Of the four Shammah sisters, two, Claudia and Andrée Ruth, have played and continue to play an important role in my life.
Claudia, a left-wing Jewish woman, was a great friend of my mother Giorgina Venosta and her second husband, Aldo Bassetti. She is a criminal lawyer and cashier among the greatest in Milan, socially committed on several fronts, especially that of equal opportunities (she is a member of the first hour of the CPO of the Milan Bar Association) and the front against hatred, whether racial or gender. She assisted me for nine years in all the criminal cases of the terrible period of complaints, lawsuits and stamped papers that poisoned my life, after a criminal lawyer refused to help me with a matter of balance sheets in 2004 and another one ‘passed on the side’ of my father Bernardo at the time of the publication of his book ‘Sickle and Cart’ (2007).
Not only actions aimed at destroying my image and totally ousting me from Esselunga, but also real stalking actions, from damage to my property (cut and burnt trees, slashed car tyres), to anonymous phone calls, dead animal heads and threats, arson and motorway chases. An almost annihilating time. It is not for nothing that one of the chapters of my book is entitled Unconditional surrender: ‘The civil proceedings between us and our father advance on a parallel track to the criminal ones. When, in February 2012, our father promotes an arbitration award against me and my sister Violetta, he sends us into a judicial spiral that never seems to end. Within five months, the award declares Bernardo’s full and exclusive ownership of the shares in Supermarkets Italiani – the holding company to which Esselunga belongs – and the real estate La Villata. We move on two fronts. On the one hand, we challenge the award in the Court of Appeal and in the Court of Cassation, both of which rule in favour of our father. On the other hand, we file a judgment on the merits with the civil court of Milan on the inapplicability of the arbitration procedure. The court rejects our appeal. The Court of Appeal does the same. We go to the Court of Cassation in July 2016. The death of my father, two months later, will change the epilogue of the court case: Violetta and I on one side, Giuliana and my sister Marina on the other, will reach a settlement that will also close the dispute.
At that time I experienced moments of great torment. It must be remembered that the only legal proceedings initiated by Violetta and me on the issue of the shares was the request for seizure. The arbitration award was requested, however, by Bernardo and all the other proceedings that followed were actually a consequence of the award. When the arbitrators issue their verdict, which is negative for us, I am forced to endure another offensive press campaign. Among others, the journalist Stefano Lorenzetto stands out in particular , who writes an article with blatantly defamatory content in the newspaper ‘Il Giornale’. It is entitled ‘He brought supermarkets to Italy and at 86 decides to keep them’ and states that ‘Bernardo Caprotti does not grant his heirs succession by dynastic right’ and so ‘he saved it from his son’. The text is full of false information, which Lorenzetto was careful to verify with me. (…). I am obliged to sue him, a choice that forces me to chase him for seven years, passing through eight different courts, including the courts of Verona, Milan, Catania, Monza and Rome. The result is nil. Justice seems to apply, and run fast, only to my august parent. (…) One day my mother Giorgina looks at me and asks, ‘What did you do to him?’ I answer her: ‘I dared to contradict him, challenge him and go against him’. It does not matter that, throughout this affair, on several occasions I have tried, through criminal lawyers, to find a settlement between us, which turns out to be impossible. In fact, Bernardo demands unconditional surrender (…) – without any protection for us – (…) But honour of arms has never been on Bernardo’s agenda and, thus, comes the extremely high demand for payment of court costs relating to civil proceedings, which we all interpret as a resumption of hostilities. The ending of the criminal cases is also remarkable. When I find myself indicted, I ask four different possible witnesses to agree to be summoned to testify about the quarrels between Bernardo and Grandma Marianne. All four agree. On 8 June 2015, however, my father withdrew the lawsuit against me, thus putting an end to the ‘parricidal’ blog [In June 2013 I had published on my blog an interview granted to the weekly magazine ‘L’Espresso’, in which I spoke, among other things, of the psychiatric examination I had undergone when I joined Esselunga and of the sad episode of an argument between my father and his mother Marianne, which ended with bruises and ecchymosis for the poor grandmother, episodes, of course, supported by evidence]. My lawyer [Claudia, as always], explained to ‘Corriere della Sera’ that we accepted the remission ‘in a spirit of conciliation’ and ‘certainly not out of fear of trial’. And Bernardo, in 2016, after winning all the possible proceedings against us, which took place so quickly as to be a rare exception in the panorama of Italian justice, he also withdrew his request for compensation for the judicial costs borne by us.” (pp. 351-354).
I think the above is enough to understand how much I owe to Claudia Shammah, who never abandoned me despite the fact that the position of those around me could, often, become untenable, and put all her constancy, ability and professionalism into helping me.
Her sister Andrée, a great theatre director and founder of the Franco Parenti Theatre in Milan, is a recent friend of mine, but we share a common vision of intentions. Here she appears smiling with one of her favourite actresses, Anna Nogara, in that real photo shoot that her mother did at the bachelor party for Lina Sotis’s second wedding, in 1993, where many future friends of my life who already knew me as a youngster if not a child, appear together. In recent seasons, Andrée has among other things “created shows conceived within projects.” And it was precisely in this phase that the Guido Venosta Foundation, which I chair, came into being. Among other projects, in fact, the Foundation has undertaken with other partners ‘Happy. Becoming Capable’, the aim of which is ‘prevention and support intervention for the psychological well-being of adolescents in the Milan metropolitan area and the province of Monza and Brianza. (…).” Since part of the project is also to involve the selected young people in doing and seeing theatre, knowing how therapeutic its role is, the Foundation decided to support the performances at the Franco Parenti of Roy Chen’s play “Chi come me”, a masterful exposition that tells the story of the growth of five young people being treated at a mental health centre in Tel Aviv, which will be held from 1 October to 1 December 2024.
Last but not least, Andrée followed me along the path of my book, and presented it in ‘her’ theatre, the Franco Parenti Theatre, last 22 May, in an evening with over 500 people in the audience. And again, she lent herself to reading passages when I presented the book in Capalbio less than a month ago, on 22 August. Besides being an honour, it is nice to be friends with a woman like her.
Bibliography:
Franco Parenti Theatre, Andrée Ruth Shammah
Fondazione Guido Venosta, News, “The Fondazione Guido Venosta supports the performances of ‘Chi come me’ at the Teatro Franco Parenti”
G. CAPROTTI, Le Ossa dei Caprotti. Una storia italiana, Milan, 2023
