In the cover, behind father and mother, one glimpses grandmother Marianne and uncle Giuseppe – Beppo – Venosta, Giorgina’s brother.
Uncle Claudio Caprotti, the last of the three Caprotti brothers, tells us that once things had settled down after the tragic and sudden death of their father, my grandfather Peppino, who died in a car accident in June 1952, my father Bernardo Caprotti, the eldest son, decided it was time to get serious about the business, which also meant getting married and starting a family. He and his second brother, Uncle Guido (Claudio is still very young), start looking around and a few years later the wedding bells ring for both of them.
The first is Bernardo himself. He met my mother Giorgina Venosta in Forte dei Marmi, where the ‘best of youth’, including those from Lombardy, always met, they frequented the same places and the same people, they happened to cross paths. She is a shy teenager, among the most beautiful and intelligent who frequented the beaches in the magical summers of the 1950s, he is a man twenty years older, a successful entrepreneur, a brilliant personality and full of charm. In addition to this – and I explain this in my book Le Ossa dei Caprotti – Bernardo Caprotti seems to have a united, affectionate family behind him, ready to unite around its members, while she suffers the separation of her parents, which took place when she was still very young. He offers intelligence, irony and a warm, safe home; she has on her side beauty, intelligence, wit and the need for a family.
They married in Milan in November 1958, in the church of San Fedele packed with guests and, outside the gates, a crowd of onlookers. The photo album shows the men in their customary tight suits, the women in exclusive models surrounding the magnificent Giorgina, shining with youth in a voile dress full of pleats and sinuosity, made to bring out her elegant, longish figure to the full. At the reception, brothers-in-law, mothers-in-law and friends smile, the first of the little bridesmaids, Diana Theodoli , Giorgina’s half-sister, appears in many shots cuddled by close relatives and in-laws, the cutting of the cake is a party within a party, dominated by Bernardo’s radiant smile and Giorgina’s Renaissance profile.
The premises are all there, confirmed by the birth of yours truly in 1960 and a daughter, Violetta, in 1962. But by that time, the premises had already almost all gone up in smoke, the all-too-adult husband was oppressive, the family imagined as perfect was constantly quarrelling, Giorgina soon couldn’t take it any more and ran away, creating her own full and rich life over the years alongside another man, first Guido Somaré, then Aldo Bassetti. My father, for his part, remarried years later to Giuliana Albera, sister of Paola, Uncle Claudio’s wife, and had another daughter, Marina.
Sources:
Florence, Claudio Caprotti Archives, Photographic Archives.
Albiate (MB), Villa San Valerio, Villa San Valerio Archives, Manifattura Caprotti Archives, Giorgina Venosta Photographic Archive.
Bibliography:
G. CAPROTTI, ‘Le Ossa dei Caprotti. Una storia italiana’, Milan, 2024/3.
ID., ‘Giuseppe Caprotti. Personages: Giorgina Venosta (1940-2021)’.
