Ferrari, headquartered in Italy like the Catholic church, also has aspirational admirers, if not worshipers, worldwide.
I spent a memorable moment in the garden bathed in golden twilight next to “The Green Cat” gourmet restaurant, chatting with Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna.
Where would such an opportunity take place? Only in Italy’s Emilia Romagna region, the birthplace of speed, known as the “Motor Valley.”
At the opening gala for the annual four-day Motor Valley Fest, Vigna and I stood beside a showroom containing the collection of Michelin-starred Chef Massimo Bottura’s Ferrari sports cars.
The “luxury toy room” is at Bottura’s Casa Maria Luigia boutique resort hotel and balsamic vinegar factory, a few kilometers outside Modena. Bottura is a “culinary designer” who makes his menu items as stylish as sports cars.
His restaurant there, Al Gatto Verde (the Green Cat), is named for an expression favored by the founder of the supercar company – the late Enzo Ferrari.
“What’s it like to be an automotive celebrity?” I asked Ferrari’s CEO.
Vigna, 56, is a physicist and businessman, so he bristled at the suggestion.
“I work with talented celebrities so I don’t have to be one,” he answered.
Ferrari Stars
Image by Harrison Shiels
The cars, race drivers, designers, and to some extent the Ferrari legacy are its stars, but another is Michele Pignatti Morano, director of the Ferrari Museums. He has been with Ferrari for more than two decades in various capacities, including heading up Scuderia Ferrari racing team’s sponsorship.
He’s opened Ferrari World Abu Dhabi; Ferrari Land PortAventura, and oversees Ferrari’s wildly successful and popular, dynamic museums in Maranello and Modena: 600,000 people each year make the pilgrimage to see Enzo Ferrari’s birthplace, historical office, test track and so much more.
As Enzo Ferrari said, “You cannot describe passion, you have to experience it.”
The afternoon after I met Vigna, I sat with Michele Pignatti Morano on the shaded veranda of Ristorante Cavallino, the Francesca Family/Massimo Bottura gourmet experience in what was Enzo Ferrari’s corporate dining room.
“Cavallino” is the “prancing horse” logo of Ferrari, and the dramatic, historic gate of the factory is only steps away and within the rumbling sounds of the test track.
Ferrari’s official, tasteful souvenir shop is across the street, and Museo Ferrari Maranello, the dynamic, interactive museum, which can include a panoramic tour inside Ferrari’s factory, is a few blocks away on Ferrari’s campus.
Like Vigna the previous night, Michele Pignatti Morano wore an elegant Italian suit and tie.
Michael Patrick Shiels Interviews Michele Pignatti Morano
MPS: Michele Pignatti Morano is the director of Ferrari’s Museums. He’s got Ferrari oil and fuel running through his blood because he is part of the lifeblood of this company, which is, of course, generational.
MPM: “It’s a pleasure of having you in Maranello – in the Motor Valley – and having you at the museum. And as you say, ‘This is the place where you live, Ferrari…where you live the ‘Red Passion,’ and we are surrounded by beautiful cars in beautiful places. And that’s Maranello.”
MPS: The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix was just held near here in Imola, right in Ferrari’s backyard.
MPM: “We are on the podium at everything. We are the most successful racing team. We have better periods, we have worse periods, but historically, we are the most successful team. And we celebrate that also in our museum, in which we have a room with just the winning Formula Ones. It’s becoming tight! But, as I always say to the drivers or when anybody comes to visit the museum: ‘Don’t worry about space – if you win, we will find the space for your trophy or for your car. So don’t make that become an obstacle of not winning. The space of the museum shouldn’t be an obstacle.”
MPS: The “Drive to Survive” documentary television series about F1 is on Netflix. When an episode began by showing the race in Imola, there was a sea of red flags and the narrator said, “In Italy, there are two religions: the Catholic Church and Ferrari. Vero?”
