FIRST FRANCESCO SAVERIO ADORNA AEROSTATIC TROPHY

The annual celebration, colouring in September with fire-balloons Capannori’s sky, is back. Some important changes characterize this year’s edition. Among them stands out the naming of the trophy after Francesco Saverio Adorna, known as “Minetto”, forerunner of balloon’s flight and, for this reason, especially interesting in the field of aerostatics.
Count’s Adorni Braccesi family, living in Colognora di Compito (Capannori), and Adorna family, Francesco Saverio’s descendants living in Villette (Verbania), share as ascendants Genoa’s Adorno doges. In his historical residence, next to Tassignano’s airport where every year is set the “Air Festival”, Alessandro Ranieri Adorni Braccesi keeps the original of an ancient coloured engraving, dated 1784 and concerning the “ascension du sieur Adorne à la citadelle de Strasbourg”. The subject is one of the first aerostatic ascensions performed by Francesco Saverio Adorna.
The balloon represented in the engraving was 26 metres high with a circle of 51 metres and weighed 2,65 tons. The flag on its top showed the saying “Coelum patet ibimus illuc”: the sky is open, let’s go there. Some documents, actually under study, could prove that already in 1780 or 1781, therefore before Montgolfier brothers, Francesco Saverio had performed an ascension with a self-constructed balloon. For all these reasons Capannori’s town-administation has decided to name after him the 2009 Trophy that will be called “First Francesco Saverio Adorna Aerostatic Trophy”.
Everything  beginned at the end of the “2008 Air Festival  edition” when the Tourist Office of Capannori’s Municipality, after some investigation, managed to put in touch count Alessandro Ranieri Adorni Braccesi with Pierangelo Adorna, Mayor of Villette, for a first exchange of information about Francesco Saverio. A deepening of investigation has been added by Giacomo Bonzani, son of an Adorna and former Mayor of Villette, who has been able to use the results of the investigations held by Davide Ramoni, a local historian. Main result of all the investigations is that Francesco Saverio could really have been the first man to make an ascension with a fire-balloon. The test lasted only few minutes and ended with the complete destruction of the balloon. Fortunately there were few injuries for the pilot and his passenger whose name is still unknown.
Adorna performed more flights in Europe and recorded the first ascension in Poland in front of the Court, even if historians ascribe it to french Jean Pierre Blanchard. For such an exploit the King of Poland decorated him with Saint Stanislaus Augustus knighthood. Afterwards “Minetto” lived in France.

Francesco Saverio was born in Villette on January 14th 1744. His ancestors, in fact, once escaped massacre of the Adorno in Genoa, first settled in Borromee islands and afterwards in Villette for good. Following the destiny of many other inhabitants of Val Vigezzo, he emigrated very young abroad.  Returned home when he was eighteen years old he remained with his family till about 1770, then,  driven by his passion for physics, he went once more abroad focusing on the study of aeronautics, an argument that already in those times attracted scientists.

See some photos about the meeting between the Municipalities of Villette (Verbania) and Capannori.