Road to Valour

by Aili McConnon

  In his late seventies, Gino agreed to co-host a news-satire program where he helped parody the daily news while scantily clad showgirls danced provocatively in the background. It was a controversial decision and, in the eyes of many, a hypocritical and tawdry lapse for a man who had been one of Catholic Action’s most prominent members. Although financial considerations were probably one of his primary motivations for doing the show, Gino defended his decision in the name of his fierce sense of independence. “At my age,” he said, “I think I know what’s good for me.” In the recordings of the show, however, his discomfort occasionally betrays him through forced smiles and a few poorly concealed grimaces.

  Despite all the career changes and frustrations, Gino’s family would be a refuge and a source of lasting happiness. To this day, Adriana lives in the home that Gino bought after his 1938 Tour win, where she invited us to talk about her husband. Now a graceful, eloquent, and generous ninety-one-year-old woman, Adriana grew animated as she spoke about Gino and the life they shared together. At one point she paused to catch her breath, and we asked whether she needed a break. Nearby, Andrea, now a seventy-year-old man, piped up, “Yes, tell them when you’re tired, that way we’ll throw a bucket of water on you!”

  “Don’t you dare,” said Adriana, laughing, with a flash of mischief in her eyes. “I’m not in a race here!”

  Through his family’s anecdotes, Gino emerges as a playful, affectionate, and loyal father and husband. Family photos reveal a relaxed Gino, freed of the burden of the heavy scowl that he wears in so many of his public photos. Spending time with Adriana Bartali, one also realizes what a wide array of people befriended her husband—everyone from Juan and Evita Perón to Pope Pius XII to the opera singer Maria Callas. When Callas met Gino and Adriana one night at the Florence opera, she told Gino, “Signor Bartali, we’re the same, you and I. We’re tenacious, combative, generous, nothing stops us, we always give the maximum.” Was Adriana excited to meet so many legends? Certainly, but it is also clear that she has grown accustomed to living with her husband’s fame after more than seventy years.

  “Let’s put it this way,” she explained. “These were all normal events that were a part of our lives, that happened from time to time.”

  After Andrea and Luigi, Adriana and Gino went on to have a daughter, Bianca Maria. All three children live nearby with their families. For Gino’s children, at least in their early years, their father’s celebrity could be double-edged. Andrea, who was six years old when his father won the Tour in 1948, understood firsthand the commitments of a national champion. His father was away from home for long stretches of time during the racing season, and when he returned, friends and well-wishing strangers were constantly looking to spend time with him. Andrea would spend much of his formative years at a Catholic boardingschool, and even there the rivalry between the coppiani and bartaliani was bitterly felt. With time, however, he would come to accept his father’s unique place in the national imagination. As he matured and his father retired from life as a racer, the two found more time for each other, enjoying road trips together around the country or just quiet games of cards at home.

  Gino’s parents, Torello and Giulia, would continue to be pillars of strength in his life for the rest of their days. Both played an active role in their grandchildren’s lives, with Torello sharing stories from the old life in Ponte a Ema around the family hearth while Giulia prepared culinary delights, including a popular rabbit stew. Both had lived to see Gino enjoy international success, though they were relieved when he stopped cycling. As Gino put it when he retired, “For a quarter of a century my mother has been waiting for me to stop racing. I know her and her anxieties well. I have always felt her prayers in my heart. Now she will finally have a bit of peace.”

  In his early eighties, Gino’s health began to fail him. The heart that had powered him through a staggering lifetime tally of 370,000 miles of cycling became more capricious and soon required a pacemaker to regulate its beat. His voice became so gravelly that it was almost incomprehensible, hardened by the cumulative toll of a throat operation and decades of heavy smoking. His skin yellowed and his hair receded. His body grew heavier, slowed by a propensity to get out of breath and tire easily.

  Sensing that his life was drawing to a close, Gino grew increasingly reflective. Interviews with the press in those final years reveal a man at peace with himself. In one interview, Gino offered a heartfelt description of his vision of life: “Life is like a Giro D’Italia, which seems never-ending, but at a certain point you reach the final stage. And perhaps you don’t expect it. Now I’m beginning to expect it. Yes, I’ll soon be called and I’ll go up there.… Heaven should be a happy place, like those green summits of the Dolomite Mountains, after you’ve rounded a hundred curves, pedaling all the way.”

