The Duel, 1957. In the photo of Lu’s eighteenth birthday ball – above – there is also Giorgio: I know him from the caption but I couldn’t recognise him from the picture.
“Bernardo’s professional and personal life is studded with episodes of this kind. With the father of a friend of mine he challenges each other to a duel because dad teased him in front of other people, a quirk of his. Sacred and profane: the old-fashioned challenge is issued because Bernardo has let slip one too many words at an Autogrill, a setting not exactly in keeping with the Vicomte de Valmont. A bit of nobility, however, is in order, and our neighbour from Milan, Count Jacini, is called to act as witness. Fortunately, in the end nothing comes of it. To the gardener who looks after the flowerbeds of the Florence offices, in the Osmannoro area, it goes worse: he makes a mistake in cutting some bulbs and disappears from work. The cook at the canteen in Limito di Pioltello, on the other hand, cooks the rice in the pot where he made the pasta – my father says he has celiac disease but we struggle to understand if this is true – and the unfortunate man is kicked out too. On two different occasions, at the restaurant, first in France and then in Switzerland, I witness scenes of the underworld. The first time Bernardo confronts the waiter claiming to be ‘a butcher’ and tries to teach him ‘how to cut meat’. The second the meal ends with words that cannot be repeated’
excerpt found on page 150 of Le Ossa dei Caprotti
In reality it didn’t happen that way, I found out from Giorgio whom I saw again after I had already written my book, this is the transcript of his story:
Bernardo Caprotti and Giorgio Della Seta are 9 years apart, the former is from 1925, the latter from 1936.
B is an entrepreneur while G, at the time, is still a student.
They meet with many other people one weekend at Sestriere.
There are girls they both like.
On Saturday there is a dinner and most people after dinner leave leaving the bill to B and G and one other.
G has no money.
B tells him not to worry: he pays and G will pay him back.
The next day they meet again in Turin in a restaurant – not an Autogrill, unfortunately – and B has given orders to bring a fake promissory note to G, in front of everyone (of the series ‘you are one who does not pay’), probably to impress the girls (*).
G is offended and challenges B to a duel.
With the offices of Count Giovanni Jacini, Gibi Borromeo and Rossellina Archinto (later Councillor of the Milan City Council, who, in that capacity, married Laura and the undersigned, as well as publisher and companion of Leopoldo Pirelli) the dispute was settled.
G tells me that my father then became ‘very kind’ to him. I didn’t dare tell him that B spoke very badly of him, which annoyed me because his son Marco has been a friend of mine since Paris.
(*) the theatricality in the break-up of relations is a constant with B: Giulio Malgara told me that, before they separated, B had mocked him in front of everyone, wrapping him with a roll of receipts
The beautiful thing about this affair is that a beautiful friendship was born with Marco Della Seta, Giorgio’s son, in Paris in the 1980s. Since then we have lost touch a little because he has taken up a diplomatic career and is always travelling the world, but the affection remains intact.
