In my family’s life, on both my father’s and mother’s side, mountains and snow have always played a vital role. Since the 1920s at least, everyone has been skiing, great-grandparents grandparents fathers sons and grandchildren, boys and girls, because skiing is a school of life and an invitation to always surpass oneself in a rigorous but healthy and fun way. One is always a skier, right to the end.
My maternal great-grandfather Umberto Quintavalle, father of my grandmother Luisa Quintavalle, vice-president of Magneti Marelli for thirty years, died in 1959 with his skis on in an accident, under the eyes of his wife Adele Portaluppi . She, a skier who was as fanatical as he was, continued to ski down the snowy slopes even in her old age and with arthritis that prevented her from gripping her poles properly; she simply did without. My grandmother Luisa was no different, facing the slopes with an absolute, unrestrained joy that can be seen in the radiant smile of a photo taken in the Swiss mountains in the 1940s; she skied so well that she was not out of place in front of one of the Alpine Ski Patrols that had expatriated to Switzerland after 8 September 1943, which included the champion Zeno Colò. Grandma also passed on her passion to her children, my mother Giorgina and her brother Beppo, who showed the same ease and cheerfulness in putting on skis and boots.
His paternal great-grandfather, Giuseppe Venosta, also loved the mountains, and there is no shortage of photographs of him, alone or with his three sons, balancing on rocks and ridges. An executive and eventually General Manager of Pirelli, when the Pirelli Sport Club was founded in 1922, he was ‘acclaimed’ as its President, he ‘who had always been the right-hand man of the Founder, engineer Giovanni Battista Pirelli, and a ‘fervent supporter of all forms of physical and moral education’ “. Various disciplines were practised at the Sport Club, and skiing was certainly not neglected; there were frequent trips to the mountains, lively and noisy, during which expert skiers ‘in telmark [sic, the correct definition is telemark] and cristiania’ joined expert beginners in free fall. The chronicles in the Sport Club Bulletin also invariably report the joy of freedom expressed in the shout ‘La neve! La neve!” as soon as one arrived in sight of the destination, very often the slopes of Mottarone.
I don’t have any photographs of grandfather Guido on skis – many as an experienced mountaineer – but he too skied, as did his brothers Guido and Gigi. And he also skied with me and my mother, in an old-fashioned Zeno Colò style.
Uncle Gigi went beyond skiing and snow, he was passionate about ice: he was one of the most popular hockey players at a time when it was not a sport with much of a following in Italy, he played many games with the Milanese hockey teams and also with the national team, making himself known abroad as well.
A skier but also a mountaineer of talent and fame was my great-uncle Gianni Albertini, husband of Ida Quintavalle, my grandmother Luisa’s twin sister. He also went to the North Pole, the first time touching it with the expedition of Umberto Nobile and the airship ‘Italia’ in 1927 (it stopped at the Svalbard Islands), the second time well into it, exploring it for a good stretch while searching for the Missing of the Nobile expedition the year before.
Gianni was also president of a hockey club where Gigi Venosta played. And Umberto Quintavalle, my mother’s cousin, was the last president of the Milan Hockey Club.
And the Caprotti family? My father Bernardo and uncles also skied, and they were enthusiasts too; but Dad, due to increasingly pressing work commitments, reluctantly had to stop. My sister and I, like many children of my era, were put on skis as soon as we were able to stand up properly. We had fun holidays, we took part in competitions: at the Institut Le Rosey where we were studying they were weekly and compulsory, until we got to the Courses du Rosey, combined events that took place every February and in which even alumni still take part. And even now, at least as far as I am concerned, skiing is discipline and love, discovery and sometimes adventure.
So welcome, then, the Olympics after so many years, to remind and inspire us once again how much winter sports, skiing above all, once it gets into our bloodstream, never leaves it again, even when, as now, snow is becoming a rarity.
Sources:
Albiate (MB), Villa San Valerio, ‘Giorgina Venosta Archives’; ‘Giorgina Venosta Photographic Archives’; ‘Guido Venosta Archives’; ‘Giuseppe Caprotti Archives’.
Fondazione Pirelli, Archivio storico Pirelli, “Storie dal mondo Pirelli”, “Sport Club Pirelli: una gita al Mottarone nel 1923”(https://www.fondazionepirelli.org/it/iniziative/storie-dal-mondo-pirelli/sport-club-pirelli-una-gita-al-mottarone-nel-1923/ ).
Bibliography:
G. CAPROTTI, ‘Le Ossa dei Caprotti. Una storia italiana’, Miano, 2024/3.
ID., Giuseppe Caprotti. Personalities: Umberto Quintavalle (1887-1959).
ID., Giuseppe Caprotti. Characters: Luisa Quintavalle (1920-2009).
ID., Giuseppe Caprotti. Characters: Giorgina Venosta (1940-2021).
ID., Giuseppe Caprotti. Characters: Guido Venosta (1911-1998).
ID., Giuseppe Caprotti. Characters: Gianni Albertini (1902-1978).
ID., Le Ossa dei Caprotti. The Caprottis and sport: Uncle Luigi Venosta called Gigi, hockey and medals. Cues from the book.
ID., Lo zio Gigi Venosta: tra hockey ed eroismo nella seconda guerra mondiale, 22/12/2022.
ID., Farewell to Umberto Quintavalle, president of Hockey Milano, by the Milano Online editorial staff in ‘Corriere della Sera’, 15 August 2019.
