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momenti di moda, né su tendenze dell’ultima
ora. Si basa invece su una grande
sostanza». Proprio come la Ferrari.
Nel “rosso” del cavallino rampante ci
immergiamo ogni volta che vince così
come il futurista Marinetti si tuffava nell’acqua
di Capri e poi scriveva: «Ora io
nuoto come un pennello nel blùblù tra
lunghissime occhiate d’acqua».
box. Luca became Il Presidente – of Fiat,
Ferrari and Confindustria. Only in Capri has
he always been simply “Luca”. The people of
Capri don’t worry about titles or high positions.
Once you leave behind those ways of
thinking, there is just a man who shares their
delight to be on the island. This pleasure was
described in this way by Edwin Cerio –
engineer, expert botanist, antique collector
and businessman – in his Guida inutile
(Useless Guide), “Suddenly an unbelievably
beautiful image appears. Is it a fine old print, a
modern painting? Looking more closely, you
realize that it is a painting by a well-known
painter – a portrait of Capri, signed by God.”
This is a place where you can withdraw
without feeling like you are in exile.
One person who always welcomes
Montezemolo is Roberto Massa, “O’
professore”, son of a historic Capri family, with
whom “Luca” spends time sailing and relaxing.
There is the restaurant Paolino, behind the
Palazzo a Mare, or the Aurora, a few steps from
the Piazzetta. There is the engaging music of
Guido Lembo’s Anema e Core or the smooth
sound of Tonino Cacace’s Capri Palace to
restore your energy. Friends and familiar
scenes.
On the other hand, speaking of Capri,
Montezemolo said, “For me, Capri is a place
where I think things over, I read, I feel far from
the world. It’s where I have contact with the
simple things in life and the people who live
there all year round who I like so much. I don’t
live the high life when I’m on Capri. I just spend
the time with my Capri friends.”
So, you just might see him at the dockyard
working like a true sailor on his own boat – a
purplish-red Itama 60 he named Mediterraneo
II, which replaced Mediterraneo I, a boat
painted the blue of the water’s reflections out
by the Faraglioni. Those who know him well
say he is a perfectionist, careful about every
detail and even obsessive about the ritual
closing up of the boat at the end of the day.
The same way he is at his desk in Maranello
when he says to the Ferrari men, even after
winning a Grand Prix with flying colours: “Flat
out and pedal hard. We still have to do better.
Tell me, Todt, where is there room for
improvement?”
A summer Sunday often finds Montezemolo in
Capri following the Grand Prix on TV. At these
moments, solitude is his way to ward off bad
luck. He closes himself up in a room, far from
everything and everybody. “And whoever
happens to be with me, as my son for instance
knows very well, is not allowed to say a word.”
He was there in seclusion on the Feast of
Assumption of 1998, the tenth anniversary of
Enzo Ferrari’s death, when Schumacher won
the unforgettable Hungary Grand Prix in
Budapest. “He was in the lead. I almost had a
heart attack when I saw him lose control of the
the track with no damage done, thank God. He
took the risk and he pulled it off. In the end, the
boats in the port of Capri sounded their horns to
celebrate Ferrari’s victory,” he recalls.
Or Irvine’s first place in the German Grand Prix
in 1999 celebrated with a dinner at Aurora with
his children Matteo and Clementina and his
friends Diego Della Valle and Paolo
Borgomanero. He brought Schumacher and
Todt to Capri, too (“I remember that he was
wearing shorts and had on a pair of very
elegant moccasins,” recalled Todt), where they
played a memorable game of five-a-side with
some Capri friends. “There was just one
condition: to speak as little as possible about
Formula Uno, McLaren, Hakkinen, tires or rules
and regulations. It had to be a weekend of total
relaxation before diving back into the
pandemonium of the world championship.”
Good luck charms are almost a rule in the
Formula Uno. Todt keeps a little piece of wood
for good luck in his pocket; Schumacher drove
and won carrying his daughter Gina Maria’s
purple brush, Montezemolo has a piece of red
coral given to him by a Capri fisherman. A Capri
delegation, led by the young Bar Tiberio crowd,
was present in Monza last 12 September when
Barrichello and Schumacher won the first two
places in the Grand Prix of Italy.
A few months ago, Montezemolo bought a new
house in Anacapri, the highest and most discreet
part of the island, far from the noisy, high-spirited
commotion in the Piazzetta. It is a villa that
belonged to a Capri architect who built it for
himself in the beginning of the 1900s in the
Neapolitan style, surrounded by Mediterranean
vegetation and bathed in the perfumes of the
many flowers that blend into an utterly
captivating, heavenly scent. The same scent
described by Mayakovsky in a poem he wrote in
1916, “But Capri exists. With its halo of flowers,
the whole island is a woman in a rose-coloured
bonnet.” The villa is near Il Rosaio, where the
English writer Graham Greene lived after 1948
when he chose this secluded spot because he
claimed that the town of Capri – so marvellously
perfect, beautiful and aggressive – made it
impossible for him to maintain the concentration
he needed to write.
In his role as Chairman of Confindustria,
Montezemolo said, “The real business potential
in Italy is tied to beauty, to art, culture and
tourism. We have Capri, Pompeii, and Taormina,
which, if I dare say, the Chinese would have
trouble copying.” Just as no one could ever copy
the Horse. A real myth – and Capri has been one
for many, many years – “is not based on chic
times or the latest fashions. It has to be based on
its own greatness.” Like Ferrari. Into whose “red”
we plunge every time they win, like the futurist
Marinetti, who dove into the waters of Capri and
then wrote, “Ora io nuoto come un pennello nel
blùblù tra lunghissime occhiate d’acqua” (“Now I
swim like a painter’s brush in the blueblue
through the water’s longlong glances”).
car, end up on the grass and then get back onto ■
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