Teacher, journalist, secretary of the Group: the man who wrote the Col Maòr for thirty-eight years
The first issue came out on 1 April 1964, and it wasn’t printed: it was run off on a duplicator. Someone had chosen a name for the paper – that of a hill in Salce – and had explained why in an article signed with a brief set of initials: “Dem.”. The same someone had also written the line the Col Maòr has carried with it for sixty years: “It comes out when it can; it is not a one-off, but every issue is one of a kind.”
He was Mario Dell’Eva: primary-school teacher, Alpino, secretary of the Group. In 2004, looking back over forty years of the paper, the Col Maòr would describe it in just those terms: “conceived, written and duplicated by Mario Dell’Eva”.
The man who started it all
Mario was born on 28 January 1923. When some fifty Alpini from Salce decided, on 19 March 1963, to form themselves into a Group, he was its secretary from the very first day. The official inauguration, put off for a year in mourning for the Vajont disaster, did not come until 25 October 1964; but already in April of that year, presenting the first officers, group leader Giovanni Dal Pont made a point of thanking in public “Alpino Mario Dell’Eva, who began it and so very ably brought us to this union”. Among those first officers Mario was secretary and treasurer. The founding of the Group, in short, bears his signature too.
The paper became the thread that held the Group together. Mario edited it for 234 issues, from 1964 to 2002, reporting on meetings, celebrations, bereavements and Adunate. From February 1987 the Col Maòr also became the “Notiziario della Sezione di Belluno e Gruppo A.N.A. di Salce” – the newsletter of the Belluno Section as well as of the Salce Group – and his articles signed “Dem.” reached the whole Section. One of them can be read on the Italian site, “Non mi piggiano…”, written in 1965 in memory of General Antonio Cantore; the rest are waiting in the Col Maòr archive.
A memorial for Salce
The paper was not enough for him. Between 1965 and 1967 he coordinated the committee, chaired by the mayor of Belluno, Annibale De Mas, that gave Salce its War Memorial. It was designed by Giovanni Dal Pont and unveiled on 2 April 1967, bearing the names of the community’s fallen. With Don Gioacchino Belli, Mario also co-authored the book “La Parrocchia di Salce”.
Of his life in Salce before the Alpini and beyond them, the papers offer only the odd glimpse: in 1952 “primary-school teacher Mario Dell’Eva” takes the stage at the nursery school as a performer in the operetta “Marco il pescatore”; half a century later he is organising the celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of the schola cantorum.
From the pen to the Section
For many years Mario was also secretary of the Belluno Section of the ANA, and in 1996 he became its president. He wrote books about the Section, the 7th Alpini Regiment, the “Pusteria” Division and the Visentin mountain hut; he was the Section’s press officer and, for a time, sat on the editorial board of “L’Alpino”. The city of Belluno awarded him the San Martino Prize.
In 2002 he handed over the Col Maòr. He died in the autumn of 2003, and the December issue carried the paper’s farewell to him: “Ciao Mario, ciao Dem – Sei andato avanti”. The paper he had invented outlived him: Ezio Caldart set it going again, and more than sixty years after that first duplicated issue it still comes out when it can.
In his own words
It comes out when it can; it is not a one-off, but every issue is one of a kind.
Mario Dell’Eva, Col Maòr no. 1, April 1964
Key dates
| 28 January 1923 | Mario Dell’Eva is born. |
| 1952 | Performs in the operetta “Marco il pescatore” at the Salce nursery school. |
| 19 March 1963 | The Salce Alpini Group is formed, with him as its secretary. |
| 1 April 1964 | Issue no. 1 of the Col Maòr comes out, conceived, written and duplicated by him. |
| 25 October 1964 | Official inauguration of the Group and of its pennant. |
| 1965 – 1967 | Coordinates the committee for the Salce War Memorial. |
| 2 April 1967 | The War Memorial is unveiled. |
| February 1987 | The Col Maòr becomes the “Notiziario della Sezione di Belluno e Gruppo A.N.A. di Salce”. |
| 1996 | Becomes president of the Belluno Section of the ANA. |
| 2002 | Leaves the Col Maòr after 234 issues. |
| 2003 | Dies (on 10 October, according to the 60th-anniversary book); the December Col Maòr remembers him. |
In the MEMORIA network
- Egidio Piacentini, the Veronese friend of the «Belluno» battalion, who entrusted him with his farewell letter in 1976
- “Esce quando può”: sixty years of the Col Maòr, the story of the paper he founded
- The founding of the Salce Alpini Group, 1963-1964
- The Salce War Memorial, unveiled on 2 April 1967
- Beppe Giaccone, an Alpino from San Damiano d’Asti and a friend of his
- Antonio “Toni” Tamburlin, whose debut as standard-bearer he announced in 1992
- Antonio “Toni” Fratta, with him at Portomaggiore in 2001
- Giovanni Dal Pont, the first group leader; Don Gioacchino Belli, his co-author; Ezio Caldart, who relaunched the Col Maòr in 2004
- “Così scriveva il Dem”: his articles on the Italian site
Sources for this story
- Col Maòr no. 1, April 1964, pp. 1-4; no. 4, 1964, p. 7.
- Col Maòr, December 2003 (tribute to Mario Dell’Eva).
- Col Maòr no. 1, 2004, pp. 1-2, “40 anni di impegno e solidarietà 1964-2004”.
- Col Maòr no. 2, 2005, p. 14; no. 3, 2024, p. 16.
- Gruppo Alpini “Gen. Pietro Zaglio” di Salce, 60th-anniversary book, 2024.
- “La Parrocchia di Salce”, with Don Gioacchino Belli.
