Rivista Mensile del Touring Club Italiano, Vol 20, No 1
Articles in this issue
- Account of the 14 December 1913 celebration in Milan for Luigi Vittorio Bertarelli, with a sculptural group mounted over 40,000 members' subscription cards, a banquet, and telegrams from Giolitti, Credaro and senators Golgi, Cavasola and Ponti. Senator Vigoni announced Bertarelli's election as honorary member of the Reale Società Geografica Italiana.
- Bertarelli's own letter of thanks, written days after the demonstration, to the forty thousand consoci, to his colleagues on the Consiglio and to the Sindaci whose telegrams and subscriptions overwhelmed him.
- History of the Touring's five Milan homes since 1894 (Via Rovello, Via Gabrio Casati, Via Giulini) and plans for the sixth: a 1,420 sq m corner site on Corso Italia with 162 m of frontage on three streets, first stone in January 1914 and inauguration in August 1915, financed by an appeal for soci vitalizi and a new class of soci fondatori.
- Scrutineers' minutes of 16 December 1913 on the referendum closed on 15 December: of 21,088 voters, 20,607 approved the proposed changes to the Statuto en bloc, 395 rejected them outright and 86 rejected part.
- The Commissione di Turismo Invernale abandons the fourth winter carovana for 1914 because no Alpine or Apennine resort answered its appeal with concrete proposals, and restates the aim of building up Italian hotels so winter sports can flourish at home rather than across the border.
- The case for a Milan training school for hotel staff, following Swiss, French, Austrian and German precedents (Lucerne's school is illustrated), with photographs contrasting correct and incorrect table service and napkin handling, and a proposed two-branch curriculum of general and professional subjects.
- Twenty-article draft statute for the school promoted by the Touring's Commissione di Miglioramento Alberghi, covering the Consiglio di Vigilanza, the Director's powers over admissions and staff, free tuition, and an annual course running 15 September to 30 June.
- Announcement of the spring 1914 camping excursion to Tripolitania, approved by Minister Bertolini and Governor Garioni with Cav. Tedeschi leaving for Tripoli to arrange it; the twelve-day itinerary runs Naples-Tripoli, Zanzur, Tagiura, Bugheilan, the Garian, Homs and Leptis Magna.
- Fabio Majnoni reviews the 1914 season: cardan shafts and worm drive displacing chains, automatic pressure lubrication, dynamo lighting and self-starters, ogival torpedo and closed limousine coachwork, the retreat of the sleeve-valve engine, and the limits of cheap American cars.
- B. Maineri on the Piedmontese cosmographer Giacomo Gastaldi, whose "Universale della parte del mondo nuovamente ritrovata" and the "Universale Novo" in the 1548 Ptolemy rank among the earliest and best maps of the New World, against the secretive Spanish cartography of the day.
- Ing. Ottorino Pomilio reports from the fifth Paris aeronautical Salon at the Grand Palais: no foreign exhibitors but a Bristol biplane, Deperdussin monocoques including Prévost's 203 km/h Gordon Bennett winner, the tailless Nieuport-Dunne, Moreau, Breguet and Clément-Bayard machines, and Gnôme's new 18-cylinder 200 HP rotary.
- Silvio Zambaldi's essay on the Wandering Jew, opening with ser Giano da Sergialdo's snowbound December 1411 crossing of the Apennines from Borgo San Lorenzo to Bologna, and tracing the legend through Béranger, Schubart, Hamerling, Longfellow, Chamisso and Quinet.
- Giuseppe Bevione's eight-day carriage journey across the Anatolian plateau — Istanoz, Burdur, Egherdir, Isparta — along the railway conceded to Italy, describing the carpet looms, attar of roses, opium and grapes of Burdur and Isparta and the trade now drawn off to Smyrna by the Aidin line.
- Nino Chiaradia on the medieval clerici vagantes and goliardic poetry, illustrated with the courtyard of Padua university, the historic Caffè Pedrocchi, an old tavern and fourteenth-century student types.
- Guido Vicenzoni on toys — their antiquity, psychology and educational value, with factory scenes of doll hairdressing, small basket-making, barrel-organ assembly and toy-soldier painting — and on Italian makers' struggle against German competition despite an import duty of 80 centesimi a kilo (1.50 lire for fine dolls).
