Edited by:
Massimo Martini
Mountaineer and pioneer of Italian ski mountaineering.
Personal details
name: Aldo Bonacossa
born: 7 August 1885 – Vigevano
died: 20 April 1975 - Milan
Nationality: Italian Occupation: engineer, industrialist, mountaineer
Membership: Italian Alpine Club since 1903, Italian Academic Alpine Club from 1906
Biography
Aldo Bonacossa was born in Vigevano on 7 August 1885 into a family of silk industrialists from the Lomellina region. His father, Cesare, was granted the title of count in 1913, and sources usually refer to Aldo as Count Aldo Bonacossa. He was the younger brother of Alberto Bonacossa (1883–1953), a sports administrator and member of the IOC, with whom he is often confused in accounts of the history of Italian sport.
He also completed his engineering studies at the Technische Hochschule in Munich, where he was awarded the title of Doktor-Ingenieur with a dissertation on the topography and geology of theUpper Valmalenco, dated 1912 or 1913 depending on the catalogue. He worked as a silk manufacturer and later as a manager of agricultural enterprises and a building contractor. In 1926, he married Ester della Valle di Casanova, a mountaineer and skier, whom he had met whilst sharing a passion for the mountains; they had one daughter, Silvia, later known as Silvia Sella Bonacossa.
He joined the Italian Alpine Club in 1903 and the Italian Academic Alpine Club in 1906 (1907 according to a 1965 CAI profile). He recalled Christian Klucker as his first ice-climbing instructor and Bortolo Sertori as his first instructor on the granite of the Val Masino. He began skiing in 1904 and used skis not only for winter travel but also for climbing mountains. His activities extended to the Alps, the Gran Sasso, the Pyrenees and the Sierra Nevada. Commemorative sources mention over four hundred first ascents and new routes, with some citing 470, but there is no analytical record distinguishing between new routes, first summits, first winter ascents and first ski ascents. His climbing partners included Giusto Gervasutti, Ettore Castiglioni, Luigi Binaghi and King Albert I of Belgium.
During the First World War, he served as a volunteer officer in the Engineers. After a period on theIsonzo, he was assigned to the Intelligence Service of the Supreme Command and served as an instructor on military skiing courses. In 1916, he accompanied the photographer and filmmaker Luca Comerio to the Adamello, enabling him to film the war being fought in the high mountains. Some accounts attribute the direction of the film to him, but the available documentation does not confirm this.
He was one of the founders of the National Ski Federation, established in 1920, and served as its first president from 1920 to 1922. Some sources, including federal ones, attribute a second term to him from 1927 to 1929, whilst others indicate that his brother Alberto held the presidency from 1928 to 1929. He was vice-president of the International Ski Federation from 1932 to 1934 and subsequently an honorary member. He chaired the Italian Academic Alpine Club from 1933 to 1945, succeeding Umberto Balestreri; he was not president-general of the CAI, of which he became an honorary member in 1964. A member of the Alpine Club since 1912, he was readmitted in 1948 following the interruption caused by the war; he served as its vice-president in 1957 and became an honorary member in 1963.
Between 1934 and 1939, he took part in three expeditions to the Andes, leading the first one, organised by the CAAI; all three are described in *Imprese alpinistiche*. The Gran Sasso was a recurring focus of his activities, both on skis and as a climber, between 1923 and 1934.
He systematically used photography to document war, mountains, travels and expeditions. Two separate collections preserve his work: the Marzio Govoni Collection in Carpi, comprising three diaries and 576 photographs on war, mountaineering and South American expeditions, and the Bonacossa Collection at theArchive of the Historical Society for the White War, originating from Luciano Viazzi’s collection, containing 1,052 photographic prints. He died in Milan on 20 April 1975.
Mountaineering exploits
Corno Grande – 1923 – ascent on skis and descent on 27 March
Corno Piccolo – 1923 – activities in the same year
Tronador, Chilean peak (Pico Matteoda) – 1934 – first ascent on 28 February, with Luigi Binaghi and Giusto Gervasutti; the summit was named after Giuseppe Matteoda, who had perished alongside Luigi Durando during a previous attempt on the massif (Andes, Argentina and Chile)
Punta dei Due, south-east ridge - 1934 – route opened on 2 October with Giusto Gervasutti, featuring a section rated VI at the time (Gran Sasso)
Gran Sasso – 1932 – ski traverse of the massif from east to west, in March, with Luigi Binaghi and Ninì Pietrasanta, including winter ascents on skis to Pizzo d’Intermesoli and Monte Corvo
Fitz Roy – 1937 – reconnaissance of possible access routes, without reaching the summit, with Ettore Castiglioni, Titta Gilberti and Leone Dubosc (Patagonia)
Cerro Rato – 1937 – first ascent, initially referred to as Cerro Doblado and subsequently corrected in CAI literature (Patagonia)
Cerro Maria di Piemonte – 1939 – first ascent, on 21 February, with Remigio Gérard (Puna de Atacama)
Licancabur – 1939 – climbed on 6 March with Remigio Gérard, with observations of pre-Columbian structures and artefacts at the summit (Chile–Bolivia border)
Cerro Pili - 1939 – first ascent, 14 March (Puna de Atacama)
Cerro degli Alpini, Cerro Colorado, Tocorpuri - 1939 – ascents and explorations during the same expedition, with Remigio Gérard and Carlo Negri
Works
Beiträge zur Topographie und Geologie des Oberen Malencotales, Munich, Royal Technical University, 1912–1913
The Region of theOrtler, Milan, Italian Alpine Club, 1915
The Italian expedition to the Andes, CAI Monthly Magazine, 1934
Masino-Bregaglia-Disgrazia, Milan, CAI-TCI, 1936
Three expeditions to the Andes in Argentina, Chile and Bolivia, in Italian Mountaineering Around the World, Milan, CAI-TCI, 1953
Masino-Bregaglia-Disgrazia, vol. II, 2nd ed. with Giovanni Rossi, Milan, CAI-TCI, 1975
Masino-Bregaglia-Disgrazia, vol. I, 2nd ed. with Giovanni Rossi, Milan, CAI-TCI, 1977
Bibliography
As a writer
Ruth Berger (ed.), Aldo Bonacossa. A Life Dedicated to the Mountains. A Collection of Mountaineering Writings, Tamari, Bologna, 1980
As a key reference
Italian Alpine Club, profile of Aldo Bonacossa, Monthly Magazine, 1965
Renato Chabod, Aldo Bonacossa, CAI Monthly Magazine, vol. 96, no. 9, September 1975
Ruth Berger, Aldo Bonacossa, CAI Bulletin and CAAI Yearbook, no. 80, 1981
Vincenzo Abbate, That mountaineer from the north: Aldo Bonacossa and ski mountaineering on Gran Sasso, CAI L’Aquila, Series III, no. 27 (155), June 1993