Vittorio Cocchi – Esselunga pensioner – on the book Le Ossa dei Caprotti

Compiled 2 February 2024, updated 19 February 2025

Above: an Esselunga van drives past the Feltrinelli bookstore in Piazza Piemonte, on the evening of my book presentation, 8 November 2023, in Milan.

Dear Dr. Giuseppe Caprotti,

i have just finished reading (all in one go) “Le Ossa dei Caprotti”. It touched me deeply.

You certainly have no need of my appreciation, but I nevertheless feel the desire to share with you, hot off the press, my feelings, by virtue of an unspoken sharing of values that I feel we have in common, even though we have not frequented each other much.

But for someone like me who has dedicated the best of his energies and professional skills to Esselunga (I joined the company in 1990 and left five years ago), the emotional involvement and the many references to personal memory prevail: I recognise with emotion the people, situations, dynamics, meanness and greatness, vices and virtues of men who have done a lot, and perhaps could have done much more…

…Today at the age of 72, in his writing, traversed by genuine grief on every page, I mainly capture the all-too-human figure of dismay in the face of lost opportunities, of time that does not return.

I consider that I have always been a ‘virgin of servile praise and cowardly outrage’ (my field of activity and my place of work, both of which are out of touch with the company’s core business, have allowed me to do so) and I wish to remain so, but in the face of your powerful work of historical reconstruction (personal, family, company, country) I cannot help but acknowledge your great lucidity, intellectual honesty and courage (as well as your uncommon literary skills).

And if you will allow me, I would also like to express my total solidarity with you (for what it is worth) in the face of an affair of suffering and mortification that is unworthy, unjust, and above all harmful to all. I have often wondered what it would be like to work with you: I think I would have enjoyed it.

I greet you very cordially,

Vittorio Cocchi, former director of the technical office in Florence

Below: some of Cocchi’s collaborators, whom I remember with great pleasure. Thanks to Carla Resi