Portrait of Nicola Romeo

Nicola Romeo (1876-1938) from Sant’Antimo (Naples) is the founder of the factory of the prestigious Alfa car manufacturer (Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili). The first of eight children, his father was a master, he graduated in mechanical engineering from the University of Naples and specialized in electromechanical engineering in Belgium. Back in Italy, he is involved in various industrial activities: he builds the first high-voltage railway section between Rome and Tivoli, introduces compressed-air machinery in many industries (Carrara marble quarries receive an excellent boost thanks to the introduction of these machines and the aeration techniques of the long-distance railway tunnels also benefit). Nicknamed "mermaid" for the haunting powers of persuasion of its interlocutors in business, in time of war it also patented war material and gave impetus to the artillery bullet factories. It then implements a reconversion suitable for the period of peace: it diversifies, but incorporates them into a single company of which it is president, the production in the various establishments that it had planted and directed: in Milan in the Officine del Portello was born Alfa Romeo, in Saronno a electric accumulator factory, in Pomigliano d'Arco (Naples) an aircraft factory, sensing with farsightedness the future potential of both civil and military aeronautics. He also writes several treatises of pure geometry. He was appointed senator. Always dedicated to charity (he had a special secretary dedicated specifically to philanthropic activity), in his will he allocated 100,000 lire to the Ospedale Maggiore, to show his affection in Milan, his chosen homeland “where so much active life I spent, gathering, even with bitterness and pain, the greatest satisfactions ". The bitterness and pains he alludes to refer above all to the fact that he had to surrender his creature to IRI for economic reasons in 1928. He died in Magreglio (Como) at the age of 62, with his wife, his seven children next to him, one of whom was called Giulietta, as one of the symbolic cars of the House will be christened. The Hospital entrusts the execution of the portrait to Arnaldo Carpanetti, an artist particularly appreciated during the Thirties for his complex figurations of epic and narrative character, which artistically translated the propaganda requirements of the Regime, for which he had just finished realize the decorative cycle of the Palazzo di Giustizia in Milan. In the painting, which is a significant example of his style, the artist highlights the activity of mechanical engineer and inventor of the Romeo, accurately representing the figure of the benefactor with his characteristic whiskers, but at the same time expanding the space of the representation to give ample emphasis to the representation of technical drawings and mechanical parts.