MPM: “Vero, I agree…and I belong to both. I belong to the Catholic and to the Ferrari religions. It’s true, and I think you can also live it here in Maranello. You walk around here and you see people just devoted to the brand. And that’s one of the parts I like most about my job, meeting the people that come to the museum, on the floor of the museum, in the middle of the display, and you feel this emotion.
You feel the kid that looks up at the father that is telling him the story. It’s really something that takes the whole family. And I like listening to stories because people come from all over the world. I mean, Michael Patrick, look, you are here from the States. It’s nice people coming from all over the world just to see way it all started in Maranello. And yes, at Imola and Monza, it’s a sea of red flags, but I think that passion is everywhere. And yes, I agree, there is two religions in Italy.”
MPS: How do you explain that passion? I mean the people who will come to the museum, or they come and try to see the factory as part of the museum tour, or maybe they’ll go into Modena, to the birthplace of Enzo Ferrari, and they never will have a ghost of a chance of owning your product, but they love it – the “tifosi della Ferrari,” the “fans.”
MPM: “That’s it. I think Ferrari again is a unique brand. As you say, we are the only luxury brand that really touches a wide range: from the exclusivity of the people that are lucky enough to own a Ferrari…to the common people, which are millions and millions. We stretch the brand: we really have to cater, especially at the museum, it doesn’t matter if you’re a ‘tifoso’ with a passion who wears a Ferrari cap or you’re a Ferrari owner. If you come to the museum, the treatment you get is the same.
We are a luxury brand that really stretches 360 degrees. A person once told me the only other brand that has that is the church. So yes, that’s true…we don’t want to be compared to the Church, but that is a nice thing. Everybody has a story and they each need each other: the tifosi need the owners and the owners need the tifosi.”
MPS: Maybe you can put it this way: anyone can be a Catholic, but not everyone can be a priest exactly. And your owners are the priests of Enzo’s religion. Didn’t Enzo Ferrari once give a car to the Pope?
MPM: “The Pope has been in a Ferrari. John Paul the Second came to visit Enzo. Enzo was 88 and not feeling well, but the Pope got into a Ferrari Mondial and drove. Also, we gave, on a second occasion, a car to the Pope – an Enzo. It was on the occasion of the tsunami tragedy. We did an auction, and the #500 of the Enzos (we produced 499 of the supercars for market), was sold at the auction and the amount that it was sold for was then given to the Pope and he donated the money.”
MPS: The Ferrari Museum here has vehicles on loan. We are sitting at Chef Massimo Bottura’s Ristorante Cavallino. Last night at the gala, Chef Bottura showed me one of his cars in his garage which he said had just returned from being on loan for display here at your Ferrari Museum.
MPM: “That is true. We have lots of cars in the museum. We are lucky to have a strong friendship and collaboration with our collectors and one of the friends we work with is Massimo Bottura. He generously gave us his car to put on display because we constantly change the display. We constantly have different themes, especially in our Modena museum.
Once a year, on the 18th of February, which is the birthday of Enzo Ferrari, we completely change the exhibition. Now we have an exhibition based on the supercars. We are taking
people behind the scenes into the Ferrari archives through the supercars.
We have owners that share with us their beautiful cars and this gives us the possibility of having on display the nicest cars available. Enzo Ferrari used to destroy the cars because for him, ‘the best car was the next car,’ so why keep the previous one? The last car of the production was always destroyed. It is being destroyed because the next car was the best, so why keep the previous one? We always try to improve.”
MPS: Perhaps Enzo Ferrari can be described as “the automotive Walt Disney.” Like Disney, you took the brand across the scope – even here at Ristorante Cavallino – and you’re welcoming tourists here to Ferrari headquarters in Emilia Romagna…and also to theme parks?
MPM: “Yeah, we have a theme park in Abu Dhabi – Ferrari World and a Ferrari Land in Porta Aventura, which is near Barcelona. I actually personally followed both of them, so they’re like my babies. The brand is a great brand, and we have lots of experiences which are linked to the brand. The theme park is not just taking roller coasters and putting a logo on them and making them red, but each attraction has a Ferrari spirit in them.
