's Bocconi thesis on the bicycle industry and trade, Agostino Ferrari's Mont Blanc and Valle di Viù volumes, and Premoli's Dizionario nomenclatore.
- Works presented to the Touring's library, among them Dimier and Gobillot's La Basse Normandie, Ghisleri's Tripolitania e Cirenaica, Marinetti's La battaglia di Tripoli, Ricchini on the legal status of air space, the Touring Club de France annuaires and the Real Automóvil Club de España's 51-sheet road map.
- The month's resolutions of the T.C.I. Direzione, running from a projected yachting yearbook and consular appointments in Libya to commission nominations, patronage of sporting congresses and the state of dispatch of the members' publications.
- The Direzione approves in principle the plan for a Touring yearbook of boating and yachting for 1913.
- Special propaganda is to be mounted to intensify and extend the affiliation services — hotels, garages and petrol and oil dealers — which the Direzione judges the most effective vehicle for making the Touring known, above all in the southern and island provinces.
- Dr Guastalla reports on the Paris meeting of the executive sub-commission of the association of recognised automobile clubs, and on the action the Touring should take on the desiderata it approved unanimously.
- At the Capo Console Generale's request the Touring will name temporary military consuls to units mobilised in Libya, even where their regiments already have a consul in Italy, the appointment lasting only for the Libyan tour.
- The Touring will grant patronage and prize medals generously to the 1912 congresses and sporting meetings, subject to prior checks on the seriousness of the organising committees and their standing with the club's local representatives.
- Rather than convene a commission, the Direzione agrees to take up the Italianising of foreign sporting terms in the Rivista itself, summarising the proposals philologists and sportsmen may put forward.
- Edoardo Sassi, head of Milan's Genio Civile, is named a full member of the Roads Commission and the engineer Carlo Daviso di Charvensond a corresponding member.
- Italo Bonardi, Michele Oro and Lt Col Andrea Maggiorotti are confirmed as the Touring's representatives on the Rome national sub-committee.
- The Direzione declines the Società Filatelica's request for a room at the Touring's premises in return for a reimbursement of costs.
- A new form of reward for recruiting members is approved: a gold medal drawn by lot each month among all members who introduced at least one new adherent during it.
- Acting on the general assembly's recommendation, mounted sheets of the 1:250,000 Carta d'Italia will be supplied to customs offices, beginning with the busiest tourist frontier passes.
- The Touring accepts the Austrian Touring Club's cordial invitation to the congress of the Ligue Internationale des Associations Touristes, to be held this year in Vienna.
- The jury's final classification of the boats placed in the first round is received; the three prizes are awarded and a special prize proposed, in agreement with Senator Colombo of the Nautical Tourism Commission.
- A large silver medal is granted to the Milan section of the Audax for a cycling march to be run by every section of the Audax Italiano, combined with rifle-range exercises.
- The Direzione explains that with print runs above 100,000 copies each publication must go out a few thousand a day in a fixed order that cannot be altered, so individual requests to be served sooner cannot be met.
- Dispatch of the Nizza (14) and Taranto (43) sheets, completing the block of eight due to 1911 members, began on 25 May at about 2,000 a working day and will take some two months.
- The Lazio volume is still at press and should start reaching members in August; the Emilia guide is still being compiled.
- Dispatch of the monograph, begun at the end of April, will be completed during the month; the price is one lira.
- Over 100,000 copies of the yearbook, each weighing 450 grammes for a total of nearly 500 quintals, are going out at about 2,000 a day and will take the rest of this month and part of the next; the price is two lire.
- The Canton Valais has amended its regulations for the Gondo–Brig section: from 15 May cars may cross the Simplon on any day, the earlier restrictions on days and speed having been relaxed.
- Among the many letters thanking the Direzione for the winter festival, the Rivista prints that of General Cigliana, Inspector of Mountain Troops, acknowledging his gold medal and pledging the army's support for Touring initiatives.
- The summer schedule of members' reductions, obtainable only on production of a membership card in order with payments, completed and carrying a photograph stamped by the Direzione Generale.
- Spa and hydropathic discounts: 20 per cent at the Regie and Nuove Terme of Montecatini, 33 per cent at Salsomaggiore's Dalla Rosa and Corazza establishments, 50 per cent at Voghera, and reductions at Monza, Oropa, Salice Terme, Tabiano, Turin and Trapani.
- The Monte Generoso railway at Capolago allows members 50 per cent off ordinary return fares and 20 per cent on holiday returns, and the Società Varesina 50 per cent on the Varese–Sacro Monte and Varese–Campo dei Fiori returns.
- A 30 per cent discount on personal tickets aboard the steamers of Como, Maggiore, Garda and Iseo when travelling with a bicycle, on production of the booklet the T.C.I. issues in batches of five at 50 centesimi.
- New appointments: Dante Appiani as Capo Console at Treviso; consuls at Bozzolo, Elena, Manciano, Monterosi, Soncino and Vercelli; medical consuls at Campobasso, Nuraminis and Vercelli; legal consuls at Bari, Chiavari, Cuneo and Siracusa; and the consuls resigning or ceasing at Ceggia, Cernobbio, Ferentino, Goito, Grosseto and Macerata.
- Members taking the five-year subscription of 30 lire (40 from abroad), from Bangkok and Buenos Aires to Denver, Edinburgh and Valparaiso, who receive a silver-and-enamel badge and every publication the club distributes free during the term.
- Members who have introduced ten new adherents and so earn a silver medal, among them Giulio Bucherelli at Bengasi, Lt Giovanni Caruso at Tripoli and Lt Cesare Gazzani at Homs.
- Candidates for membership who lodged their applications between 1 and 30 April 1912, listed as life or annual members by province from Alessandria to Trapani and followed by foreign sections for Belgium, France, Germany, Britain, Russia, Switzerland, Africa and the Americas.