History of the Caprotti and Venosta families

The Caprotti family and their bones: Milan, Chapel Sanctuary of San Bernardo Caprotti alle Ossa, 17th cent

When, as children, we get to spend some free time with our father, one of our favourite destinations is the 17th-century Oratory of San Bernardo alle Ossa, whose interior is decorated with hundreds of bones and skulls exhumed from the cemetery of the nearby Ospedale del Brolo arranged in niches, on the cornice, adorning the pillars, and decorating the doors. And this detail, which to the eyes and imagination of us children is rather macabre, impresses us greatly. Bones and cemeteries will be almost an obsession in Bernardo’s life.

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The Caprotti family and the supermarket: Ferdinando Schiavoni, Mario Crespi and Bernardo Caprotti at the inauguration of the first shop in Milan, Viale Regina Giovanna, 1957

At the inauguration of Milan’s and Italy’s first supermarket, the Viale Regina Giovanna shop, one photograph among many shows two of the key figures who made it possible: Ferdinando Schiavoni, one of the not many English-speaking people in Italy, a link between IBEC managers and the Caprotti family, an early manager of what would later become Esselunga, and Mario Crespi, who with his brother Vittorio, Marco Brunelli and brothers Bernardo and Guido Caprotti was one of the Americans’ main minority shareholders in what was the start of a great adventure.

Food and Retail History History of Esselunga History of Italy History of the Caprotti and Venosta families

The Caprotti family and the supermarkets: Marco Brunelli, Bernardo Caprotti and Giorgina Venosta at the “Cervo d’Oro” in Cortina, February 1958

From the very beginning, Marco Brunelli struggled to get along with Bernardo Caprotti. The first disagreements began to manifest themselves blatantly in early 1960. In May, Brunelli and my uncle Guido founded a chain of supermarkets together with the aim of focusing on Rome, the city that IBEC’s men had discarded…

Food and Retail History History of Esselunga History of Italy History of the Caprotti and Venosta families

The Caprotti family and the supermarkets: Guido Caprotti with Marco Brunelli and two friends, 1950s

Marco Brunelli, a close friend of Guido Caprotti’s since high school, and a member of one of Milan’s most prominent families, was the first to come into contact with the American IBEC and its plan to open a series of supermarkets in Italy, and he also brought Guido and Bernardo into the negotiations. This dispels, at least in part, the story always told in the family that, thanks to a fortunate conversation overheard at the Grand Hotel in St. Moritz, the Caprotti family had entered as protagonists in the negotiations together with Brunelli. The latter later became the first president of Supermarkets Italiani, later Esselunga.

History of Esselunga History of Italy History of the Caprotti and Venosta families

The Caprotti family and supermarkets: the importance of Guido (1929 – 2012)

Guido, brother of Bernardo and Claudio Caprotti, with the help of his friend Marco Brunelli managed to get the Caprotti family, with other shareholders, to enter into a partnership with Nelson Rockefeller’s Ibec to create a chain of supermarkets in Italy. It was also with Brunelli that, a few years later, he became co-founder of GS (Generale Supermercati)

History of the Caprotti and Venosta families

The Caprotti family: my father Bernardo Caprotti, 1925 – 2016

The picture from almost a hundred years ago shows a pale, curly-haired child, confident and smiling. The now receding adult at ease on the sofa in the second picture was already my father. From him I received a great deal in every sense, from the well-being in which I grew up to the possibility, thanks to his insistence, of doing a job that became a passion. Unfortunately to his dark side I also owe the end of that job and the years that were taken away from me.

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The Caprotti family and friends: Guido Vergani, journalist, friend of Claudio Caprotti and Giorgina, ca. 1990s.

On a trip to Tehran to meet the Shah of Persia [Rockefeller] stops off in Milan and, to seal the alliance with the Italian partners, goes with his wife Mary to visit them. A dinner at The Caprotti family’s was also on the agenda, but the night before Guido Vergani, who was to become a famous journalist but at the time was not yet twenty and was a friend of Claudio Caprotti’s, went to visit him, and in the excitement of the moment he opened the refrigerator and without anyone noticing he ate all the rolls that his grandmother Marianne had cooked for the occasion. The dinner is a success even without the rolls, but that episode will still anger Marianne many years later.

History of the Caprotti and Venosta families

The Caprotti family and the war: grandfather Peppino’s medals, post-1919

The box, kept among my grandfather Peppino’s heirlooms, contains the Victory Medal, granted to soldiers who had taken part in the First World War, and the cross of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of Saint Sylvester Pope, attributed perhaps to Peppino, perhaps to another Caprotti well-deserving person. On the uniform, also kept among my grandfather’s heirlooms, are the two ribbons of the Distintivo per le Fatiche di guerra (Badge for War Efforts) and the Medal of Victory.