Correrai ancor piu veloce per le vie del cielo. These words were inscribed in huge letters above the entrance to the cathedral in Mantua where, in August 1953, the funeral service for Tazio Giorgio Nuvolari took place. Meaning: 'You will travel still faster upon the highways of heaven' they were read with awe, sadness, and a reverence amounting almost to love by the many thousands of Mantuans who followed the cortege through the streets to pay tribute to Italy's greatest driver.

The crowd, which thronged the cathedral that day was immense; estimates of the number varied between 25,000 and 55,000, but whatever the true figure may have been there was no denying their universal grief at the passing of Mantua's most famous citizen. The same words were engraved upon Nuvolari's tomb, in which he was taken, clothed in his famous canary-yellow jersey and blue overall trousers, with racing goggles, gloves, and helmet accompanying him, and escorted by a procession of mourners which stretched for nearly a mile and a half through the streets.

What manner of man was this, then, whose funeral could bring out a town almost in its entirety, and whose death put a nation into mourning?

Tazio Nuvolari was no simply a racing driver. To Italy he became an idol, a demi-god, a legend, epitomizing all that young Italy aspired to be; the man who 'did the impossible', not once but habitually; the David who slew Goliaths in the great sport of motor-racing. He was Il Maestro.

Italians today, only too aware of their country's current lack of motor- racing talent, turn perforce to the glories of the past for comfort, and warmly recall the feats of the old Italian masters. There were so many in Italy's golden years... Varzi, Farina, Trossi, Fagioli, Bordino, Nazarro, the Ascaris, father and son... Yet in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred one name will come to their lips before any of these - that of their beloved Nuvolari, the farmer's son who came from Ronchesana, near Mantua.

That little man, barely over 5 feet tall, deceptively frail and narrow in build but seemingly strung together with high-tensile steel wire, with his long narrow chin and prominent jaw, dark piercing eyes, toothy grin and greying hair, endeared himself to all, not solely by his indomitable fighting spirit and wizardry at the wheel but for his innate goodness.

Italy loved him for his quiet and gentlemanly mode of living - he was kind, generous, thoughtful and modest, completely free of the prima donna complex which could easily affect a racing ace, a lover of home life and immensely devoted to his wife and family - traits which all won the hearts of the ordinary people.

As a driver, he was, of course, unique. Possessed himself of tremendous vitality, he seemed to infuse his very car with the same restless energy. As he raced, he grimaced, bared his teeth, grinned, puffed out his cheeks, talked to his car, and patted it now and then. He wasn't playing to the gallery, to which he was entirely oblivious, but simply being his natural dynamic self and doing all those things which characterised the maestro, the master of motor-racing.

I was too young properly to appreciate my first sight of Nuvolari. It was down at Brooklands in autumn, 1933, when I was a school boy. He looked so small, so yellow, and so cold, despite a thick 'teddy bear' coat, and when he took it off and climbed into a 2.3-litre Bugatti he seemed to shrink still further. Then he drove out on to the Mountain circuit, and I followed the concerted rush down to the Fork hairpin to watch. To me, he looked most excitingly dangerous, the Bugatti skittering round in brief, jerky slides, but I don't think he cared much for that short, bumpy, and unnatural circuit. I spent the savings of several weeks to attend the race-meeting a day or two later, and was bitterly disappointed when Nuvolari did not driver after all.

I was more versed in Nuvolari 'lore' when I saw him again in the Donington Grand Prix of 1938, and was thrilled to the core by the sight of him in action. A skimpy, yellow-clad figure almost lost in the cockpit of his silver Auto-Union, he contrived to look far 'busier' than any other driver, not only through the corners but even when motoring down the straights. Up to a point, of course, he was 'busier' - busy outpacing the entire Mercedes-Benz team and winning a glorious race, giving some 60,000 spectators the thrill of their lives.

Without a doubt he was Italy's greatest racing-driver of all time - but the legendary Flying Mantuan the world's greatest, as has so often been suggested?

To borrow the late Professor Joad's well worn phrase: 'It all depends on what is mean by "greatness".' The number of outright victories gained by a driver are far from being the sole criterion of greatness, which in motor-racing means much more: the ability to go very fast and remain on the road for instance; the ability to drive with your head as well as your hands and feet; to fight, and to go on fighting no matter how hopeless the odds may seem; and to do all these things just a little better than your rivals, without wearing your tyres down to the breaker strip or blowing up your engine... Nuvolari qualifies all right, but so do others.