MPS: Naturally, your Ferrari roller coaster must be the fastest in the world, isn’t it?
MPM: “It is the fastest in the world. It’s a very easy Ferrari concept is you always have to improve, learn from your mistakes and improve and that’s something and so Ferrarios, who Enzo used to have, in his office, a cupboard with all his mistakes – lots of small pieces – because he liked to learn from them show that you have to learn. If you do it two times, it’s not a mistake – it’s really a problem. Improve it. The next roller coast is the best. The next exhibition is the best. The next car is the best…and the next plate you will eat at Bottura’s is the best.
MPS: This Ristorante Cavallino is Ferrari-themed and in a historical building.
MPM: “I think the theming is very well done in the parks as it’s done also with Massimo Bottura here in the Cavallino venture. Ristorante Cavallino is putting together two excellencies of the of the territory: Ferrari and Massimo Bottura, in an adventure.
We have also created a special menu dedicated to the supercars or will be coming. It’s this collaboration of this territory which offers so much, and we have so many first in class among us: Ferrari, Massimo Bottura, Lamborghini, Maserati, Ducati; it’s the Motor Valley which is so rich in this spirit of motor sport, racing, and food.
As Massimo likes to say, it’s the region of ‘fast cars and slow food.’ Because that’s just part of our life and we are spoiled in this region because that is what happens. We have it all.”
MPS: Massimo, or maybe his wife Lara Gilmore, last night joked that, “America is fast food and slow cars!”
MPM: “And we are just the opposite. We like to sit down and take our time.”
MPS: La dolce vita?
MPM: “La dolce vita. The moment of staying at the table is a moment with the family. And then you can get out and you can drive your fast car on these beautiful hills. Modena and Maranello and all the region of Emilia Romagna is a beautiful, unique place to spend a bit of a few days and really feel this ‘red passion.’ Forza Ferrari.”
MPS: There are two Ferrari Museums, one in Maranello and the other in Modena. How would you explain their different characteristics?
MPM: The Ferrari Museum in Maranello is the company’s long-time exhibition space, managed directly by the company since 1995 and it is located close to the most important Ferrari sites, such as the factory itself with its entrance that has remained unchanged forever, the headquarters of the Scuderia and the Fiorano track. It is a must-see destination for any Ferrari fan and it hosts 400,000 visitors from all over the world every year.
The Maranello exhibition focuses on the Company, car production, the evolution of
manufacturing processes, the Supercars which led the way in the marque’s technological innovation, the history of the Scuderia since its very beginning, the cars and drivers who have won the Formula 1 world championship, which are celebrated in the Victory Hall.
Since 2014, the Modena Museum complements the one in Maranello, adding to the experience offered to visitors with a look at the history and early days of Enzo Ferrari, his birthplace, the nearby office of his father which houses the Ferrari Motor Museum, as well as a futuristic exhibition pavilion, home to temporary exhibitions that are changed every year on Enzo’s birthday, 18th February.
Every year, over 600,000 visitors come to the museums from all over the world, to enjoy a unique experience linked to the Prancing Horse. Along with my colleagues, it is our role to convey the passion embodied by this great brand. And that is what we try to do every day in the museums. Working at Ferrari is an honour and also requires a lot of passion and sacrifice, which is only possible with the support of a wonderful family behind you.”
Read more of Michael Patrick’s work at The Travel Tattler and contact him at
MShiels@aol.com Order his book Travel Tattler – Less Than Torrid Tales at
https://amzn.to/3Qm9FjN
- The World’s Most Culturally Significant Cuisine From Its Most Satiating Destination - January 29, 2026
- Best Cruise Line, Oceania, Combines Cuisine and Culture with Culinary Adventures - January 13, 2026
- Las Vegas Grand Prix Spree and Be Seen on the Scene - December 19, 2025