Deciding to have a permanent home in Milan, grandfather Peppino Caprotti purchased an entire building in the central Via del Lauro. The renovation is overseen by Luigi Caccia Dominioni, an architect, designer and urban planner of international renown, convinced by his grandmother Marianne Maire Caprotti thanks to her particularly tenacious character, which Caccia Dominioni, now 100 years old, still remembered.
Villa Nadina in Forte dei Marmi, Versilia, was bought by my grandfather Peppino. In his will, grandfather left it to his third-born son, Uncle Claudio, who, at the time of his divorce, in turn gave it to his wife Paola Albera, sister of Giuliana, my father Bernardo’s wife. In 2018, Villa Nadina was sold to a Russian tycoon
Albiate is where the Caprotti family built its fortunes. The house was more than just a dwelling. Even today, you only have to walk down through the fields for no more than five hundred metres and, past the bridge over the Lambro river, you arrive at the abandoned textile factory that once made their wealth possible.
The great thing about this story is that a beautiful friendship was born with Marco Della Seta, Giorgio’s son, in Paris in the 1980s.
On 18 March 2025, the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan hosted an event dedicated to Gianni Albertini and his 1929 HEIMEN-SUCAI Arctic expedition. I discovered that his example of human and scientific expedition is still valid today: the PolarQuest Association demonstrated this with its expeditions on the route of the airship Italia on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the expedition, and I myself was able to experience last year, as a simple tourist, what it means to be in places that speak to the soul.
On 18 March 2025, the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan hosted an event dedicated to Gianni Albertini and his 1929 HEIMEN-SUCAI Arctic expedition. During the event, documentary filmmaker Christian Cinetto presented the footage that cinematographer Umberto della Valle shot during the months of the journey, which not only captures testimonies but also the emotions and personalities of the protagonists.
Gianni Albertini had experienced at first hand, as a member of the expedition, the tragedy of the airship Italia, which had crashed into the North Pole pack in the spring of 1928, and of six crewmen who had remained in the airship’s envelope, disappeared in the fog and were never found again. He feels obliged to search for the missing, encouraged by their relatives. The expedition is prepared with an organisational speed that is astonishing even by today’s standards, less than three months, and according to criteria of particular efficiency and intelligence.
In the spring of 1928, the airship ‘Italia’ expedition, commanded by Colonel Umberto Nobile, set off. The aim was to fly over the North Pole for the first time with a precise programme of geographical exploration and scientific research. Unfortunately, the enterprise ended in a dramatic shipwreck, which mobilised a gigantic chain of rescue operations in which Gianni Albertini, one of the most experienced mountaineers and mountain guides, also took part. He experienced the drama first-hand and knew the Arctic for the first time.
Gianni (Gianni) Albertini graduated in engineering at a very young age and became such an expert in rock, mountains and snow that he opened several new routes to the summit of Mont Blanc in the 1920s. An adventurous flyer (he tried to break the record for flying between London and Cape Town in 1938), he owes his fame to the Heimen-Sucai Arctic expedition of 1929, set up to search for those missing from the Nobile expedition the year before. He married Ida Quintavalle, twin sister of my maternal grandmother Luisa Quintavalle.
A decade after the two older brothers, Claudio also got married, marrying Paola Albera in Florence in 1968. A 1970s-style ceremony, the bride in a short yellow dress, the groom in a simple light-coloured suit, the church full of daisies, but this third marriage too, after the birth of Andrea and Fabrizio, would end in divorce, leaving Paola with her beloved Villa Nadina in Forte dei Marmi.
A few months after the marriage of his elder brother Bernardo to Giorgina Venosta, the second brother, Guido in 1959, married Maria Luisa (known as Lu) Austoni, daughter of Benedetto, a surgeon and medical luminary, in the Milanese church, something that also merited the couple a small article in a newspaper. Friends and relatives surround the couple, who seem serene, and will remain so for a few years; but this marriage too, after a few years and two daughters, Bendetta and Elisabetta, will end.
Bernardo and Giorgina met in Forte dei Marmi, and were married in Milan in November 1958, in the church of San Fedele packed with guests and, outside the gates, a crowd of onlookers. She was 17, he twice that age. The photo album shows smiles and joy around the newlyweds; the premises are all there, but they will not be fulfilled. The couple will separate despite the birth of two children, Giuseppe and Violetta.
