Giovanni Battista Caproni

01/08/2022 M.Durgut 1112 Views aeronautical engineer, Giovanni Battista Caproni

Who Is Giovanni Battista Caproni?

Giovanni Battista Caproni is an aeronautical engineer, civil engineer, electrical engineer and aircraft designer. He is also the founder of the aircraft manufacturing company Caproni. Giovanni B. Caproni was born on July 3, 1886 in Massone d’Arco, which at the time was in Austria-Hungary in Trentino, but which after 1918 became Italian.

His Life and Career

In 1906, he obtained the doctorate in electrical engineering from the Montefiore Institute in Liège. Then, in 1907, a degree in civil engineering at the Polytechnic of Munich.

In 1909, Giovanni Battista Caproni returned to Italy after having taken courses in civil engineering in Munich, electricity in Liège and aeronautical construction in Paris. His birthplace Massone d’Arco being then under Austro-Hungarian domination, he settled in Taliedo, a district in the south-eastern area of Milan, near the current Milan-Linate airport. It was in Taliedo that he made his first plane, a biplane which made its first flight on May 27, 1910 and that he founded the Società de Agostini e Caproni, which later became Società Caproni e Comitti.

About the Company Caproni

At the beginning of the First World War, the Italian army had a squadron equipped with Ca.18. The Caproni Ca.18, was a single-engine, two-seat, monoplane reconnaissance and observation aircraft developed by the company Caproni in the 1910s.

During the 1930s, the Caproni company became an important industrial group, by diversifying its activities and developing abroad but also by buying a certain number of companies which most often kept their autonomy.

At the end of the Second World War, the Caproni group faced many difficulties. Giovanni Battista Caproni, accused of complicity with the fascist regime and collaboration with the German occupier, is being prosecuted. The factories have been devastated by the bombings and because of these unfortunate events there is no longer a market for the Italian aeronautical industry. In 1946 these charges were dropped.

To relaunch his business Caproni then decided to convert his factory in Arco to the production of motorcycles. Under the terms of a short-lived agreement with Ducati the frames of the Ducati Cucciolo are produced by Aero Caproni S.p.a, founded in 1950, which adapts a 49cc engine to them and the Capriolo brand is registered for the marketing of Caproni motorcycles. (Ducati Motor Holding is an Italian motorcycle manufacturer based in Bologna, Emilia-Romagna. And the Ducati Cucciolo is a 4-stroke auxiliary motor for bicycles designed during World War II by the Turinese lawyer, Aldo Farinelli and developed with the self-taught engineer, Aldo Leoni.)

In Rome on Octaber 27, 1957 Giovanni Battista Caproni died. This event had many repercussions for the group of the same name. Already in the early 1960s, the two-wheeler market was in decline in Italy. For these reasons, the grouping of producers has become very difficult.

Giovanni in Cinema

We see Giovanni, a well-known and very important engineer, as a side character in The Wind Rises, a much-loved Miyazaki animation. The main character of the movie is Jiro. Giovanni is Jiro’s hero and inspiration to become an engineer. We see him in all Jiro’s dreams.