Our website and Facebook posting about the identity of Luigi Pollini (https://clarencebicknell.com/cima-pollini-who-was-pollini/) has triggered further input on the subject from readers. Most informative is this from Luca Barale, Researcher for the National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Geosciences and Earth Resources, in Turino. He writes to us on 15 November 2021…
“I hope this finds you well. I read regularly the Facebook page of the Clarence Bicknell Association, which is always a source of pleasant readings and discoveries. I just read your post about Cima Pollini and the problem of its naming. This is what I found out a few months ago (when I was looking at all the material about Clarence and his relationships with geology and geologists): the name “Cima Pollini” was proposed by Clarence himself in 1918 in a short note on the CAI Bulletin (Bicknell C. (1918) Per alcuni nuovi toponimi nelle Alpi Marittime. Club Alpino Italiano, Rivista Mensile, 37(4-5-6), 76-77 – see attached).
Clarence acknowledged the naming of Cima Bicknell in his honor by Mader (though he says he would have liked better another one, because Cima Bicknell is “of scarce prominence“), and then proposed to dedicate two little lakes to Celesia (Laghetti Celesia) and a peak to Pollini:
“On the northern ridge of M. Bego, dominating the Baisse de Fontanalba and the Baisse de Valmasque, separated from the summit of M. Bego by a large depression, there is a marked peak, 2748 metres high, triangular in shape, utilized in 1901 by the military cartographer, whose tent I could see pitched there for several consecutive days in the summer of that year. I would like to give this peak the name of Cima Pollini, to honor Sig. Luigi Pollini, all these years my assistant and faithful companion. Going through my notes, I find that he was almost always the one who discovered new and interesting figures, and he was the one who took the pictures that now form my rich collection. Without him I could not have finished my explorations in a satisfactory way, nor i could have published what I published about the whole region.“
I’m also attaching a landscape of Cime Bicknell and Cime Pollini seen from the Cime de Chanvrairée (2 361m) which you can use as you like.
Kind regards
Luca
p.s., I hope to visit the Museo Bicknell, and in particular the fossil collections, during the end of year holidays
Luca Barale <luca.barale@igg.cnr.it>