Statistics help little. They show that Nuvolari won around 50 race victories of importance in 17 seasons between 1924 and 1946. In contrast, Juan Manuel Fangio, who is considered by many to be Nuvolari's sternest rival as the world's greatest driver, scored 55 in nine seasons between 1949 and 1957. Alberto Ascari, who brilliant career was cut short after 8 years, gained forty-three wins between 1926 and 1939, while Stirling Moss has over 45 important wins to his credit. Yet comparison is misleading since, on the average, more races per season have been held in the post-war years than in the thirties, and more in the thirties than the twenties.

What the results tables do not reveal is that, first, Nuvolari's ratio of retirements to successes is higher than the others, attesting to his notorious 'win or bust' outlook; and, secondly, that a large proportion of Nuvolari's victories were achieved on cars slower than the opposition. The only year in which he consistently had one of the fastest cars was 1932, when he was a member of the official Alfa-Romeo team with the then new and invincible monoposto, Alfa-Romeo straight- eights. For most of his other victories he was fighting unequal odds - and loving it.

All great drivers have their chef d'oeuvre - the masterpiece of their career; Caracciola's was probably the 1931 German GP, Fangio's the 1957 German GP, Ascari's the 1949 GP of Europe, Moss's the 1955 Mille Miglia or the 1959 Italian GP. The trouble with Nuvolari was that he had several! By tradition his greatest triumph was the 1935 German GP, when he defeated nine modern German cars - five Mercedes and four Auto Union's - with his basically four year old Alfa-Romeo - a wonderful feat indeed, the story of which has been told and retold in motor-racing literature.

Yet there were other achievements by Nuvolari, lesser known and lesser chronicled, testifying to his matchless fighting spirit, his fierce refusal to recognise defeat, and his uncanny ability, reinforcing his right to a very high pedestal in motor-racing history.

Naturally, one as indifferent to danger as he suffered numerous accidents during his long career, and talking his way out of hospital and competing in races heavily swathed in bandages or plaster became a notable Nuvolari habit. There were no false heroics about this, but simply his tremendous will to race defying common sense. Pain he could tolerate when there was a goal ahead, but inactivity he could no bear; his volatile temperament would not allow it.

After being flung though a wire fence at Monza when he crashed in a P2 Alfa-Romeo during a trial by the works in 1925, his injuries included a severely lacerated back, promising a month or so in a hospital bed to recover. But Nuvolari wasn't having any - not with the vital motor-cycle Grand Prix of the Nations meeting at Monza six days hence. He persuaded the medicos to bandage him in such a way that he could be seated on his 350cc twin ohc Bianchi and push-started. He duelled fanatically in pouring rain with Britain's famous Wal Handley, and when the latter's Rex-Acme gave out under constant pressure from the Bianchi with half a lap to go, Tazio scored a triumphant victory for Italy.

At Alessandria early in 1934 the Maestro broke a leg when his Maserati crashed on treacherously wet roads, owing to the fact that his true line through a corner came suddenly to be occupied by a disabled Alfa-Romeo. After four restless weeks in hospital Tazio could endure the inactivity no longer, and against his doctor's earnest advice entered to drive a Maserati in the Avus GP near Berlin.

He had the pedals modified so that all three could be operated with one foot, the other still being in plaster, and then, despite the entreaties of his wife, friends, and doctor, he hobbled out for practice on crutches, having to be helped in and out of the cockpit. In a devastatingly fast race, dominated initially by the new Auto-Unions and later by the Ferrari Alfas, Nuvolari pressed on, tortured by cramp and plagued by tyre trouble, eventually finishing a modest but hard-won fifth.

One place ahead of him in another Maserati was that great British sportsman Earl Howe, who was moved to comment on Tazio's drive: 'Let any who say it was foolhardy at least be honest and admit it was one of the greatest exhibitions of pluck and grit ever seen. By such men are victories won!'

Two years later, while practising for that other high-speed race, the Tripoli GP in North Africa, a wheel of Nuvolari's 4.1-litre twelve- cylinder Alfa-Romeo caught a marker stone at over 125mph. The tyre burst, the big Alfa lurched, then turned over, ending up in the desert sand bordering the circuit. Nuvolari was flung high in the air, to land by good luck in a head of drying grass. Would-be helpers who rushed to the scene faced a puzzle - the wrecked car lay there, smoking and steaming, but where was its driver? They found him deep in the grass ten minutes later, unconscious with damaged ribs and severe bruising.

At the hospital he was put into plaster and told he would have to rest for several days.

'But of course,' said Nuvolari. 'After the race I shall do so'. Next day, curiously immobile because of his plaster 'corset', he drove a replacement Alfa into seventh place. Foolhardy, perhaps, but typical Nuvolari 'guts'.

Few victories can have been sweeter to the Maestro than those he snatched from the powerful German teams in the mid-thirties. He never enjoyed an uneventful race or a secure victory; he loved a battle, and in adversity became positively inspired. The classic example, of course, is that 1935 German GP at the Nürburgring, yet the following season saw him administer defeat upon the German teams, not once but three times, and it is only because the races concerned were not Grandes Epreuves that their history is less know that the great German race.