  Privately, he shared his wishes for his final arrangements with his family members. He requested a traditional Roman Catholic funeral mass and asked to be buried in the brown robes of the Carmelites, a Catholic religious order of which he was a lay member. Finally, he confessed to his family that he had been praying that he would die peacefully at home, and be spared the difficulty of a drawn-out terminal decline in the hospital.

  True to his wishes, an eighty-five-year-old Gino spent his last days at home in bed. On the afternoon of May 5, 2000, with his wife and children gathered around him, his breathing grew weaker until he quietly passed away.

  News of his death was broadcast on Italian television. Pope John Paul II hailed him as a “great sportsman,” and newspapers across Europe and North America published obituaries about him. In Italy, the Corriere Dello Sport dedicated its front page to a reflection on his career with the headline “Good-bye, Ginettaccio.”

  The funeral was held three days later. Friends and family gathered inside a local church while a group of aging bartaliani, many wearing their old cycling jerseys, stood outside. Speaking to a journalist, one of those fans offered a simple tribute to the cyclist’s legacy: “When we were poor and weary, he gave us back our honor.”

  After the mass was completed, Gino’s former teammates carried his casket out of the church. They brought it to the Ponte a Ema cemetery and laid it to rest near his parents; his stillborn son, Giorgio; and his beloved brother, Giulio.

  Where They Are Now

  Louis Bobet would go on to win the Tour de France in 1953, 1954, and 1955. During the 1959 Tour de France, he quit midrace after climbing the Col de l’Iseran. He retired in 1960 and died of cancer in 1983.

  Luigi and Trento Brizi continued to work in their Assisi print shop for the rest of their lives. Luigi died in 1969; Trento died in 1992. Both were recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations in 1997.

  Mario Carità fled Florence before the liberation and traveled to the north of Italy. He was killed in May 1945 in a skirmish with Allied soldiers trying to apprehend him.

  Fausto Coppi, like Gino, would lose his brother, Serse, to a biking accident in 1951. In the fall of 1959, he joined the San Pellegrino racing team, coached for a period by Gino. Tragically, however, their reunion was cut short when Coppi contracted malaria while racing in Africa and died in January 1960.

  Giovanni “the Sicilian Arrow” Corrieri would continue to race professionally until 1956. He lives to this day in Tuscany.

  Cardinal Elia Dalla Costa would continue to serve as the archbishop of Florence until his death in 1961.

  Giorgio Goldenberg arrived in Palestine in the spring of 1945. His parents and sister Tea followed after the creation of the state of Israel. Tea died in 2009. Giorgio currently lives near Tel Aviv and remains in contact with friends and family in Italy.

  Father Rufino Niccacci would continue to live in Umbria for the rest of his life. He was recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations in 1974 and died in 1976.

  Antonio Pallante was convicted and sentenced to ten years and eight months in prison for his attack on Palmiro Togliatti. His sentence was later reduced as part of a natio
nal amnesty program. Upon his release, he returned to Sicily, where he worked with his father for a branch of the police that deals with national forests. He married and had children, and would continue to follow cycling even after Bartali’s retirement. He is currently a pensioner and lives in Sicily.

  Jean Robic, although he never won the Tour again, would continue to race professionally until 1961. He died in a car accident in 1980.

  Aldo Ronconi would spend the remaining years of his professional career racing separately from Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi. He placed third in the 1950 Tour of Switzerland and retired from racing in 1952. He currently lives in Faenza, Italy.

  Palmiro Togliatti would remain the leader of the Italian Communist Party until his death in 1964.

  Notes

  PROLOGUE

  1 Bartali lost his temper Dante Gianello, “Bartali m’a dit: ‘Je croyais mourir de faim,’ ” L’Équipe, July 16, 1948: 4.

  2 muddy road … stunted fir trees H. W. Heinsheimer, “Le Tour de France,” Holiday, July 1949: 85 (although this article was published in 1949, it is exclusively about the author’s experience attending the 1948 Tour); Jacques Goddet, “Bartali avait rendez-vous avec L’Izoard,” L’Équipe, July 16, 1948.

