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The Vatican called Enzo a modern Saturn
The Last Race
The Mille Miglia was a 1,000-mile race through Italy that ran from 1927 to 1957, and nearly every year at least one person died. The 1957 race was the last. It came one year after the death of Enzo's son Dino. Enzo, who is not believed to have been at the race, was charged with manslaughter by the Italian authorities.
A Modern Saturn
The Vatican's official newspaper ran a story headlined industrial Saturn, after the Roman god who devoured his own children, and called Enzo a modern Saturn who continues to devour his sons. He was acquitted after a long legal process and reached a compromise with the Vatican that let him keep racing, on the condition that he never hire Italian drivers.
Why Drive Fast
Enzo viewed the risk as a fundamental human expression of striving: one drives at high speeds in order to transcend oneself. The driver Ken Miles felt the same way, and preferred dying in a racing car to being eaten up by cancer.
How did the Mille Miglia end?
The 1957 crash ended the Mille Miglia as a flat-out race on public roads. The event returned in 1977 as a timed regularity rally for classic cars. It still follows a route from Brescia to Rome and back.
Why was the Mille Miglia so dangerous?
The race ran on ordinary public roads through towns and villages, with crowds lining the route. Cars passed spectators at high speed with few barriers between them. The name is Italian for a thousand miles, which was roughly the length of the Brescia to Rome loop.
Why did Saturn devour his children?
In Roman myth, Saturn feared a prophecy that one of his children would overthrow him, so he swallowed each of them at birth. His Greek counterpart is Cronus. The myth inspired the painter Francisco Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son, created around 1820.
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