We all have, over the years, learned about the heraldic signifigance of the Alfa badge and the deeds that inspired its adoption. However, what was it that made Milano the birthplace of the cars we so admire. Was it because the investors all lived in the area...yes. Was it because those investors wanted to create an all-italian car in a world market dominated by the French...yes Or, perhaps, was it something else, something indefinable, something that started in the previous century.

After Napoleon, Italy like other areas in europe, was ruled by near feudal lords in various independent states and duchy's.  The King of Naples in the south, the Papal States and Venezia in the east, the duchy's of Parma, Tuscany and Modena in the west and Lombardy, Piedmont and Savoy in the north.

This was the political situation that Giuseppe Garibaldi faced when the Risorgimento or unification of Italy was started. However, it must be said that if one man has an idea, surely there were others. Garibaldi, a selfless, idealistic, incorruptible man was not alone.

In a tiny village, not far from the small town of Busetto in the duchy of Parma, was born, in 1813, another who one day would come to symbolize the glory and hope that the Risorgimento promised, Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi.

Verdi had established himself in Milano at the Teatro alla Scala, who produced his first operas. During this time the north and east of Italy was under Austrian occupation, naturally bringing about in Verdi, patriotic tendencies .

It was obvious that any opera about italian freedom would not be passed by the Austrian military censor. So how to overcome this obstacle. Verdi decided to adapt a story, "Nabucodonosor", about the ancient Israelites exile in biblical Babylon (present day Iraq), and their longing for their homeland, a simile that all italians would understand.

Thus was born his opera that we know today as "Nabucco" It was in this opera that Verdi presented a song that would become and still is, a second italian national anthem, "Va, Pensiero". Sung by the chorus of Hebrew Slaves, the song, even to this day brings forth calls for an encore from audiences and brings forth the same emotions that "God Bless America" and "America the Beautiful" does here.

The song was an immediate sensation. Later as the Risorgimento began to take hold, Garibaldi had recognized that his best hope for a united Italy would be for all patriots to rally around the King of Piedmont, Victor Emanuel. Verdi, because of his pre-eminent position in the publics' eye and the success and popularity of his patriotic opera, began to see his name used as an acronym, as graffitti, to confound the Austrian occupation: Vittorio Emmanuelli Re D' Italia.

By the time Verdi died at age 88, in 1901, he had become the worlds foremost composer of lyric opera. At his funeral, outside the Teatro alla Scala, tens of thousands of Milanese gathered to pay their respect. The grainy newsreels of the day show the crowd surrounding the horse-drawn hearse. It was reported that they sung, Va, Pensiero.

It was, perhaps this spirit, that devolved into the cars that we so admire.

David Rivkin