Nivola

Born in Castel d'Ario (in the province of Mantua) on 16 November 1892 and died in Mantua on 11 August 1953, he was a motorbike and car driver from 1920 to 1950. The press has created various nicknames for him, "Mantovano volante" and "Nivola". He entered the history of sport, not only Italian, and few, like him, in the 30's fascinated fans, crowds, fans, newspapers, government men, ministers. Nuvolari, before the Second World War, managed to represent, in the hearts of those who had seen him pass on the dusty roads of the "Mille Miglia", a perfect symbiosis between man and engine. It might sound like a cliché, but in reality Tazio always appeared, to everyone, as someone who was born inside cars and who literally never got out of them: a man of speed and of the future, in short. That air of progress that one breathed around, before the war swept everything away, was really due, in the different fields of activity, to characters like Nuvolari. To one, in short, who, bolt after bolt, beacon after beacon, wheel after wheel, would have been able to put together, from nothing, a bolide able to beat any other bolide and give everyone the impression that the path of the future and progress was traced.

His father, Arturo Nuvolari, was a passionate cyclist, incredibly attracted by engines, and he passed on his passion for Tazio who, still very young, became a motorcyclist. The motorbikes, however, immediately made him known and "created" the character. One day "Nivola", with a patch on his leg, asked him to go out on the track. To race, he was tied to the motorbike. In April 1930 he was consecrated "ace" of engines: the champion won the "Mille Miglia" with an Alfa Romeo of 1750, at an average speed of over one hundred kilometres per hour. From that moment on (1935-1937), successes no longer count, but his great passion for engines is killing him because of the continuous inhalation of petrol vapours. In 1947 and 1948 Tazio ran the last two "Mille Miglia". Just in 1948, in Turin, at the finish line of the Brezzi Trophy, he arrived with the car without steering wheel, turning the steering wheel with the spanner.

A myth, a great myth, a kind of solitary knight who seemed to come out of the Middle Ages. At that time there were no electronic devices on racing cars, the position of the opponent was not communicated on the headphones and the victories or defeats were never for a thousandth of a second. As in cycling, when one went away, he just went away. If necessary, the driver would get off and, at the side of the road, he would repair himself the distributor of the car that had got wet from the rain. But in the agricultural and poor Italy of that period, the unleashed bolides that arrived in the dust seemed to promise modernity, progress, wealth for all. The people, sweaty, tired, with a big smile printed on their mouths, rushed from the fields to see those "madmen" who ran away like the wind and felt somehow gratified.

The great "Nivola" retired from racing on 10th April 1950. Tazio had never had an easy life: two children he had had since his marriage to Rosa Carolina Perina had died of illness. On 1 August 1953, at the age of 61, Tazio surrendered to his incurable illness. One of the great myths of world motor racing, the "son of the devil", the man with "nerves of steel", was unfortunately beaten in a sprint by the disease. Nuvolari, therefore, could only be beaten by misfortune and all the dreamers, those in need of freedom and those who imagined a world without obstacles could be recognized in him. The beautiful song written some years ago by Roberto Roversi and sung by Lucio Dalla pays homage to Nuvolari's spirit.