My mother Giorgina [Venosta]‘s friends, whom I knew from childhood or at work, were an important part of her life and, by extension, of mine as well, since I saw them all the time; in some cases, they also became my affectionate ‘protectors’, as in the case of Inge Feltrinelli.
Of her, the Saxon German, exceptional photoreporter and author of famous if not unique shots – Greta Garbo and Hemingway, to name but the most famous -, then wife of Giangiacomo Feltrinelli and since his death in 1972, the soul and pivot of the Milanese publishing house, everything and anything has been said. The most beautiful memory is perhaps Lorenzo Villa’s: ‘An extraordinary life, that of Inge Schöntal Feltrinelli, which began in 1930 in Göttingen, ended in 2018 in Milan and the world in between. I knew her as a close and valued friend of my mother Giorgina and her second husband Aldo Bassetti, whose house on the lake she often visited. She was a lively woman full of curiosity, and she knew and valued the value of friendship and loyalty: she was one of the few people who did not abandon me when the worst years of my life arrived.
Then Anna Nogara, actress and director, graduate of the School of Dramatic Art of the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, second wife of Roberto Olivetti and mother of his only daughter. She began her career at a very young age, and continued it with professional experience between Italy and France that led her to work with directors of the calibre of Strehler, Puecher, Grüber and Ronconi. Today she favours public readings of poetry and authors of great literary texts. She has a strong bond with Bellano, her family’s place of origin and where she spent many years of her life, where even in recent months, over 80 years old but still full of energy, she has given a performance that has already been acclaimed at Milan’s Franco Parenti theatre.
Finally Adriana Botti, later wife of Mario Monti, owner of the Longanesi publishing house, a lifelong friend(there is a photo of her sitting next to Marco Brunelli, a friend of my uncle Guido Caprotti and one of the founders of Esselunga, during a dinner in Cortina in 1958, the year of my parents’ wedding), and an important figure in the invention of Italian fashion and its communication.
Aldo Borletti‘s granddaughter, she joined Rinascente in the 1960s as an ordinary employee until someone discovered its fantastic potential: in 1968 she became an executive with the role of Art Director, then created the Fashion Style Office, for which a young Giorgio Armani also worked (and here the myth of Armani as a window-dresser is dispelled).
The journalist Adriana Sartorio remembers her as ‘a lovely, beautiful, cultured, elegant girl who represented the essence of La Rinascente (…). What she suggested was always something worth finding in the shop’ (M. TENACE, La Rinascente copies 100 years). On the other hand, “it was precisely the female professionals of La Rinascente who invented, designed, photographed, communicated and set up ‘those beautiful years’ in which Made in Italy was born”, not least “the new communication, which opened the door to contemporary marketing and saw two fascinating young women of the Milanese bourgeoisie, Amneris Latis and Adriana Botti Monti, invent the profession of art director and PR.” (La Rinascente è Donna!).
When the new ownership took over at Rinascente in 1971 Adriana left; she worked a few months for “Vogue Italia”, then for five years for Longanesi, and finally, from 1979 to 1997, for “Casa Vogue” (Rinascente Archives, Fondi, Archivio Adriana Botti Monti). My mother photographed her at work, and in the house she kept a beautiful portrait of her taken in the mountains.
N.B.: my mother, Giorgina Venosta, Donatella Brustio in Cerri,Rosellina Archinto and Adriana Monti all worked at Rinascente.
Adriana was also part of the group of friends who came to Lindos back in the 1970s.
Sources:
Rinascente Archives, House Organs, “Cronache laRinascente upim”, Periodical for the staff, a. XX, no. 43, winter 1967 – 1968 [pdf format].
Ibid., “Cronache laRinascente upim”, Periodico per il personale, a. XXI n. 44, 1968 [format .pdf].
Bibliography:
L. VILLA, Inge Schöntal Feltrinelli, regina dell’editoria, in Harper’s Bazaar, 25/12/2022.
Rinascente Archives, by Memoria & Progetto, edited by M. CANELLA and E. PUCCINELLI, Funds, Adriana Botti Monti Archives
Rinascente Archives, La Rinascente è Donna! Il grande magazzino come laboratorio e vetrina dei talenti delle donne, realised by Memoria & Progetto, edited by M. CANELLA and E. PUCCINELLI.
M. TENACE, La Rinascente turns 100: since then it has been the heart of Milan and tells its story in two exhibitions, in “Elle Decor”, 26/5/2017.
G. CAPROTTI, Le Ossa dei Caprotti. Una storia italiana, Milan, 2023
