Vol 3, No 10

189719 articles11 imagesItalian

Rivista Mensile del Touring Club Ciclistico Italiano, Vol 3, No 10 cover

Articles in this issue

  • La Nuova Tessera
    Announcement that the 1898 membership card is ready, its facsimile shown here, a design the club calls a graceful tribute to Cavaliere Johnson; it has already been forwarded to Italian customs offices through both the Ministry of Finance and directly to individual receivers to avoid delaying new members' benefits.
  • La Quota 1898 (Lire 6)
    Urgent appeal for all members to renew by 1 January 1898 and remit the 6-lire fee promptly, warning that roughly 12,000 renewals must be processed in a short window and that publications will be suspended for anyone who delays payment past 15 January.
  • Deliberazioni del Consiglio
    Minutes of the council's 6, 20 and 27 October 1897 sittings, chaired by Federico Johnson: preparations for renewing the Corpo Consolare (whose terms lapse in November under the new statute), commissioning the 1898 Annuario from Comfort chief Marelli, endorsing Lieutenant Natali's project for publication in La Bicicletta, and fully approving the new government Targhetta (bicycle tax plate) under the 22 July 1897 law, including its lead-sealing system.
  • Direzione
    A note drawing members' attention to Comfort-section head Marelli's new task of vetting the discounts and facilitations that suppliers increasingly offer club members, urging every member to bring in a new recruit each year to double both the club's numbers and its bargaining power.
  • [La Nuova Legge sui Velocipedi, Proposte del Touring]
    The club publishes the fifteen draft articles it submitted to the Finance Ministry for the regulation implementing the 22 July 1897 bicycle-tax law, covering the tax's scope, the declaration and machine-marking procedure, bell, brake and lamp requirements, rules for crossing troops or crowds, priority when passing other vehicles, and use of pavements outside built-up areas, together with Minister Branca's reply of 22 October promising the proposals will be considered while the regulation is drafted.
  • Sezione Movimento, Facilitazioni Viaggi
    Notice that the Navigazione Generale Italiana (the merged Florio and Rubattino lines) grants members travelling in parties of five or more between Italian ports the reduced government-employee fare instead of the normal tariff, for example Naples-Palermo drops from 34.20 to 20.45 lire in first class, with bicycles carried as baggage at a flat 2 lire between Italian ports.
  • Una pratica interessante
    Stanislao Parboni, head of the Sezione Movimento, reports the club's negotiations to abolish the customs lead-seal on bicycles temporarily exported from Italy, arguing the government's own bicycle-tax marking (from the 22 July 1897 law) makes the customs seal redundant and would let cyclists cross the border at any hour without stopping for export formalities.
  • Consolato Generale, Trentesimo Elenco
    The 30th list of Corpo Consolare appointments approved by the council, naming Camillo Castiglioni as capo console at Constantinople and new consuls including Aristide Th. Costantini at Gorizia and Edoardo Vassallo at Cairo, alongside resignations at Geneva and Gorizia and the abolition of the vice-console title under the new statute.
  • Sezione Comfort
    List, compiled by Comfort section head A. C. Marelli, of hotels and restaurants newly affiliated between 20 September and 20 October 1897, from the Leon d'Oro at Ancona to establishments at Venice, Messina and Porto Maurizio, plus notice that the council has now placed all miscellaneous member facilitations (theatres, baths, shops) under the Comfort section's oversight.
  • [Circolare ai Consoli Riconfermati per il Triennio 1898-1900]
    A 25 October 1897 letter from Capo Console Generale Ing. P. Gavazzi and Direttore Generale Federico Johnson thanking the outgoing Corpo Consolare for its work and confirming reappointment for the 1898-1900 triennium, following the commission's near-complete work on the new consular list; a note explains the vice-console title has been abolished under the new statute, leaving only consuls and capi consoli.
  • Sezione Strade, Guida del Piemonte
    Luigi Vittorio Bertarelli reports on the Guida Regionale del Piemonte, planned as three volumes (nos. 7-9 of the series) covering about 1,200 lines across 30 zones with some 700 road profiles, on track for publication in April or May 1898 with the help of Turin consul Count Alessandro Avogadro di Cerrione, and announces profiles 27-36 (Reggio Calabria to Eboli) now in print, completing the mountainous stretch of the great road from Reggio Calabria to northern Italy.
  • Diverse
    Bertarelli's miscellany column: the Italian customs post at the Tonale is now at Ponte di Legno; Roman cyclists favour the more accidented Frosinone-Ceprano route to Naples over Velletri-Terracina for its better resources and drier roads; thanks to Genoa consul Marchese Pietro Torriglia for supplying road information; and doubts about a rumoured 1898 Emilia guide, which Bertarelli says is unfounded, the club's confirmed 1898 programme is the Piemonte guide, the profiles in press and the yearbook.
  • Qualche appunto al Veneto
    Corrections to the Guida del Veneto sent in by engineer L. G. Maggioni of Venice, a wrong turn direction near Vittorio's station, tramways alongside the Schio-Piovene-Arsiero and Strà-Fiesso Artico lines, and the seasonal Malcontenta-Mestre steam tram, plus a note from the Provincia di Milano's engineer Emilio Gola on an experimental steamroller-compacted stretch of the Comacina road near Bovisio, which Bertarelli urges cyclists to watch through the winter.
  • Noterelle Bibliografiche
    Bertarelli's bibliographic notes, written after a bicycle trip to Vienna via Pontebba and Adelsberg, surveying the best touring guides and maps for Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and the Karst, including Seeger's Tourenbuch von Steiermarck, the Laibacher Bicycle Club's out-of-print Wegweiser durch Krain und Küstenland with its 82 illustrations, and Jäger and Seeger's eight-part road-profile series that first inspired his own Profili for the T.C.C.I., urging Italian cyclists to visit a region just across the border that few of them yet explore.
  • Le Pubblicazioni del T.
    Overview of the club's guide, profile and map programme, listing what 1895-97 members received free, the Guida-Itinerario delle Grandi Comunicazioni, the Lazio and Veneto regional guides, the Profili road monographs and the Carta del Veneto, with a price list of back numbers, bulk-purchase discounts for new members, and notice that the Guida Regionale del Piemonte is next in preparation.
  • Sezione Meccanica
    Ing. Carlo Vanzetti, head of the Sezione Meccanica, circulates new rules to the Corpo Consolare for organising the club's affiliated mechanics from 1 January 1898: mechanics set their own discount on accessories against a catalogue of their choice, disputed repair invoices are arbitrated by the Sezione Meccanica (modelled loosely on the Touring Club de France's fixed-tariff system), and mechanics risk being struck off and named in the Rivista for unresolved complaints.
  • Sezione Tecnica
    Thanks from Dott. Ferdinando Bezzi, head of the Sezione Tecnica, to member Carlo Audisio for donating a copy of Prof. C. Bourlet's Traité des bicycles et bicyclettes, part of the Aide-mémoire scientific encyclopedia edited by Léauté, covering balance, steering, wheel tracks, gearing and track construction.
  • Candidati inscritti dal 20 Settembre al 20 Ottobre 1897 (opzione 1897)
    Roll of new candidate members enrolled between 20 September and 20 October 1897 who chose to have their membership backdated to 1897 (to receive that year's publications), organised by province from Alessandria to Vicenza and abroad in Trieste, London and Buenos Aires.
  • Candidati dal 1898
    Roll of new candidate members enrolled in the same period who opted instead for 1898 membership, headed by more than fifty recruits signed up en bloc through the Veloce Club Casalese at Casale Monferrato, and closing with a combined monthly total of 510 candidates (222 for 1897, 288 for 1898).