- Technical-commercial note illustrating SPA motor-coach services, including a snowbound Aosta-Courmayeur working and the Reggio-Scandiano-Castelnuovo line crossing the Scandiano bridge.
- Note on the Istituto Editoriale Italiano's forty-volume "Biblioteca dei ragazzi" and its wrought-iron bookcase, offered to Touring members for 125 lire by monthly instalments, with the series described volume by volume (il libro della gloria, dei tesori, dei prodigi, delle ricchezze, dei viaggi, delle città meravigliose, degli spettacoli).
- What 1914 members receive free: the remaining 1:250,000 Carta d'Italia sheets (Trieste, Fiume-Pola, Corsica), the illustrated Rivista Mensile, the seven-volume Guida d'Italia, the "Emilia" regional guide, the new Annuario Generale, the monograph "Le ricchezze della montagna" and the three-volume Guida delle strade italiane di grande comunicazione.
- The magazine's standing news department, running this month from aeronautics and alpinism through motoring, railways, geography and geology to roads and tramways.
- Masson of the Ligue Aérienne proposes an aerial navigation beacon at the Baudimont aviation ground near Arras, and the French Comité National Aérien inaugurates new aeroplane landing stations at Langres, Saint-Dizier, Cubzac and Sézanne for civil and military fliers.
- The SUCAI sections of Bologna, Florence, Genoa, Milan, Pavia, Rome, Turin and Venice hold the Festa nazionale delle matricole, with Prof. Caroncini's address at Turin; the Seniores also publish advice to student alpinists and organise winter mountain marches for the carnival holidays.
- New motor-bus services: SPA's Frosinone town-to-station line timed to the trains, the state-subsidised Reggiolo-Gualtieri line from 1 December, the Piacenza-Cologno line completing Alberto Laviosa's Crema-Soresina-Codogno network, S. Agata dei Goti-Maddaloni, and a twice-daily mail and passenger service from Chianni via Bagni di Casciana to Pontedera.
- The Swiss Federal Railways' scheme to electrify the Gotthard line is about to be approved as a first step towards freeing Swiss industry from imported coal; the Northern Pacific orders 50 Mikado and 10 Mallet locomotives from the American Locomotive Co. for the Rocky Mountains; and a Sulzer two-stroke Diesel locomotive of about 1,000 HP is tested between Winterthur and Romanshorn.
- Lantern-slide projections in the teaching of Italian geography; W. R. Rickmer's photogrammetric survey of the Pamir and the Khanate of Bokhara; Aurel Stein's third Central Asian journey for the Government of India; Stötzner's ethnographic mission from Ciòng-tu-fu into eastern Tibet; the Paris meeting on the 1:1,000,000 map of the world; and Montandon's crossing of the Ghimarra and the Gurafarda plateau in south-west Ethiopia.
- The Museo Civico di Storia Naturale in Milan opens three new public halls of geology, mineralogy and Lombard fossils, among them the Sala Stoppani with the Ursus spelaeus skeleton from the Buco dell'Orso above Laglio, fossil fish and reptiles from the Lake of Como, and material from Arzo, Besazio, Esino and the Bergamo valleys.
- Ing. André of the Rochefort technical office compares three ways of laying and rolling gravel recharges on ordinary roads and recommends a progressive continuous method that barely interrupts traffic; also the flyover being built to remove the level crossing on the Turin-Rivoli road, and an Austrian firm's offer of a wooden paving trial to the Comune of Rome.
- Complaint that the Comune of Greco Milanese has re-gravelled the Milano-Monza viale with coarse uncilindered stone, leaving a torrent-bed of pebbles, and that the Piacenza-Parma road between Borgo San Donnino and Parma is deeply rutted while the Piacenza-Fiorenzuola stretch is well kept.
- Tramway business before the Consiglio Superiore dei LL. PP.: two new electric branches at Mantua for the Bresciana Elettrica, extension of the San Remo-Taggia line to Ospedaletti, route variants at Viareggio-Forte dei Marmi and on the Forlì-Ravenna line, and an Ancona-Falconara line; a royal decree converts the Milano-Gallarate steam tramway to electric traction.
