History of the Caprotti and Venosta families People, Environment & Culture

Carla Venosta: Birth of the Guido Venosta European Foundation

After the death of my grandfather Guido Venosta (1998), his widow, Carla Fossati Bellani Venosta, decided to give continuity to her husband’s thinking by creating the ‘Fondazione Europea Guido Venosta, l’uomo contro il cancro’ (European Foundation Guido Venosta, the man against cancer) in 2000, which she was actively involved in until 2017. Since 2020, I have been President and Treasurer of the Foundation.

History of the Caprotti and Venosta families

Giorgina Venosta : “Ragazze del Forte, the most beautiful ladies of today”, by Lina Sotis, Sette, 5 July 2001

Lina Sotis, a journalist and writer, always present in Milanese salons, also a ‘girl from the Forte’ in the golden age, was a dear friend of my mother Giorgina Venosta, and in an article in July 2001 she painted a delightful portrait of my mother as a young man, complete with a small episode related to the actor Renato Salvatori, a protagonist of the great post-war period of Italian cinema, but first a lifeguard on the beaches of Forte dei Marmi, and madly in love with the ‘seductive and shy’ Giorgina Venosta.

History of the Caprotti and Venosta families

My summers in Lindos, with Guido Somarè, David Gilmour and the ‘Caprotti’ cat

In the 1960s and 1970s, my mother Giorgina was a companion of Guido Somarè, a talented painter with art in his blood for several generations, and she had been going with him to Lindos, a place on the island of Rhodes, since at least 1966. Violetta and I first came to Lindos in 1969, after an interminable journey that had taken us across the Isthmus of Corinth by boat…

History of Esselunga History of the Caprotti and Venosta families

Giorgina Venosta and Bernardo Caprotti’s friends: Giulia Maria Crespi, Indro Montanelli, Marisa Spaini Rivolta

If Mario and Vittorio Crespi were partners of my father Bernardo and Uncle Guido in the foundation of Esselunga, their niece Giulia Maria, for some fundamental years in the management of ‘Corriere della Sera’ and later founder of FAI-Fondo Ambiente Italiano and agricultural entrepreneur, was a friend of Bernardo’s ex-wife, my mother Giorgina…