Piero Rivolta

Poet, novelist, designer, developer, manufacturer, homebuilder and philanthropist Piero Rivolta was born in Desio, Italy (near Milan) in 1941. At age 24 he earned a doctorate in mechanical engineering from the Milan Polytechnic University. Two years later, his father’s unexpected death led him to become the world’s youngest CEO of a car-manufacturing firm, IsoRivolta. Since the 1940s, the company had designed and built motorcycles and the popular egg-shaped, front-door Isetta bubble car. Until Rivolta sold it in 1972, when the golden age of the small, independent Italian car manufacturers ended, he continued to develop and produce various car models. Among them were the highly esteemed IsoRivolta GT, the famous Grifo luxury sports car, and the Formula One racecar IsoRivolta Marlboro.

Since childhood Rivolta has enjoyed writing, and he produced a book of  poetry in

the 1960s in Italy. In recent years, he has become active with his writing, spending many evenings on his three novels and poetry volumes. Reviewer Peter Vack, writing in the car magazine Veloce Today, called Rivolta’s Just One Scent: The Rest is God, which contains 23 poems and 23 philosophical prose pieces in English and Italian, “a remarkable book—a poetic reflection on life from a multi-talented Renaissance man.”

Until 1980, when Rivolta relocated his family to Sarasota, Florida, he raised jumping horses in Italy, ran a spinning mill in Brazil and engaged in real estate development in Europe, Central America and the United States. Since his permanent move to the United States, Rivolta has been a major developer of golf communities, high-rise condominiums and shopping centers in the Sarasota area, and he has two companies, Rivolta Yachts, which designs and builds world-class sailing yachts and speedboats, and Tivoli Homes, a custom homebuilding firm.

Deeply involved in the arts, Rivolta helps to organize many cultural events, and is co-founder and president of Sarasota’s annual La Musica, an international chamber music festival, which celebrated its 26th anniversary in 2012. He also enjoys sailing and heads out to sea any chance that he gets.