It is called “Il cielo sopra Varramista” and tells a broad cross-section of the experience of the unfortunate offspring of the Agnelli in Tuscany, from childhood to the presidency in the nineties up to his untimely death: from rides on a Vespa in the woods to visits to workers at the end of the shift
May 18, 2022
D.extinguished by his uncle Gianni to succeed him at the helm of Fiat Giovannino Agnelli died of rare bowel cancer at the age of 33 in December 1997.
A few years earlier, on February 25, 1993, Giovannino was appointed president of Piaggio and moved to live in Varramista, the family estate 6 kilometers from Pontedera, a place in the heart of the Agnelli scion, where he had spent many summers as a child and adolescent. .
A book called “The sky above Varramista”, written by Lando Testi and Giuseppe Cecconi in which the protagonist is the Vespa and its history, but in which it is discovered love and bonding that Giovannino he had with the famous scooter, with Piaggio and with the territory of Pontedera.
Among the white-haired Piaggio workers the memory of Giovannino is still very vivid and is that of a person very human, very empathetic with everyone, from the worker to the trade unionist and the top manager or politicians. In a few years Agnellino raised the fortunes of the Piaggio brand and he strongly wanted the realization of a company museum inside the former factories. It will open its doors four years after his death and is still the destination of thousands of visitors every year.
This book reveals many anecdotes which give a precise picture of who the Agnelli heir was. Let’s see some of them.
Love for Varramista, Pontedera and Tuscany
Llove for Varramista. The boy spent all school holidays in Tuscany, from June to September, as a guest of his grandmother Paola Bechi Antonelli. In 1980, at the age of sixteen, taken by nostalgia, Giovannino fled from Piedmont and reached Pontedera by train. The family, alarmed, alerted the carabinieri and a plainclothesman awaited him at the station. They were the years of lead.
In those early years he often rode his Vespa through the woods around Pontedera and frequented his local peers, perhaps sons of workers of Piaggio itself. The eighteenth of him was held in Varramista and his father Umberto had him greeted by all of Juventus and with a concert by Zucchero.
From little more than a teenager, the scion had himself inserted incognito as a worker and worked in a chain for a few months: the pseudonym used was Giovannino Rossi.
When Piaggio was president he lived in Varramista, where he had also taken over residence: Sunday went at mass in the small local church and was voting very early in seat of the school.
In Piaggio and that phrase about women before men
No.n 1996, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Vespa, Piaggio organized a concert of Renzo Arbore in the city stadium and Agnelli wanted with him all the mayors of the Valdera, as representatives of the thousands of workers who had contributed to the construction of the two-wheeler. Among the mayors there was also a mayor-worker.
Very often, at the end of the shift around 5 pmthe workers saw him go down to the workshops to observe the new models and processes and also ask them for their opinions and opinions.
In an interview with Tiziano Terzanimade in New Delhi, explained: “In the work team at Piaggio I try to have collaborators who are better than me. I really mean it, I believe it. When I have to judge someone, I look at the people around them. myself”.
Before then Prime Minister Romano Prodi, in Rome on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Vespa, he said: “The success of the Vespa is due to dedication of women and men who worked at Piaggio “. Quoting women first than men he showed a very unusual sensitivity for that period.
In just four years Giovannino managed to be loved and remembered by many people, even if only for a greeting. Walter Veltroni, of whom he was a friend and to whom he had been introduced by the mayor of Pontedera at the time, Enrico Rossi, 5 years ago he wrote a memoir about it Corriere della Sera which reads: “He was an extraordinary guy, really. I think if his life had continued the fate of this country maybe it would have been different. ”
Giovanni Alberto “Giovannino” Agnelli
The book by Lando Testi and Giuseppe Cecconi
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