  3 July 15, 1948 … the Queen Stage “Aujourd’hui repos à Cannes. Demain treizième étape,” L’Équipe, July 14, 1948: 2.

  4 heavy clouds … mud beneath his wheels Heinsheimer, “Le Tour de France,” 87; Goddet, “Bartali avait rendez-vous avec L’Izoard,” 1.

  5 Gino’s sensations and emotions during this critical stage These are drawn from Gino’s autobiographies and author interviews with Gino’s supporting rider Giovanni Corrieri. See full discussion in the chapter 12 and 13 notes.

  6 Il Vecchio … “the Old Man” Pier Lietto Chiapponi, Il Tirreno, April 12, 1948: 1.

  7 Ginettaccio—“Gino the Terrible” Gino Bartali with Mario Pancera, La mia storia (Milano: Stampa Sportiva, 1958), 65.

  8 Reports of large-scale protests Carlo Maria Lomartire, Insurrezione: 14 luglio 1948 (Milano: Mondadori, 2006), 145–54.

  9 Prime minister’s phone call See full discussion of this telephone call in chapter 12 notes.

  10 stood up out of his saddle Benjo Maso, Wir Alle Waren Götter: Die berühmte Tour de France von 1948 (Bielefeld: Covadonga Verlag, 2006), 181.

  11 the French cyclist cast a worried look Heinsheimer, “Le Tour de France,” 88.

  12 Gino stood to attack Maso, Wir Alle Waren Götter, 181.

  13 French rider exhausted at summit Gino Bartali, Tutto sbagliato, tutto da rifare (Milano: Mondadori, 1979), 145.

  14 Gino trembled with excitement “Dans L’Izoard, Bartali fit le vide autour de lui,” L’Équipe, July 16, 1948: 2. Bartali was thirty-two seconds behind.

  15 I am at one with the mountain Bartali, La mia storia, 85.

  16 Gino’s lips curled into a knowing smile André Costes from France Soir wrote, “His red lips, which the mud dripped over, began to curl up,” as cited in Maso, Wir Alle Waren Götter, 181.

  PART I

  CHAPTER 1. ACROSS THE ARNO

  To describe Gino Bartali’s childhood, we drew from several published interviews with Gino, including Gino Bartali, “La mia vita,” Tempo, November 29, 1952:13–15; our conversations with his son Andrea and wife, Adriana (author interviews July 17, 2009; August 3, 2009, and September 14, 2009), and his three autobiographies: Gino Bartali with Mario Pancera, La mia storia (Milano: Stampa Sportiva, 1958); Gino Bartali, Tutto sbagliato, tutto da rifare (Milano: Mondadori, 1979); and Gino Bartali with Romano Beghelli and Marcello Lazzerini, La leggenda di Bartali (Firenze: Ponte Alle Grazie Editori, 1992). In order to bring to life Gino’s hometown of Ponte a Ema and nearby Florence in the early twentieth century, two historians and librarians at the local Bagno a Ripoli library near Florence were invaluable: Raffaele Marconi and Maria Pagnini, whom we interviewed at length on August 12, 2009, and September 11, 2009. Longtime residents of Ponte a Ema Gabriella Nardi (author interview September 11, 2009) and Cesare and Tullia Grifoni (author interview July 31, 2009) also provided helpful details on the industries and daily life in this small town from the time Gino was born through World War II. Another Ponte a Ema native, Fosco Gallori (author interview July 31, 2009), attended the same elementary school as Gino Bartali and helped flesh out his childhood personality.

  1 “When we race together, let’s each win a little!” Bartali, La mia storia, 30.

  2 Bartalis lived on Via Chiantigiana Bartali, La leggenda, 197–98.

  3 Apartment had a room Jean-Paul Ollivier, Le Lion de Toscane: La Véridique Histoire de Gino Bartali (Grenoble: Editions de l’Aurore, 1991), 12–13.

  4 Home reminded Gino Bartali, “La mia vita,” 13–15.

  5 “The furniture” Carlo Callodi, Pinnochio, translated by Carol Della Chiese (Public Domain Books, 2006), ch. 3.

  6 “Little as Geppetto’s house was, it was neat” Ibid.

  7 “I would have liked to have friends” Bartali, “La mia vita,” 13–15.

  8 “I was an unlucky marbles player” Ibid.

