There are three issues here. First, is the 'Luisetto Winter' exhibited in 1896 the same as the 'Ludwig Winter' bred by Nabonnand and introduced nearly ten years later? Second, if not, was it bred by Ludwig Winter? And third, if not by Winter, then by whom?
Ca' Berta says "anything is possible". Who can disagree? But she leans to the view that the answer to question one is No, while the answer to question two is Yes. Question three, therefore, does not apply.
I lean towards the view that it was not bred by Winter, though concede it is not impossible. It is not impossible that having gained no success with this rose, Winter never tried again.
Why do I doubt it that it was bred by Winter? The private documents of Winter nowhere indicate that he tried to breed roses. Indeed, in the typescript Note Biografiche su Ludovico Winter written by his enthusiastic admirer Dino Taggiasco, there is no reference to Winter breeding roses. Taggiasco is able to give the exact date (10/10/1874) of the first dispatches of 'Safrano' to Munich. He lists the roses cultivated by Winter, but he never mentions rose breeding.
The name too seems strange. To my ear 'Luisetto' seems more like the nickname a French friend might have given Ludwig (Lodovico in Italian but Louis in French), who was indeed small (something Thomas Hanbury remarked on in a letter to his brother). It hardly seems likely that Ludwig would have called himself "Luisetto". He had many children, but non of them had a name for which 'Luisetto' might be a diminutive.
Does this matter?
I think it does, because if the form of words (ottenuta da seme dall'Espositore) used in the catalogue Ca' Berta and I are referring to means - as my colleague thinks - that the exhibitor was the breeder, then the many roses exhibited by Carlo Landini (and Landini e Figlio) listed in this and previous catalogues and marked in the same way must also have been bred by their exhibitors, not simply raised by them. If true, this would completely revolutionise our view of the rose breeding scene in Italy in the second half of the nineteenth century. If, as I think, it does not mean this, then we are more or less back to square one with the view that new varieties were not bred in Florence or Liguria in this period (except by Paul Brauer, right at the end). I say "more or less", because there is evidence indicating that perhaps some were bred in Florence, something my forthcoming on Italian roses will deal with.