It is a compelling and adventurous story which has transformed the small village of Casalvieri, in the Val di Comino, into one of the world centres of balloon production. The Rocca family was the leader of this transformation, above all the Cavalier Genesio Rocca and his namesake grandson.
It all began with the first wave of emigration shortly after the Unification of Italy when Clemente Rocca went to seek his fortune in Marseille and found himself selling balloons in the streets. The balloons were produced in an artisan workshop and Clemente managed to learn the art and open a small business in 1888.
Things were going well and in France so his wife, the mother-in-law and the little brother-in-law Angelo called 'Angeliglio' came. It would then be Angelo, with his life outside the box and full of adventures, who would be the creator of our history.
A handsome boy who was a model for French painters, as was fashionable at the time, and then he became an intriguing man who had many women, many wives and 17 children.
In 1899 Clemente felt rich enough to return to his country with his family and open a company of balloons at Casalvieri thanks to the quality rubber supplies from Pirelli. Angelo decided to stay in France in the Marseille laboratory and to 'set up on his own'. He was 15, with a lion's courage and a unique ability to work.
Angelo had made a promise and at the age of 18 he returned to Casalvieri where he married and opened his own company of balloons. But he could not make the leap from a craftsman to an industrialist and he felt constrained in his town. He then decided to go and get to know the world and worked a couple of years to build the Panama Canal, then to Detroit until the entry of Italy in the First World War.
As a soldier he found himself at some point walking through the streets of Bologna where he saw a seller of balloons and he refound his adolescent passion.
In 1920 the war was now over and together with a partner he founded a company that he would then take over in 1930. He was at the forefront of the design and use of rubber with two colours. He invented modern machines with a Sora mechanic and start the Casalvieri revolution. It is also thanks to him that the knowledge about the manufacture of the balloons was spread and 'competing firms' opened up, giving rise to a true industrial district.
The autarky of the fascist period pushed him to innovate the production technique and he was first to make the balloons with liquid rubber. But World War II halted everything and businesses only really started in 1947. In the 1950s, rubber latex from Malaysia arrived and the balloons began to take on the strangest shapes like animals, hearts, Disney characters and more.
Among the many children and grandchildren, Genesio Rocca is the one who inherited the enterprising and visionary spirit, realizing the transition from a great craftsman to a great industrialist. Genesio, born in 1930, founded a company with his name in the years of the economic boom and opened a technologically advanced facility capable of producing 200,000 balloons a day.
Initially they were not sold and they filled the warehouses, the factory seemed oversized for the market but Genesio had a different vision. That man who was initially regarded with sarcasm had understood that until then the market had followed only seasonal logics, while this product could be sold all year.
The secret was to turn the balloon into a desire, into an object that accompanied the growth of children during their lives. Constantly updating shapes and colours to create ever-changing emotions and to help creative people.
The balloons, in fact, are divided into two large categories: balloons and bibis, those with elongated shapes that today can even reach a few meters in length. Innovation was therefore technological but also of product, transforming the idea into emotion and supporting those who created new forms.
Genesio disappeared prematurely in a cruel road accident and his young sons Angelo and Aldo took over the company. The young age and the innovative spirit led them to revolutionize production cycles and machinery once again.
In 1990 Angelo Rocca created Germar Ballons srl and opened two new plants in the Tittarocca area, as well as in Casalvieri. Casalvieri was consolidated as the world centre of balloon making and today Germar is directed by a 'new' Genesio Rocca, assisted by his wife and sister. Germar produces 5,000,000 balloons that exports to 50 countries around the world in the same spirit as ever.
"Lifting the moment" - "Raise the moment".
This is the spirit that has followed the Rocca family since the first time in Marseille seeing the balloons until today with the Academy of Balloons which was founded precisely to spread the art of the balloon and the creativity of the new forms.
Another emotion has remained intact from generation to generation: love for Casalvieri and for their land. Germar and the Rocca family are always in the front line to support the events of their town and make it attractive to residents, tourists and the many emigrants who return each year in the summer and for the festival of the patron Sant'Onorio.
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