Luigi Vittorio Bertarelli

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Luigi Vittorio Bertarelli (born June 21, 1859 in Milan ; † January 19, 1926 there ) was an Italian geographer , publicist , cave explorer and pioneer of bicycle tourism .

origin

His parents were Pier Giuseppe Bertarelli and Carolina Nessi. His younger brother was the bibliophile , art collector , patron and publicist Achille Bertarelli (1863-1938). After the death of his father, he broke off his studies and took over the father's business, a candle manufacturer . This was destroyed in a fire in 1884, but was soon put back into operation and converted into a company for the production of sacred objects and furnishings. But this was not his passion.

Life

Bertorelli was an avid sportsman, won several road races , also earned a reputation as an alpinist , but was especially a passionate cyclist . He worked for the magazine La Bicicletta and on November 7, 1894 a member of the founding assembly of the Touring Club Ciclistico Italiano (Italian Cycle Tourism Club), which was renamed Touring Club Italiano (TCI) (Italian Touring Club) in 1900 , and - together with Federico Johnson - the committee that drafted the association's statutes . Initially, he headed the street section for the association's monthly magazine Rivista mensile del Touring . The Guida delle grandi comunicazioni stradali , written almost entirely by himself and published in 1895, was a great success, surpassed in 1896 by an expanded three-volume edition. In addition to distances, the touring guide contained elevation profiles for around 30,000 kilometers of road and information on the locations touched by the routes . Thereafter, under Bertarelli's leadership and with the active support of Arture Mercanti, General Secretary of the TCI from 1906 to 1915, the TCI published eleven regional travel guides and a collection of 59 maps of Italy on a scale of 1: 250,000. Finally, he - since 1906 Vice President of the TCI - initiated the preparation of the great Guida d'Italia in 20 volumes in 1912 , the first of which was published in 1914 and half of which appeared when he died in 1926. Since he was certain that the TCI could make a decisive contribution to the development of cartography , he mobilized the necessary donors and collaborators to produce the Grande Atlante Internazionale . In addition, from 1895 to 1925 Bertarelli published a total of 335 articles and countless notes in the Journal of the TCI alone.

His last major work, written in collaboration with Eugenio Boegan (1875–1939) of the Società Alpina delle Giulie , was an inventory of the karst caves in Venezia Giulia with the title Duemila grotte , which was published posthumously in 1926 and a revised edition in 1986. He had already attracted attention as a cave explorer in 1900 when he explored the Grotta Remeron near Varese for the first time with two friends, Luigi Tadini and Gigi Orrigoni , if only to the first underground lake, which is now named after him "Lago Bertarelli" .

In 1919 he became President of the TCI, whose membership grew from 784 members in the year it was founded in 1894 to 5,520 in 1906 and 11,542 in 1907, in 1912 it already numbered more than 100,000 and in 1925 there were around 360,000.

Bertarelli was a member of the Milan City Council from 1899 to 1913, but resigned this office as his activities in the TCI occupied him completely.

Honors

Palazzo Bertarelli in Milan, seat of the Touring Club Italiano

Outstanding among Bertarelli's numerous honors is the Palazzo Bertarelli in Milan, built by Achille Binda in 1914–1915 and the seat of the Touring Club Italiano. In Milan there is a square, in Rome a street is named after him, and in Milan there is the Istituto Professionale per i Servizi Commerciali e Turistici Luigi Vittorio Bertarelli.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Luigi Vittorio Bertarelli & Eugenio Boegan: Duemila grotte. Quarant'anni di esplorazione nella Venezia Giulia . First edition, Touring Club Italiano, Milan, 1926; Luigi Vittorio Bertarelli & Eugenio Boegan: Duemila grotte . Second edition, B. & MM Fachin, Trieste, 1986 (German: two thousand caves; forty years of exploration in Julian Venetia)
  2. ↑ Grotta Remeron: Storia (Italian)
  3. ^ Luigi Vittorio Bertarelli (edited by Luca Clerici): Insoliti viaggi: l'appassionante diario di un precursore , Touring Editore, Milan, 2004.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bertarelli, Luigi Vittorio
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian geographer , publicist , speleologist and pioneer of cycle tourism
DATE OF BIRTH June 21, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Milan
DATE OF DEATH January 19, 1926
Place of death Milan