PISA. Its name is closely linked to the history of Pisa and the coast. He was responsible for the construction of homes, roads and important infrastructures. He passed away yesterday, after a short illness, faced with profound dignity, Romolo Bertiborn in 1927, surveyor and well-known Pisan building contractor.
Berti had started working at the end of the 1950s and with his legendary Ies srl he had built a lot in Pisa. They were the years of the economic boom and with his business he had begun to give a new face to the city. Many homes have been erected, a large number on the coast, and then roads, sidewalks and sewers. Many buildings built by Ies are still appreciated for their functionality. Among his latest construction projects is also the new paving in Piazza dei Cavalieri.
And then golf, another great passion of his shared with his daughter Sonia, which led him to purchase the Tirrenia Golf Club. And it was he who, in August last year, despite 96 springs, did the honours, sitting in the front row, on the occasion of the Miss Litorale beauty contest, hosted inside her club.
«A person in love with life and his work leaves us», is how engineer Giovandomenico Caridi, former president of Navicelli spa, remembers him in the years from 2007 to 2018. The paths of Caridi and Berti crossed for reasons of work and an immediate friendship was born. «Romolo was a very generous person – Caridi still remembers – who liked to enjoy life. He was a volcano of ideas and he knew how to make himself appreciated at work. I could tell many stories about him, like when he went to Milan for work in his legendary Mercedes. His car was stolen, but he did not lose heart. He returned to Pisa, bought another one and returned to pick up the guests with whom he had left for Lombardy.”
Romolo Berti was like that, a hyperactive person, a far-sighted entrepreneur, always elegantly dressed with his fedora on his head. «Colleagues from other construction companies – Caridi continues – called him “hat” because of this quirk of his, but Romolo should be remembered above all for his profound, unique generosity, the Christmas parcels containing petrol vouchers for everyone, the invitations to lunch at the Martini restaurant in Tirrenia or Viareggio, he who liked to live life to the full.”
In February 2013, Berti was the victim of a serious episode of violence inside his home in Porta a Lucca. Four bandits armed with knives waited for him inside his villa and immediately asked him to open the safe. The businessman tried to resist and was violently beaten so much so that he had to seek emergency care. An episode that profoundly marked his life. Widowed for fifteen years, he had continued to live in his house, where he had lived with his family.
The last farewell to Romolo Berti will take place tomorrow, Saturday 27 April, at 10am at the Misericordia cemetery in via Pietrasantina.
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