  9 “As children we had fun with little” Marco Pastonesi interview with Gino Bartali in Paolo Costa, Gino Bartali: la vita, le imprese, le polemiche (Portogruaro: Ediciclo Editore, 2001), 173–80.

  10 The Arno River and the cookie factory nearby Alberto Marcolin, Firenze in Camicia Nera (Florence: Edizioni Medicea, 1993), 191; author interview with Fosco Gallori, July 31, 2009.

  11 Giulia stole Gino’s clothes when swimming Author interview with Adriana Bartali.

  12 father’s leather belt Costa, Gino Bartali, 173–80.

  13 he hatched a plan Bartali, La leggenda, 14.

  14 “I had little will to study” Bartali, “La mia vita,” 13–15.

  15 “I don’t like school” Carlo Maria Lomartire, Insurrezione: 14 luglio 1948 (Milan: Mondadori, 2006), 133. Author interview with Adriana Bartali. 11 Gino failed the first grade Bartali, “La mia vita,” 13–15. 11 charitable remark Claudio Gregori, “La pagella di Bartali pedalava in salita,” La Gazzetta Dello Sport, May 17, 2005.

  16 “To go to Florence you need a bicycle” Bartali, “La mia vita,” 13–15.

  17 Torello and Giulia Bartali In addition to Gino’s interviews and autobiographies and our conversations with Andrea and Adriana Bartali, we used the following sources: Ollivier, Le Lion; Marc Dewinter, “Gino the Pious,” Cycle Sport, July 1999: 40.

  18 bluish shale The Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 1 (1845): 275.

  19 Daily wages for day laborers Gaetano Salvemini, Under the Axe of Fascism (London: V. Gollancz, 1936), 161–62.

  20 U.S. dollar exchange rate during this period Michele Fratianni and Franco Spinelli, A Monetary History of Italy (New York: Cambridge University Pess, 1997), 135. The exchange rate fluctuated in the first decades of the twentieth century, so the USD equivalent of what Torello would have likely earned is by necessity an approximation.

  21 Story of Gino’s birth Author interview with Andrea Bartali.

  22 Peasants’ work schedule in Tuscany Frank M. Snowden, The Fascist Revolution in Tuscany, 1919–1922 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 26–27; Kate Carlisle, Working and Living: Italy (London: Cadogan Guides, 2007), 103.

  23 “Money is necessary for food” Bartali, “La mia vita,” 13–15.

  24 many without pedals Bartali, La leggenda, 14.

  25 “A lot of time was still to pass” Ibid.

  26 Early bike history Geoffrey Wheatcroft, Le Tour: A History of the Tour de France, 1903–2003 (London: Simon and Schuster, 2005), 2–3.

  27 “some of the Harvard College students” Wheatcroft, Le Tour, 2–3.

  28 “boneshaker” Todd Balf, Major: A Black Athlete, a White Era, and the Fight to Be the World’s Fastest Human Being (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2008), 8.

  29 “The rider was a stratospheric” Balf, Major, 9.

  30 Bianchi David Forgacs and Stephen Gundle, Mass Culture and Italian Society from Fascism to t
he Cold War (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 13.

  31 Cost of bike in labor hours in 1893 Wheatcroft, Le Tour, 7.

  32 Catholic and Socialist organizations Forgacs and Gundle, Mass Culture, 13.

  33 “A memory of motion” H. G. Wells, The Wheels of Chance: A Bicycling Idyll (New York: Breakaway Books, 1997), 71.

  34 “genital satisfactions,” “sportive masturbations” Wheatcroft, Le Tour, 9. 15 “stimulate criminal and aggressive tendencies” Benjo Maso, The Sweat of the Gods: Myths and Legends of Bicycle Racing (Norwich, England: Mousehold Press, 2005), 3.

  35 bicycle taxes Marcolin, Firenze in Camicia Nera, 194–95; Forgacs and Gundle, Mass Culture, 13.

  36 desperate sons who stole their mothers’ bicycles Balf, Major, 55–56.

  37 notable figures assassinated while cycling “Assassinato in bicicletta un ragionere a Putignano,” Il Tirreno, January 6, 1948: 1.

  38 Gino spent the summer Bartali, “La mia vita,” 13–15.