04.28.2022
Capozza (ACI): The “Vate” gave the “Flying Mantuan” a small golden turtle: “To the fastest man in the world, the slowest animal”
Celebrate the ninetieth anniversary of the legendary meeting, which took place on April 28, 1932, between the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio, one of the leading exponents of European decadence, and the flying Mantovano Tazio Nuvolari, the strongest Italian driver of all time, recalling ” the myth of speed, the beauty of the car and poetry “.
It is for this reason that the General Secretary of the Automobile Club of Italy, Gerardo Capozza, the President of the States General of the Italian Heritage, Ivan Drogo Inglese, and the President of the Il Vittoriale Foundation, Giordano Bruno Guerri, met at ” the Vittoriale degli Italiani ”, in those same places on the shores of Lake Garda that the poet had chosen and which he would have helped to transform into a place of enchantment, passion, thought and poetry.
“It was Gabriele d’Annunzio – recalled Capozza – who expressed the desire to meet the ace behind the wheel, to whom he shared a love of speed. The two” talked for hours, walking through the avenues of the Vittoriale, the home mausoleum of the poet and thus was born the story of a friendship between poetry, speed and characters who represent the icons of an era “.
At the time of the farewell. to seal the relationship of esteem and admiration started that day, D’Annunzio wanted to give the pilot a small golden turtle with the dedication: ‘To the fastest man in the world, the slowest animal’.
From that moment on, the tortoise, a symbol of prudence and slowness, which D’Annunzio had adopted as a talisman, became the brand that accompanied Nuvolari in his exploits. The flying Mantuan, in fact, chose the turtle as his symbol: he wore it embroidered on his strictly yellow racing jerseys, imprinted it on the headed paper and had it painted on the fuselage of his private plane.