(Angelo Paratico) Confident in the future of the automobile, which he invented, engineer Enrico Zeno Bernardi (1841–1919) began his entrepreneurial activity in 1896 with a workshop to produce them. He was born and lived in Quinzano (VR) but taught at the University of Padua.

The car company was established in Padua in partnership with two young engineers, Giacomo Miari and Francesco Giusti Del Giardino, with the aim of industrializing Bernardi’s prototype. Miari & Giusti was the world’s first car company and was based on Via San Massimo, Padua. They produced a tricycle model and then a four-wheeled spider with 2.5 horsepower that could reach 35 kilometers per hour. After producing one hundred cars, the lack of adequate capital forced them to close after two years of activity, even though their cars were technically superior to the Fiats produced since 1899.

The factory was located a few meters from the national headquarters of the RIVS, where the factory on Via San Massimo in Padua stood, formerly the headquarters of Lanificio Marcon, destroyed by fire in 1892.

The car sold well in Padua. By 1903, there were already 49 car owners in the city, including Bernardi himself, Marquis Pietro Buzzaccarini, Count Paolo Camerini, Count Luigi Donà Dalle Rose, and even one woman, Countess Emma Treves Corinaldi. In Padua, license plate number 1 was assigned to the limited partnership Cassis & C., the second to Enrico Bernardi, and the third to Count Giacomo Miari de’ Cumani. The first owners, generally members of the nobility, were joined by professionals, lawyers, industrialists, and clinicians such as Professor Felice Lussana, nicknamed “Girardengo” because of his large handlebar mustache.

Bernardi’s three-wheeled car is currently on display at the Enrico Bernardi Museum of Machines at the University of Padua, along with other vintage engines and models, still in perfect working order after almost 120 years. If Enrico Bernardi had been born in the United States, Hollywood would surely have already dedicated a film to him. Although there are small sectoral studies dedicated to his work, there is no real biography. Padua should commemorate the first factory of the beloved and hated automobiles