On Thursday, August 6, seven crews of the famous car, belonging to the Italian Registry Triumphspitfire (R.I.T.S.), have warmed up the engines for a sightseeing tour retracing the Napoleonic stages and the historic points of the province of Alessandria.
“It was a restart: the first gathering after the many months of lockdown due to the Covid-19 and was chosen as the place Marengo, symbol for a “rebirth”, in which we participants saw places that we had not yet had the opportunity to visit, a territory – as Francesco Giordana (journalist and university professor) and Massimo Pastrone (lawyer) have said – that is worth analyzing and enhancing also in synergy with the projects that is putting into effect the International Cultural Center of Marengo. In the future we will make other meetings even more numerous.”.
The first stop of the tour was Piovera with the park and its beautiful castle, dating back to the fourteenth century, whose facade was painted black in mourning for the death of Bonaparte. At the Castle Count Niccolò Calvi di Bergolo created, in the park and in the garden, suggestive and interesting historical-artistic paths open to the public.
The rooms of the Museum of Ancient Crafts, in which there are weapons, and ancient tools that served, in the past, in daily use and in the work of the fields, the Pavilion of Roots in which there are roots of trees that are so original and unique as to seem natural scultures, and a Rolls Royce belonged to the mother of Queen Elizabeth II, have been appreciated by pilots and consorts. In the park a pleasant meeting space that “the Milanese call a limoneira (lemon grove) while the Torinese, more chic, call that an orangeries” emphasizes Count Niccolò Calvi di Bergolo.
We continued for the photos of rite towards the Church of San Rocco, in Cascina Grossa, also a symbol of the Napoleonic passage: two cannonballs fired by the Austrian and French artillery at the Battle of 14 June 1800 are embedded in the outer facade.
The Triumph Spitfire have continued their journey towards Marengo with passage in front of the Tower of Teodolinda, to the Pyramid and to Marenco Curtis where the managing director of the province of Alessandria Maurizio Sciaudone has delivered the certificates of participation to the day.
An afternoon then between Pozzolo Formigaro and Bosco Marengo.
At Pozzolo Formigaro took place the Battle of Novi, one of the bloodiest of the entire Napoleonic campaign, during which the French were driven out of Piedmont and Genoa was besieged, although the victory of the allies lasted little: in a very short time Napoleon defeated the powerful Russian-Austrian forces and the French, at Pozzolo, were considered conquerors so much that the motto “libertè, égalitè, fraternitè” was transformed by the people of Fraschetta into “i fransèis en carosa e nuia pé”.
In the Castle of Pozzolo the high commands of a time and today, where the first citizen explained the etymological origin of the name of his country: “Women dressed in black went to the Borlasca well – explained Mayor Domenico Miloscio – to take the water in a row and looked like little ants. Hence the name of Pozzolo Formigaro”.
Closing in beauty in front of Vasari’s canvases for the stage of Bosco Marengo to the monumental complex of late-Renaissance Santa Croce, in whose majestic interior was set up the mausoleum for Pope Pius V (the Saint is buried in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome) who was born here and was the promoter of the construction of the Church itself. Pope Pius V whose name was Brother Michele Ghislieri was part of the order of the Dominican friars. In the first campaign of Italy on 2 May 1796 he passed to Bosco Marengo Napoleone and stayed two days in the rooms of the convent of Santa Croce. The convent was then used as a shelter for veterans of the countryside of Bonaparte and, after its fall, became again the seat of the Dominican friars.
Last curiosity of the day: this original tour aboard the Triumph Spitfire coincided with the anniversary of the death of Saint Dominic of Guzman (occurred on August 6, 1221), founder of the Order of Friars Preachers of which was part Saint Pius V, A man and severe, elected to the Petrine chair to bring the clergy to a life marked by austerity, prayer and charity.
Last curiosity of the day: this original tour aboard the Triumph Spitfire coincided with the anniversary of the death of Saint Dominic of Guzman (occurred on August 6, 1221), founder of the Order of Friars Preachers of which was part Saint Pius V, a lean and severe man, elected to the Petrine chair to bring back the clergy to a life marked by austerity, prayer and charity.