In Italy this past week, lunch scene at Ferrari's Cavallino restaurant just across the Formigine road from the factory's iconic main gate was dominated (for me) by this display piece:
It's a replica of Ing. Lampredi's celebrated screw-up which contributed to him losing his job - the 2.5-litre Ferrari 252 experimental twin-cylinder engine.
Talking of prancing peculiarities, I stayed with a friend at Salo on Lake Garda - that's right, ever so handy for Maranello, only 90 miles away - and just north of Salo on the west shore of the lake, above Gardone Riviera, is Il Vittoriale degli Italiani, the former home of Italy's famous poet (and, arguably, prat) Gabriele d'Annunzio.
This grossly narcissistic, serial-philandering, self-promoting, nationalistic writer, army officer, orator, politician (and car enthusiast)'s house stands in parkland grounds which climb the steep mountainside. The grounds are jam-packed with structures, sculptures and artefacts celebrating d'Annunzio himself and 'Victories of the Italians'.
It's cheerfully, unashamedly, totally potty and I hugely recommend a visit.
D'Annunzio was very influential in Italy's entry into World War 1 on the Triple Alliance's side v. Kaiser Bill and the Austrians. He then starred in two tremendous publicity stunts in 1918, first participating in a February MTB raid on Bakar harbour (in Croatia) aboard MAS 96 (see below) and then in August passengering in one of nine biplanes which dropped leaflets over Vienna during a six-hour 'raid'.
Of greater substance, in 1919 he led 189 grenadiers in occupying Fiume when the Armistice conference looked likely to cede it. Thousands of other Italian troops followed, d'Annunzio declared Fiume's independence with himself as its 'Duce', and in 1920 declared war on Italy! He lost after a naval bombardment - and retired to perfumed luxury at Lake Garda. But his oratory and self-promoted celebrity deeply influenced Mussolini and his Fascists and from 1924 the State indulged him immensely - settling his debts (he regarded himself as being above paying anyone) and showering him with gifts - effectively to keep him quiet, out of politics, and away from the capital, Rome.
Mussolini's Fascists had possibly shown interest in depriving d'Annunzio of more than merely a public platform when, in 1922 - just before their 'March on Rome' - he either slipped or was pushed out of window and quite badly hurt.
Musso apparently said 'if troubled by a bad tooth you either have it taken out, or filled with gold'. The latter solution to keeping d'Annunzio on-side included giving him half the Italian Navy cruiser 'Puglia', the MTB, MAS 96, ex-Bakar raid, and his flight over Vienna SIVA biplane - all at Vittoriale to be wondered at today. He was described as the inventor of 'The Politics of Spectacle', and died in 1938, aged 74. Topping the hillside at Vittoriale is his lavish mausoleum. Prancing still...
Below: the forepart of the protected cruiser 'Puglia' was hauled some 250 feet up the hillside above Lake Garda and installed here, facing towards the Adriatic and d'Annunzio's 'theatre' of war...and self-promotion.
Rather splendid fowling piece - 5.9-inch on 'Puglia's foredeck. It's said that d'Annunzio was not above loosing off a shot occasionally across the Lake. Not sure I believe that - but it's a lovely Mary Poppins-esque image.
MAS 96 in its weatherproof shelter, even higher up the mountainside... MAS = motoscafo antisommergibile or " anti-submarine motorboat". The initials were said by d'Annunzio to stand equally for 'Memento Audere Semper' - "Always Remember to Dare".
Below: One of MAS 96's two 500hp 6-cylinder engines - I think by Isotta-Fraschini?
Below: The SIVA biplane in which d'Annunzio flew as passenger, dumping yah-boo-sucks leaflets over the Austrian capital of Vienna...
Photos Copyright: GPL
When it comes to "Always remember to dare" I strongly feel that Enzo Ferrari lived by much the same motto, but his self-promotion was - for me - far more admirable than d'Annunzio's - real competition, not grandstanding for grandstanding's sake, building a brand, building a record and building a company providing a living for his local people. Not much prancing there - apart from that horse.
DCN
PS - As we drove through Gardone on the lakeside my host pointed out neighbouring monastery and convent on the left. Nuvolari's sister was a nun here, and in his infirmity postwar he apparently spent numerous weeks there, breathing the clean lakeside air. But tragically, into the early 1980s it seems that it was on this same stretch of road that his widow - the admirably patient, long suffering Carolina Nuvolari - met her end, knocked down on a pedestrian crossing ... by a carelessly-driven ... Alfa Romeo...
Edited by Doug Nye, 09 March 2025 - 08:43.
The tortoise on which it is modelled was d'Annunzio's pet, which apparently met its end after consuming a surfeit of tuberoses. D'Annunzio had it recreated in bronze and it sits on the dining table in his house, supposedly as a warning against gluttony.
