Angelo Rizzoli

"Before Del Vecchio, the stories of Edoardo Bianchi and Angelo Rizzoli stand out, who were also fatherless orphans with mothers in such serious difficulty that the boarding school was the only solution for giving their children a future. Bianchi was born in Milan in 1865 to a crumbling family. His father, fallen into disgrace after his well-established grocery store was destroyed by the Austrian military as reprisal, returns mutilated from the war of independence and dies shortly after, leaving mother Antonietta in poverty. Left an orphan, Edoardo is taken in by the boarding school where he learns the trade of a mechanic. He starts working at just eight years old in the city's workshops, with the goal of setting up his own business as soon as possible. This is a constant for the Martinitt: to build something of their own, without having to depend on anyone anymore or adhere to the rules imposed by others. At just twenty years old, he opens his own small business in the center, on Nirone street, which – ironically – is located just a few hundred meters from Luxottica's current headquarters. In his mechanical workshop, he produces and repairs wheelchairs for the sick, precision machinery, electric bells, surgical instruments, and bicycles, as can be clearly seen on the display window. Bianchi specializes so much in the assembly of bicycles that he invents the modern bicycle in 1888. His "bicicletto" is the first example in Italy in which the front and rear wheel have the same diameter. Bianchi is a hardworking craftsman, full of ideas, ready to churn out innovations: the use of pneumatic tires, the introduction of the motorized bicycle. He designs a special frame to make the bicycle accessible to ladies who, at the time, were hindered from riding them due to the width of their skirts: thus, the bicycle is born. Bianchi becomes a celebrity, so much so that he is invited by Queen Margherita of Savoy – she who was the first testimonial for Angelo Frescura's eyeglasses from Belluno – to showcase his invention at the park of Monza."

"The story of publisher Angelo Rizzoli has a beginning similar to that of Bianchi, and then Del Vecchio, with a widowed, sick mother who cannot feed her youngest son and turns to the Martinitt to guarantee him three hot meals a day and a better future."