THE MARQUIS RIDOLFI

Marquis Luigi Ridolfi Vaj da Verrazzano, authentic Florentine, descendent of Lorenzo the Magnificent and heir to one of the ten oldest and most glorious families of Florence, led a very intense and adventurous life. He was a hero in World War I. A Futurist, he joined the Fascist Party, became an entrepreneur, and was a liberal patron of sport and music. A pioneer of sport, he became an irreplaceable manager at all levels - regional, national and international. He was the founder of the "Maggio Musicale Fiorentino" with Vittorio Gui, of the Florentine Football Association, of the Athletic Society "Giglio Rosso", of the Italian Automobile Club of Florence; he became a great president for the Italian Athletic Association and the Italian Football Federation. Reviser and member of the CONI committee, he founded and presided over the technical sector of the Football Federation. He was elected three times as a member of parliament and for more than two years he was the "Federale" for Florence. Patron and sponsor, he demonstrated his farseeing vision, when he started to cultivate the idea at the beginning of the 1950s of creating a sports centre which would represent a point of reference: it was the embryo of the actual Coverciano. "It is certain that the thunderbolt follows the lightning". This was how Alessandro Manzoni described the rapidity with which Napoleon made decisions, and Ridolfi was no less rapid in following up his idea with an immediate project, thus giving birth to one of the most important sports centres in the world. Periods of intense activity followed: meetings, reunions, estimates projects and anything else necessary to accomplish the task in hand. Unfortunately Marquis Ridolfi did not have the pleasure of seeing his work completed as he died suddenly in June 1958, it is said while on his way to an athletic meeting at the Bentegodi stadium in Verona. A few months later, on November 6th 1958, the Coverciano Sports Centre was inaugurated with the blessing of Cardinal Elio Dalla Costa, Archbishop of Florence at the time, and in the presence of all the major exponents of the sporting world and the civil authorities.
Strict with everyone and implacable with himself, Luigi Ridolfi, true blooded Florentine, possessed a moral stature such that today he can be considered one of the most important personalities of the 20th Century.

from: "IL FIORENTINO. VITA E OPERE DEL MARCHESE LUIGI RIDOLFI" by Andrea Claudio Galluzzo (v. bibliography)