On paper in 1936 Nuvolari hadn't a chance. The rear-engined Auto-Unions from Zwickau were turning out over 500bhp from their six-litre, sixteen- cylinder engines, whilst the Mercedes-Benz of Stuttgart had 490-plus bhp beneath their sleek bonnets. In contrast the high, heavy-looking twelve- cylinder Type C Alfa-Romeo just introduced could barely exceed 400 bhp. In road-holding and weight distribution, however, it was equal if not superior to the German cars, while the sheer virtuosity of Nuvolari in the cockpit, plus the awe in which he was held by the rival teams, were jointly worth a good few bhp on a Grand Prix circuit, particularly if there were plenty of corners.

Give Nuvolari a corner, and he contrived somehow to get through it fractionally quicker than anyone else; his habit of twitching the wheel as he approached a corner fast, deliberately provoking a skid, then using that skid both to slow the car and place it correctly for rapid exit form the corner, was something unique, calling for an ultra-fine sense of balance. Given bends galore, and Nuvolari in the Alfa was on a near-equal footing with the theoretically superior German cars.

The result was an unexpectedly interesting 1936 Grand Prix season. Surprises began at Barcelona, three weeks after Tripoli. His plaster corset now a mere memory, Tazio was on top form and rarin' to go. Two Mercedes and two Auto-Unions faced him, but on the twisty Montjuich circuit he was undaunted. From flag-fall he flung his cumbersome-looking Alfa into combat with Caracciola's Mercedes, the pair waging one of the season's most memorable duels.

Two pit stops to Caracciola's one weighed again Nuvolari, but the Mantuan devil shot back into the fray, broke the lap record, and caught up with the Merc again. The last twenty laps were merciless, German and Italian masters both giving of their awe-inspiring best, and tension rose to an unbearable climax when, on the last lap of all and the Alfa leading, it began to spit and bang as the fuel-tank emptied. Desperately Nuvolari nursed it around in top gear, still staving Caracciola off, to flee across the line the victor by three seconds on an all-but-dry tank.

Striving to hold the duellists at Barcelona, Auto-Union's new star, Bernd Rosemeyer, smote a lamp-post heartily, after which fifth place was the best he could manage. At Nürburgring in the Eifelrennen a week later, however, he turned the tables on Tazio and won a famous victory in the fog for Auto-Union. But the irrepressible Italian was second home, way ahead of two Mercedes and three other AUs, so that Deutschland uber Alles only just prevailed.

Then came the one and only International Hungarian GP, run on a circuit in the Budapest gardens - and a gripping race it proved to be. This time there were full three-car teams from Mercedes-Benz and Auto-Union for Nuvolari to cope with, and in the coping he aroused the 100,000 strong crowd of spectators to the wildest Tzigane frenzies of excitement.

It was the meteoric Rosemeyer who set the opening pace, with Caracciola worrying at his heals and Nuvolari following, while the leading pair wore each other out. 'Caratsch' went first, retiring at half-distance, whereupon Tazio moved up to challenge the Auto-Union. The Brauchitsch's Mercedes, a lap behind, got in the way until Nuvolari's persistent presence on his tail so demoralised the German that he spun off and crashed through a barrier.

With the road clear Nuvolari soon closed on Rosemeyer, then applied the same treatment to him, repeatedly nosing up level on the corners until the harassed Bernd overslid his Auto-Union when accelerating too hard. In a trice Nuvolari was through, thereafter pulling away to the extent of fourteen seconds when the chequered flag flew for another remarkable Nuvolari victory.

One week later he gave Auto-Unions something more to think about by bearing his celebrated rival Achille Varzi in the Milan GP. This was more a personal battle between the pair than a serious inter-marque struggle, and Varzi's second place with the unwieldy rear-engined Auto- Union on so serpentine a circuit was, in fact, a fine effort. Nevertheless it signified one more defeat of a German car by an Italian, and in spite of the much-vaunted accord along the Rome-Berlin Axis, the southern partner enjoyed rubbing it in.

No doubt Auto-Unions felt a lot better after their great 1-2-4 victory in the German GP, and it was perhaps in the flush of this success that they decided to rush three cars to Leghorn for the Ciano Cup race the following Sunday. It proved to be a rash decision, for they suffered the humiliation of 100 per cent defeat by Alfa Romeo, with old campaigner Nuvolari the chief artificer of victory.

