Re: weekend in Milan

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Addendum to the "weekend in Milan" thread: a few possibilities worth
mentioning - - If you like, or want, books, the Libreria dell'Automobile
('Libreria' meaning 'bookstore', not library) is at Corso Venezia 43, in the
center of Milan, and is run by one of the larger automotive publishers,
Giorgio Nada, but not limited to their products in anything like the degree
that Classic Motorbooks is; the most recent catalog I have from them lists
over fifty Alfa books as well as about five thousand other in-print books. I
could probably easily spend a week, and fifty thousand dollars, in there if I
had a week and fifty thousand dollars.

Also within walking distance of anywhere in central Milan is the Museo
Nazionale della Scienza e della Technica Leonardo da Vinci, the national
science museum, not exactly comparable to the Smithsonian or the Science
Museum in London, but with some interesting Alfas as well as other interesting
stuff.

In Monza, a north-east suburb of Milan, there is the Padiglione Automobili
d'Epoca, at the Autodrome Nazionale. They have is a changing assortment of
cars on loan- mostly Italian, mostly noteworthy, mostly competition-oriented,
but it can be anything that has been offered that they have room for; the
epitome of a great accidental agglomeration. It should be excellent but
unpredictable. Open Sundays on non-race weekends, otherwise "by arrangement"
which might mean by size of tip. Sunday should be a great compliment to the
weekdays hours of the company museums. As a bonus, for a small fee you may
drive your rented Alfa on the track.

In Rossano, a south-western suburb of Milan, the magazine 'Quattroruote'
houses The Quattroruote Collection, a superb small collection, carefully
selected and organized to represent the evolution of international automotive
design and engineering from an Italocentric viewpoint. Like Alfa, it is a
company museum open only on workdays.

Everybody loves the Alfa museum, irresistible of course, but it is preaching
to the choir- all Alfas and only Alfas, many of them as overrestored as
anything you could find at Pebble Beach or at the Blackhawk, with the less
interesting majority edited out. Some are literally new cars with zero miles
on them, assembled from seventy-year-old new parts in stock; some, like the
Ricotti 'egg', are simply new recreations of cars that once existed for a few
months up to nearly a century ago, which is stretching the idea of a 'museum',
obliterating the line between fact and fiction. But hey, who cares? (I do, but
that is beside the point.)

If I had to chose one or the other I would skip the Alfa museum in favor of
the Museo dell'Automobile Carlo Biscaretti da Ruffia, Corso Unita d'Italia 40,
Turin, which is almost certainly the finest medium-sized automobile collection
in the world. The collection is international but naturally strongest in
Italian cars. It has just six or eight Alfas among its several hundred cars,
but it does an unmatchable job of putting Alfas into context with the entire
Italian industry- the Fiat which won the French GP in 1907, the Itala which
also in 1907 won the Peking-to-Paris race by two months over the second place
car, the Fiats Jano worked on before he came to Alfa, the great Lancias he
worked on after Alfa foolishly fired him, the OM and Maserati competitors of
Alfa's glory days, the Ferraris which came later, the mundane economy cars and
opulent luxury cars of the twenties and thirties, great competition cars from
recent decades, some great cars that didn't quite work- like the tiny,
beautiful, 1100 cc blown V12 fwd Itala GP car from 1927 - everything. And the
few Alfas it has are very fine, the real thing. One wing of the top floor,
devoted to chassis and engines, has two superb Jano chassis which you cannot
see at Arese, a bare Lancia Lambda, fine engines which would be impossible to
see anyplace else.

As always, but especially in Italy, things change; what is open this year is
not necessarily what was open last year or will be open next year, so it can
pay to check first.

Enjoy,

John H.
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