Alessandro Corti, born in 1910, grew up within the family transport company. With wagons and horses they moved the large stones for Italcementi, recovering them on the rivers. The return journey was nocturnal. The horses had already learned the way and the drivers could sleep in makeshift hammocks attached under the wagons.
Alessandro, however, unlike his father, looked at those stones in a new way.
“Dad was more refined. He was an artist and became a sculptor.’
Germano tells us about him. He is one of Alessandro and Virginia’s four sons, and together with Gualtiero, Fernando and Antonio he carries on the family business.
We met him, together with the Urban District of Commerce, to let us tell the story of their business.
Alessandro and Virginia met in Salò, where she was born and raised and where he was sent by the army to rest after the second world war. He was in the last ‘Savoia Cavalry’ regiment and was riding a horse named ‘Quasi’.
She was nice and beautiful, honest and shrewd in business. He was thin and a good man, ‘a little man, with great strength’ says Germano gratefully and in love.
And it was this mother, strong and combative, who borrowed the money to start her own business and start with the marbles.
Alessandro sculpted with precision and creativity, Virginia had the talent of commerce.
Virginia held an iron fist with her children. ‘It gave hard blows’ they say, ‘and she always took it with her.’
She got her driving license at 50, but never learned to reverse. For this reason, Germano accompanied her, even if she could hardly reach the pedals, to take care of parking her car upon arrival.
“She was a unique woman. We owe eighty percent of the business we still manage to her,’ adds Fernando with conviction.
Today Marmi Corti is divided between Bergamo and Azzano San Paolo. In the city there are two showrooms – in Borgo Palazzo and the Upper Town – purely dedicated to funerary art and the artistic working of marble and granite.
Here, mainly Germano, Fernando and Antonio worked, and today three of their sons have also joined them: Alessandro, the first grandson who is named after his grandfather, Giordano and Omar.
Giordano, just over twenty years old, taciturn, with a sweet look and tattooed arms, takes care of the administrative and commercial part. In reality, it is he who takes care of the families who arrive after losing a loved one, it is he who welcomes them, listens to them and manages the most difficult moments.
‘At the beginning it was tiring, now I can get involved a little less. But it is undoubtedly the most delicate part of the job’.
Omar, Germano’s son, with the look of someone who want to challenge the world, is engaged in the manual work of preparing and creating the marbles. He prefers to be alone. The work requires precision and great concentration.
Germano, who speaks almost without drawing breath and with the severe ways inherited from his mother, softens for a moment. ‘Our young men are always really kind.’
In Azzano, on the other hand, is the company that exports the products all over the world. It is run by the eldest son Gualtiero and employs about 30 people. Here marble, stone and granite become furnishings for homes, hotels and offices. It is undoubtedly the jewel of the Corti family.
“The real artist was dad, he also made some of the capitals of the Galleria in Milan. We are artisans, willing and passionate with the strength of our mother in our heads and arms’.
The only woman in this business.