On the day of the car accident that killed him, grandfather Peppino was not alone. At his side sat a woman he had been seeing for a couple of years, and he suffered very serious injuries. I only discovered much later that her name was Anna Z., and we knew her well. A series of photographic portraits immortalising her beauty are preserved in the archives of the Braidense Library in Milan.
Elder brother of my grandmother Marianne Maire Caprotti, he was a talented and renowned pianist and composer, director of the prestigious École normale de musique de Paris Alfred Cortot. A professor of piano, he gave numerous radio concerts with well-known artists, the composer Arthur Honegger, the musician and composer Arthur Hoérée and his wife, the soprano Régine de Lormoy.
My grandmother Marianne Maire, daughter of Georges Maire, who went from being a clerk to an executive in a textile industry, and Fernande Kampmann, heir to a family tradition in the fine craft of straw hats, met Peppino Caprotti in 1922 as a young student in her hometown. Two years later she married him and together they began their life in Italy.
Georges Maire (1870-1931), a director in a textile industry, and Fernande Kampmann (1877-1970), were the affectionate maternal grandparents of Marianne Maire Caprotti, a Frenchwoman from Alsace who married Peppino Caprotti in 1924.
Maurice Koechlin (1856-1946) was the structural engineer who designed both the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower. A key collaborator of Gustave Eiffel, he designed the revolutionary metal skeleton of both monuments and managed the construction phases of the Parisian tower.
Charles Alfred Mallarmé (1842-1923) was Vice-Admiral of France and great-uncle of Marianne Maire Caprotti. During his long career in the French Navy, he took part in important naval campaigns, later achieving prestigious command positions.
The Koechlin family, originally from the German-speaking part of Switzerland and settled in Alsace, played a leading role in the textile industry in Mulhouse from the 18th century onwards, distinguished by numerous illustrious members: industrialists, chemists, artists, politicians and the engineer Maurice Koechlin, designer of the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty.
The Koechlin family, of Alsatian and Swiss origin, has distinguished itself in various fields of French industry and culture. Twenty-four of its members have been awarded the Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest honour. Among the awardees were Daniel Koechlin-Schouch for textile research and Maurice Koechlin, designer of the Eiffel Tower.
The Kampmann family, originally from Alsace, created a dynasty in the straw hat industry, started by Louis-Chrétien in 1838 in Strasbourg and continued by his son Alfred-Léon in Epinal. The factory enjoyed great fame in France, employing thousands of people and exporting all over the world, until it closed in 1924.
These photos represent an era – the 1950s and 1960s above all – but also many friendships, of a lifetime. Most of these pictures were taken in Forte dei Marmi, on the beach, at Villa Nadina or at the Capannina, at the time of the ‘dolce vita’.
“Adriana Botti, the girl Fellini had chosen from hundreds of candidates for the role of Maddalena in the film‘La dolce vita‘ (see ‘Oggi’ no. 8), informed the director that she could not accept the part.”
Claudio and Maria Luisa Austoni (a.k.a. Lu) know each other as little more than children; over time their feelings grow deeper, but fate separates them, making her the wife of Claudio’s second brother, Guido. They will still have their season, which will cost them all much grief.
Bernardo’s irredentist sympathies can be confirmed by the receipt of the Italian Unitarian Association to which, on 16 November 1859, he paid 100 lira to purchase rifles proposed by Giuseppe Garibaldi for the ‘national cause’. The sum, however, while certainly not low, is prudent: only 100 lira. The money, the real money, is destined for business.
Claudio Caprotti, a boy and then a young man, is perhaps the one who most enjoys the bright season of the ‘best youth’ who spends his summers in Forte dei Marmi, where the Caprotti family owns one of the most beautiful villas in the area, Villa Nadina.
Uncle Claudio, the last of my father’s brothers, was born in 1938, 13 years after Bernardo and 9 years after Uncle Guido. Passionate about art and a good painter, he gave up turning his passions into a profession to take a degree in economics and commerce, a degree much more useful for a future entrepreneur.