- The Touring Club Italiano's standing department of official notices, covering committee inaugurations, dealings with ministries, commission appointments and members' business.
- Verona's provincial committee for landscape and monuments is constituted on 26 November in the Sala del Consiglio Comunale, presented by Cav. Carlo Sandoni for the national committee; the presidency elected includes the marchesi Luigi and Arrigo di Canossa, Angelo Dall'Oca Bianca, Massarani Prosperino, Fumanelli, Grancelli, Monga, Spazzi, Vignola and console Luigi Modena.
- After talks with the Genoa exhibition's organising committee the Touring will build its own pavilion in rough form and hold its Convegno Generale there; Genoa also hopes to host the Crociera Motonautica supporting the Escursione Nazionale in Libya.
- INTERPELLANZA ALLA CAMERA PER L'OSSERVANZA DELLA MANO UNICA NELLA CIRCOLAZIONE. (opens in a new tab)The Delegazione Romana reports that on. Bignami will question the Chamber on enforcement of the keep-to-the-right rule; the Touring judges it better to press the Presidenza del Consiglio, since the existing law is simply ignored by road users and not enforced by the police.
- Motor-boat owners on Lake Maggiore protest at the Novara Finance Intendancy taxing their motoscafi on the same footing as steamers.
- The Ministry of Public Works grants 3,000 lire, a third in the current year and two-thirds in the next, towards the Touring's road signs, restricted to danger and level-crossing warnings on national roads and chiefly in the south, and excluding direction signs — which the Touring asks be added.
- The Aero Club asks the Touring to name two members to the Ministry of Public Works commission drafting an air-navigation law; Comm. Mercanti, Secretary General of the Touring, and Comm. Bonardi, Secretary General of the Delegazione Romana, are appointed.
- The Touring declares itself not competent to take part in the Aero Club's central technical-scientific commission and disinterested in the appointment of aeronautical experts.
- Signor Usuelli is named the Touring's second delegate representing the Aero Club d'Italia on the International Commission for the Aeronautical Map.
- The commission for the first Italian dictionary of tourism and sport is settled: lists are approved of the societies to be invited to send a delegate and of the writers and technical experts in each branch of sport who will contribute to a single compiler.
- Avv. Radice reports on the Rome meeting of the national commission for physical education, proposing one-day school outings, special rail fares for school carovane, and hospitality in colleges, boarding schools and convitti; four sub-commissions are created and Radice named to one.
- The Comune of Nizza Monferrato asks to buy a portfolio of the Carta d'Italia on the terms granted to secondary schools; the Touring refuses, ruling the concession applies only to schools and not to individuals or other bodies.
- Condolences to the family and to the C. M. S. on the sudden death of ing. Pozzoli, a member of the Touring's Commissione Miglioramento Strade.
- After the success of the Bertarelli celebrations the Touring resolves to print Bertacchi's lecture and turn it into a propaganda lecture for the Sodalizio, to be delivered by suitable speakers in appropriate settings.
- Book notices, opening with Ch. Bouchard's "Pour la sécurité des aviateurs" (Steinheil, Paris 1912) and the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections' Hodgkins Fund "Bibliography of Aeronautics".
- List of books presented to the Touring's library, including Eugenio Massa's regional guide to Parma, Scassellati-Sforzolini on stock-farming in Italian Somaliland, Chierchia's two volumes on accumulators, and Attilio Seniga's manuals on ignition and motoring.
- Roll of newly appointed Consoli of the Touring Club Italiano, listed by locality.
- Consoli resigning or leaving office, from Acqui, Addis Abeba and Albate to Genova, Legnanello, Modica and Mogadiscio.
- Roll of members declared benemeriti for introducing ten new members, listed by locality from Bengasi, Bovisio Mombello and Cazzanega to Santos and Cilento.
- Roll of members taking out the five-year subscription, listed by locality from Alba, Avezzano, Barcellona and Belluno to Bergamo, Bettola, Bologna, Breno, Brescia and Brookline.
- Candidates for membership of the T. C. I. who applied between 1 and 30 November 1913, given first as soci vitalizi (Andorno, Bagnone, Batavia, Bologna, Buenos Aires, Castellamonte, Colorno, Conselice and others), then as soci annuali arranged by province.