(FORTUNE Magazine) – Beauty and passion, beauty and passion, beauty and passion. There. Now I won't have to keep repeating the Ferrari mantra.

The scene: I am driving south from Bologna. Buttery afternoon sunlight melts the verdant northern Italian landscape; rich ocher-hued fields and terra-cotta palazzi bask roadside. A warm breathy wind whispers through the vineyards and drowsy villages. On the horizon the Tosca-Emiliano mountains luxuriate. Bucolic, tranquil, sublime.

Then: WHAAAAYOW! It is a brilliant red Ferrari F355, screaming, flashing, hurtling through the rustic paradise. Two minutes later another howls past. Then another. Bright scarlet strokes of modernism knifing through an impressionist canvas. I have arrived in Maranello.

I am on a pilgrimage to this spirited little town just south of Modena for three reasons: To pay homage to the 50th anniversary of Enzo Ferrari's majestic machines (his first vehicle, the 12-cylinder 125 S, debuted in Rome in May 1947). Second, to experience Ferrari's newest model, the gorgeous V-12 550 Maranello, on the eve of its April 19 arrival in the U.S. (Ferrari Chairman Luca di Montezemolo tells me, eyes flashing with pride, "It's the best Ferrari ever made." Whoa.) So, to test his claim, I was also there for a third reason: To put the 550, Ferrari's first front-engine sports car in 11 years, through its paces in Pilota Ferrari, otherwise known as Ferrari Driving School.

But before anything else--test drives, shut-eye, or even Lambrusco ("It's just our Coca-Cola," shrugs one local)--I toured the factory. The facility is to autos what Florence's Uffizi museum is to art; everywhere you look there are masterpieces: a Formula 1 racing engine being machined to the left; an F50 carbon fiber body being wheeled past on the right; a hulking blue 550 Maranello chassis hanging above, its owner's list of customized requests taped to the windshield. Unlike the mechanical din of even the Porsche factory, here a steady tap-tap-tap fills the air--the drumbeats of umpteen hammers hand-finishing the world's most beautiful and passionate production cars.

While sophisticated technology plays an essential role ("We're a low-volume, high- R&D operation," says Montezemolo), the heart of the process is in the hands of the 1,150 dark-haired, jumpsuited employees. They huddle around each engine bay in small teams, gesturing liberally. They create about a dozen cars a day, 3,300 annually. As befits an artisans' studio, there are no stopwatches, no graveyard shifts, no malcontents--just pure craft indulged to its extreme. It's a particularly Italian talent to perfect form and function in the name of beauty and passion (sorry, I won't say it again). Think about it: Leonardo, Michelangelo, Puccini. Not to mention Ducati, Maserati, and Lamborghini, all within a 20-mile radius. Maybe it's something in the water. Or the Lambrusco?

After the factory's rare air, I was brought back to terra proletaria by having to drive a purple Opel from Maranello to the Mugello track outside of Florence (perhaps the most beautiful 3.2 miles known to carkind). Here is held the two-day Pilota Ferrari school. Offered strictly to Ferrari owners (for $5,000, including hotel and meals--such a deal!) a handful of times a year, the lessons are an excellent way to get comfortable with Ferrari's steeds at speed, and an especially ideal taming ground for the 550 Maranello.

That's the straight version. The secret truth behind the school is that it is a global meeting place for the haves and have-mores. From around the world they come to worship at the treads of Ferrari--my group was a virtual U.N., from an African-American Wall Street type and a Chinese-American dentist to a Hong Kong pharmaceuticals exec and a Canadian timber king. And then, of course, a Swiss banker, a Connecticut investment banker, and an Italian industrialist. Thank God cliches haven't disappeared entirely. All own at least one current-model Ferrari, if not more. And yet on the first day of school, I witnessed all 20 of these full-grown, filthy-rich, Ferrari-knowledgeable Type A moguls squeal like kids on a roller coaster at the sight of ten red Ferraris--six F355s and four 550 Maranellos--lined up in pit lane.

The eight instructors--all champion European racers--assessed our abilities on the track, then split us into four groups. I landed in the blue group, which, as far as I could tell, was a collection of four other similarly lead-footed, rough-shifting rogues.

Andrea de Adamich, a former Formula 1 driver and head of the school, spent part of the morning delivering some basic driving theories. He lectured on seat, hand, and foot positions--as well as saying such things as "Don't steera too much into corner--you weel causa front tires loosing greep."

And then, unadulterated bliss: lock-up braking exercises, with and without antilock brakes; countersteering drills around a hosed-down skid pad, with traction control on and off (the 550 has all the top-of-the-line technical frills); and, best of all, lots and lots of lap time.

Ferrari has come up with an ingenious system that allows Pilota participants to feel like Formula 1 heroes as they do their laps without really putting the company's machinery at risk. The instructors go out ahead of students in pace cars, and talk two-car groups around the track. Unconcerned with watching my speed (or even thinking my own way through Mugello's 15 hairpins, S curves, and chicanes), I could focus on the cars themselves. First the lithe, teenlike reflexes of the mid-engined V-8 F355. Then the tangible feeling of enormous pent-up power in the heftier 550 Maranello, from its stiff throttle and highly responsive steering to the torso-lurching G force of its massive brakes. The 550 carries you through corners with such power and assurance that you're tricked into thinking you don't have to do much beyond grip the steering wheel, occasionally flick the gate shift, and enjoy the rocket ride. And even if you do something stupid--like lighting up the tires as you upshift out of a corner--the built-in systems like ASR (traction control) will save you from yourself. Plus, "there's more cockpit comfort, less noise, more room for luggage," says Montezemolo. "And with 490 horsepower, it's quicker than the Testarossa" (Ferrari's last V-12 speed queen). It is magnitudes more capable than the high-end BMWs, Porsches, and Aston Martins that have attempted to mate high performance with haute gran turismo luxury.

That evening, after too many laps and too much adrenaline, with the red wine flowing, I asked various instructors, off the record, which Ferrari they really preferred. Every single one of them named the 550, a reverent look lighting their eyes. Remember the mantra.