At the start things looked black for Italy, with the big silver Auto Unions of Stuck, Varzi and Rosemeyer thundering off into the lead, while Tazio's V-12 Alfa clanked to an impotent halt on the very first lap with a broken differential. But this was just the sort of situation to arouse the devil in Nuvolari. Instead of glumly removing his helmet and climbing on to the pit counter to watch the rest of the race, he leapt up and down, shouting at a designer-cum-pit-chief Vittorio Jano to call in one of the other team cars for him to take over - but 'Presto! Presto!'

Out went the signal, and in came Pintacuda with one of the older 8-cylinder 3.8-litre Alfas; 'Pinta' was frantically motioned out, and in sprang Tazio. As he tore off he had a sixty-six seconds deficit to make up on the German cars in the lead.

He whipped that Alfa round the Leghorn course to such effect that he quickly broke Stuck's new lap record - and already Stuck had retired. The Maestro's pace goaded the German pit into signalling 'faster' to their drivers, who were already finding it tough going owing to failing brakes. Hans Stuck took over from Rosemeyer and shot back to support Varzi, now leading the race from Brivio and Dreyfus in Alfas. His effort made no difference, for behind came another Alfa, demoniacally driven by Nuvolari, and gaining, gaining all the time.

One by one the Maestro picked them off; Stuck, Dreyfus, Brivio and finally Varzi in the Auto-Union, now virtually brakeless after two hard races without adequate maintenance in between. The hapless Germans tasted deeply the bitterness of defeat that day, for soon Varzi retired also, and Stuck became the sole Auto-Union survivor, a disconsolate fourth behind the three Alfa-Romeos.

But the glories of Barcelona, Budapest and Leghorn in 1936 could not easily be repeated, and even Nuvolari the master could not continue to combat the German teams with an out-dated Alfa-Romeo. In the end he had to join the Germans for a chance to win. He went in mid-1938 to Auto- Union, whose team were demoralized after Rosemeyer's death earlier that year. It took him three races to find his form with the tricky rear- engined cars, and then, at Monza in the Italian GP and at Donington Park, England, he scored two remarkable victories, administering to Mercedes the heartiest double trouncing that august marque had known for a long time.

Capping Nuvolari's pre-war career came his Belgrade GP victory on the very day Britain and France declared war - 3 September 1939 - and with a record such as his the Maestro could well have made Belgrade his swan- song and retired honourably from racing. But to have done to would have seemed to Nuvolari like signing his own death warrant.

'Aren't you afraid of dying in a racing-car?' he was once asked.
'I suppose you expect to die in bed?' Nuvolari retorted.
'Yes, indeed, I hope so,' was the reply.
'In that case,' snorted Nuvolari, 'I wonder you dare to go to bed at night.'

Nuvolari was fifty-four when he resumed racing in 1946, commemorating his return by a win in the Albi GP. But his health and morale were not what they used to be; his two sons Giorgio and Alberto had died, while he himself suffered acutely from the effects of fumes on his chest.

Yet the old indomitable 'do or die' spirit still lay underneath, and was to emerge the following spring, with Nuvolari's remarkable drive in Italy's famous 1,000 miles sports-car race, the Mille Miglia. Run in relentless, teeming rain, this was a fit man's race if ever there was one, yet the old fire and skill took Nuvolari out in front, and sheer willpower kept him there. Driving an open 1,100cc Cisitalia, he led the field until 180 miles from the finish, against opposition which included Biondetti, Villoresi, Cortese, Taruffi, and other younger stars. Only the intrusion of water into the Cisialia's ignition halted his fantastic drive, and in the end the gallant Nuvolari finished second, haggard, soaked through, and utterly exhausted, fifteen minutes behind Biondetti's 2.9 litre saloon Alfa-Romeo.

Clemente Biondetti threw a blanket around Tazio's shivering form and led him gently off to warmth and rest at his hotel, while to those who congratulated him on his Mille Miglia victory he retorted: 'I did not win - I merely finished first. The just and deserving winner is Nuvolari, the greatest driver in the world.'

Biondetti was not alone in that view. Said Giuseppe Farina, one-time team-mate to Nuvolari: 'He was the perfect driver, incomparable in skill and spirit. To follow him for a few laps was the finest education of all.' Said Rene Dreyfus, another erstwhile team-mate: 'Nuvolari? - an artist to the very finger tips... the greatest racing-driver of our day and any other'. Said Luigi Villoresi, whose Maserati Nuvolari shared in his very last Grand Prix driver, at Rheims, in 1948: 'An unsurpassed fighter, an artist at the wheel, extremely popular, intensely human; possessed of a je ne sais quoi, an aura, which fascinated and dominated other drivers...' Lastly, Nuvolari's greatest rival, Achille Varzi, is reported to have called him 'the boldest, most skilful madman of us all'.

Was Nuvolari the world's greatest racing-driver?

Of course he was!