The building in Via del Lauro was bought by my grandfather Peppino thanks to the Manifattura’s large profits, and in 1965 we all moved there, Grandma Marianne, Bernardo and Guido with their respective families, Claudio, who lives in Florence, to his grandmother’s flat when she is in Milan
Now elderly and retired from business, Carlo alternated between stays in Italy and several months in Africa, residing in Algiers. In 1914, the outbreak of the Great War stopped him there, but he regularly received letters from his nephew Peppino, son of his daughter Bettina and his brother Beppo’s eldest son Bernardo, a telegraph operator in Parma.
As an industrialist and public figure in Bergamo society, Carlo chose a stately home in what is now Via Tasso, with a large park of 5.61 perches (over 3600 square metres), designed and organised by Carlo himself.
After separating in business from his elder brother Beppo (1872), Carlo moved to Bergamo and here he set up two textile companies, one in 1874, the ‘Società in nome collettivo Caprotti & Guttinger’, the other in 1901, the individual firm ‘C. M. Caprotti’.
Carlo fell in love with Selina, daughter of Zurich businessman Nicholas Hübert, who had business between his homeland, Switzerland, and Bergamo, home to a strong and wealthy Reformed business community, and married her in 1871.
Carlo Caprotti was the Caprotti with the most ardent spirit. Whichever venture he embarked on, he always threw himself heart and soul into it, whether it was his Risorgimento and libertarian passions, his republican political commitment, his marriage or the fortunes of his factory.
“The leap forward in industrial activity occurred in the second half of the 19th century and was largely due to Giuseppe and Carlo Caprotti, born in 1837 and 1845 respectively....
The last times in Giuseppe’s life were terrible: a year before his son’s wedding a serious brain disease reduced him to dementia, from which he would not recover until his death in 1895.
Beppo subscribes to numerous magazines, finances geographical explorations and commercial expeditions, and maintains assiduous relations with two of the best-known Italian explorers of the time: Giuseppe Caprotti, a distant relative who has lived in San’a’, the capital of Yemen, for many years, and the famous Gaetano Casati, who was born in Ponte Albiate and is a childhood friend.
Giuseppe enlisted in the Albiate National Guard in September 1859, becoming second lieutenant in 1860; transferred to Imola with the Monza Guard battalion, he remained there until January of the following year, returning already tired from lack of commitment to business.
When their father Bernardo died in 1864, the company passed to his two sons, Giuseppe, my great-great-grandfather, and Carlo. In 1868, the two brothers decided to keep all the assets left to them by their father in common for nine years, but in 1872 Carlo chose to break away from the company much earlier, forcing his brother to make a considerable financial outlay; this would poison relations between the two for many years.
In 1872 Carlo Caprotti, Beppo Caprotti’s younger brother, left the family business to strike out on his own. Remaining the sole owner of the family business, Beppo continued with the decisive policy of investments aimed at bringing it to a level of mechanisation that would make it competitive on markets not only in Italy.
Your book, Giuseppe Maria Giorgio Caprotti, is wonderful; it has really opened my eyes to the history of modern distribution. Thank you
Highly topical issues covered in a detailed, compelling and engaging manner. It could provide plenty of inspiration for the big…
I will always remember you. Those two years on your team gave me the strength to look to the future. I’ve just finished reading your book. It was very moving. Thank you for the professional training you gave me, and thank you for the new energy you’ve instilled in me after reading it.
Dr Giuseppe (that’s what we always called him at the company) was, for us newcomers, a guiding light and a role model. I would like to highlight the professional, personal and moral depth of the man who embodied the future. A motivator, a natural mentor to whom, following the publication of his book, I feel even more attached
In my view, the difference between journalism, political non-fiction and history lies in the research, which, in the case of history, is much more in-depth and is based, first and foremost, on the study of documents and archives. But the added value of this book also lies in the contributions from people who worked for or were close to Esselunga, a company with a much broader entrepreneurial spirit than one might think
Good evening, Dr Caprotti, I have just finished reading your book *Le Ossa dei Caprotti* with a voracity I haven’t…
Book read with feelings that oscillated between amazement and anger but nevertheless I am not surprised. I enjoyed it very…
On the emotional wave of the end of the book, I only feel a strong empathy for the author, who…
