«My father was very fond of this house. He loved walking in the garden, for example, but it was also easy to meet him in his study. From the window he looked at the landscape of Lake Maggiore, while on the other side of the room he always kept the television on. To study and work on new programs.” Nicolò Bongiorno talks about his father Mikemaster of Italian television who would have turned one hundred today, May 26th.
An unforgettable career, charisma and kindness as the distinctive trait of a success that allowed him to enter the homes of millions of Italians. Right from the start, starting in 1954, when he took the reins of the Arrivals and Departures program. The Rai studios, then Mediaset. Milan was his home, but he could often be found on Lake Maggiore, too Villa Zuccoli, on the hills of Dagnente, a hamlet of Arona. A property of his wife Daniela, though Mike Bongiorno, smiling, said he had put it right. «He had done some renovation work, he cared about it – says his son Nicolò -. I think he loved the tranquility and serenity of this place. And then we experienced many moments with family: it has always been our refuge surrounded by greenery. Furthermore, it is a house that has a long history.”
Originally it was a convent, there is still a date on the bell tower: 1640. In 1870 it was purchased by the Zuccoli family, at the time goldsmiths from Arone, who transformed the building into the villa where Nicolò Bongiorno still lives today. «As a child we came often – he says -. But then we lived in Milan. City where I also lived for a long time, but twenty years ago I chose to move permanently to Villa Zuccoli. I find Lake Maggiore to be a fairy-tale place, one of a kind. With the castle of Angera overlooking the lake, and then the woods, the paths. I think he was an inspiration to my father. Moreover my great-great-grandfather had an amphitheater built here, which my father appreciated very much. But, I must say, it is still an inspiration to me today too.” He is a film director, producer and screenwriter, president of the Bongiorno Foundation.
For the centenary of his father’s birth he follows the initiatives organized and, above all, he is curator of the exhibitions that will be presented in various cities during the year. To tell the story history of Italian television, which inevitably intertwines with that of his family. The first of which will take place in September in Milan. Then he will also arrive in Turin, where filming began in April for a Rai TV series dedicated to the host par excellence. Mike Bongiorno who arrived in Turin as a child with his mother, moving into his uncle’s house. And he was very fond of one uncle in particular: Nicolò Oneto di San Lorenzo, a figure who inspired him to choose the name of his second son. A Piedmont, therefore, between city and lake, which is part of the experience of the most beloved Italian host. A story that this time is told through a miniseries.
«There will be no Villa Zuccoli in the filming – suggests Nicolò Bongiorno -. But there is no doubt that this was an important place for my father. Lake Maggiore is the place where beauty reigns, a place where I think my father really enjoyed himself.”
