Aldo Alessandro Mola

Aldo A. Mola (Cuneo, 1943), is professor, co-chair at the Libera di Bruxelles University, author of operas, biographies and essays.  

Among his works, there are: Storia della Massoneria italiana dalle origini a oggi (Bompiani, 1977; 2013, VIII reprint of the 3 edition), Storia della Monarchia in Italia (Bompiani, 2001), Declino e crollo della monarchia in Italia (Mondadori, 2006) and the biographies on Giuseppe Garibaldi (1982),  Adriano Lemmi (1985), Giuseppe Mazzini (1986),  Silvio Pellico (2005), Giosue Carducci (1906). His work Giovanni Giolitti, lo statista della Nuova Italia (Mondadori, 2003) has been since 2012 among the History Classics.  

He manages the European Centre “Giovanni Giolitti” the study of the State (Dronero-Cavour). 

Since 1982 he’s been cooperating with the Historic Office of the Major Armed Forces, for which he’s organized conferences and personally edited the Acts (Garibaldi, Generale della libertà, 1982; Garibaldi vivo, 1982; Forze Armate e guerra di liberazione).  He edited the new edition concerning the “Inchiesta su Caporetto” (US-SME, 2014). Since 1980 he’s been awarded with the Golden Medal for School, Culture and Arts.

Date City Interventions Summary Media
2014-10-17 Acqui Terme Aldo Alessandro Mola - “Diuretic water and spa treatments for statesmen and diplomats wandering on the brink of the Great War: Giovanni Giolitti, Antonino di San Giuliano and others…”

It was the beginning of the catastrophic Franco-Prussian war that in 1870 made the Thermae (and / or “Bagni”) the main stage for the representation of the “great story” of Europe.  On the 1st July 1914, three days after the magnicidio of Sarajevo, the foreign Minister, Antonino di San Giuliano informed the Prime-Minister, Antonio Salandra, that he was going to leave Rome for Fiuggi where he had direct phone contact with the Consulta. 

But in August 1911 it was precisely the Thermae of Fiuggi that became the laboratory in the war against the Turkish-Ottoman Empire for the reign on Tripolitania and Cirenaica.  There San Giuliano and the prime-minister, Giovanni Giolitti were photographed with big glasses in their hands as they walked together in a friendly manner. In truth they were risking to trigger the European conflagration, to avoid a danger of measure in 1908, but always in impending danger. Giolitti would eagerly have gone to the Terme in Acqui, but this establishment, even though with fervour from public and private forces, was still not at its best.

Not only, Acqui recalled Giuseppe Saracco, president of the Senate (and president of the Council of Ministers) to which in September 1904 the statesman, rational of the remunerated role of “notary of the Crown” in the solemn notarial deed of the birth of the Prince Royal. Reluctant of contacts with journalists and photographers that crowded the Thermae, the statesman preferred the French ones, in particular Vichy, described by him as a healing “doctor’s paradise”. He avoided everyone, which wouldn’t have been possible if he were at home, and most of all in Acqui, that didn’t fail to list and boast about famous visitors, as happened after the War. It was the period of prestige when the magnificent Thermae of the “Bollente” welcomed diverse personalities and even rivals, forced to parade in public, one next to the other, even though they detested each other. It was the case of the Marshal, Pietro Badoglio and the Marscal dell'Aria Italo Balbo...

Places of history, and also of occult plots, favoured by the comforting and cheerful reassuring atmosphere of the waters, that eventually conferred the correct sense of wellbeing even to the most tormented happenings.