 Our story starts in 1886 when a young countryboy named Alfonso Crisci boards a ship in the port of Naples headed for Brazil where he is to master the art of sewing shoe-uppers.It is the very same year in which De Amicis published "Cuore" with its unforgettable tale entitled"Dagli Appennini alle Ande"  Thirty years later, Alfonso, now a grown man, sets ashore again in Naples and settles in Milan.Here he learns that an important American company has recently opened a branch with the aim of launching an innovational technology which manufactures shoes entirely by machine. Alfonso is not acquainted with sewing machines for shoe-uppers, however he does know the trade of shoe-making inside out;so well in fact that he is immediately engaged by The United Shoe Machinery Company to promote their patented assembly line. One of his tasks is to train personnel to use these machines.The seat of the manufacturing activities is in Vigevano,already a well-established home to the shoe industry. The Americans imported their startlingly revolutionary ideas with them into rural Italy, so their machines are not sold but hired out.Each machine bears a meter recording the number of pieces produced. Success is immediate from Savonna to Emilia until two years later in Casteggio a golden opportunity comes  about
quite by chance. It is the year 1919 and a small local manufacturer,
Nazzaro Cerutti, has ordered a manufacturing plant from United
but has since changed his mind leaving the factory only half-way
to completion. United suggest that Crisci manages the new factory
which has risen in an area devoid of any shoe-making traditions.
Crisci and his young wife accept and in the Oltrepò valley,begin
to produce the new men's footwear which costs less than that
made by hand.Two years later Crisci owns the factory, a new factory is built and the new brand-name of "Comfort" is launched. The Crisci family buys a first-class chaffeur-driven automobile and even an apartment in Varazze. In the meanwhile their only-son is born to the couple, christened Gaetano, who is to be known ever after as Tanino, short for Gaetano. And it is he who is to carry the the success of the firm on to unimaginable heights. But this is to come about later.  
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