“Never let a good crisis go to waste,” as Churchill once said. A crisis means rupture and change. And in order to prevent it being wasted, it calls for far-sighted, ambitious policy, at once visionary and tangible. In these most challenging of times, as we feel the full impact of the pandemic and the recession, we are indeed at risk of wasting it all.

The warning signs are clear, and the most prominent is a combination of poor government in terms of proper use of financial resources for saving businesses from disaster, and the growth of a worrying trend towards nationalisation of the economy. In our blog posts in recent weeks, we have already highlighted the emergence – not only in many areas of public opinion but also unfortunately in political and government circles – of an anti-business climate, a sense of hostility towards private enterprise, a culture of market and meritocracy, and the social values of industry and economic innovation. Now, the worsening of the crisis and the consequential drop in incomes and rise in poverty, fear and concern for the future have led to a widespread re-emergence of the need for protection, assistance and public funding.

And of course, in the emergency phase, this intervention by the public purse is essential in order to quickly offset the risks represented by the shut-down of economic activities, especially those in the service sector and small and very small businesses, and to ensure economic support for those who have lost their jobs and income. But behind this sense of urgency, there is a temptation of a very different nature, and one that is more long-term: the long-standing Italian desire for an economy based on subsidy, aid and the protection of corporations and customers – as opposed to an economy of production – has re-emerged. A citizen’s income, emergency income, universal income, or whatever you want to call it, provided in the absence of work, instead of a job that produces income. This trend is becoming more widespread, extending beyond the confines of the emergency, and taking the shape of a sub-culture that focuses on benefits, not salaries. And this is a real threat – the threat of a radical upheaval of civil coexistence, as well as of the potential for recovery.

In addition to this benefits culture, we are also faced with an insidious road leading back to an overweening state. Even now, government bodies control almost half of the Milan Stock Exchange; they are preparing to get involved in Ilva and to dominate Alitalia entirely. Elsewhere, the state is looking to extend its influence over thousands of companies, converting state-guaranteed loans into shares. Are we preparing for a wave of nationalisation? The main instrument of this “IRI2” strategy is Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, the Italian investment bank that collects the postal savings of the country’s people, and which is under the firm control of the government (although other major shareholders include various important banking foundations, which do not seem the type to take nationalisation lying down).

In order to respond to the crisis and save businesses, of course, temporary public assistance can make a lot of sense. Germany, France and various other European countries are moving in this direction, with the traditional strength provided by powerful and efficient public bodies. “More than one euro in every two given as aid to companies is spent by Germany […] to the tune of nearly a one trillion euros”, according to Il Foglio. And the case of Lufthansa (on which the government spent 10 billion to acquire 25% of the airline and finance its recovery) is just the best-known example of a public intervention strategy. Once the crisis finally comes to an end, its effects will certainly be felt.

Does this mean more help from the state, then? It depends on the forms of financing and investment provided. It would be better if this were not the case, if public intervention were seen as a means of moulding business strategy. And if such an intervention must be made – on pain of the failure of a significant portion of the industrial system – then clear limits are essential: non-repayable financing and not just credit, a long repayment term, and where public equity is resorted to, independent and authoritative corporate governance, in order to bring companies back to the market and back into ownership by private shareholders. These measures would avoid the significant temptation to strengthen the hold of politics and bureaucrats on the economy and on companies, through an overweening state.

A fascinating rhetoric has begun to take shape over the course of these crisis-racked months: the rhetoric of the post-War Italian Reconstruction. It is a lovely rhetoric, full of brilliant political and civil values. But it is also misleading. The years between 1945 and the early Fifties relied on a young and enthusiastic ruling class, who had cut their teeth on the political and moral tensions of the battle against Nazism and Fascism, and who were passionate about the ideas underpinning democratic freedoms. This ruling class headed the new institutions of the Italian Republic, moving with a united spirit towards a better future for Italy, even in the depths of extremely bitter political and social conflicts. This ruling class felt a strong sense of responsibility, which gave institutional and political substance to the initiatives and to the desire for recovery, employment, the well-being of workers and entrepreneurs. One example of this was the labour agreement between CGIL (the Italian General Confederation of Labour), led by Giuseppe Di Vittorio, and Confindustria (the General Confederation of Italian Industry), led by Angelo Costa, with its slogan “First factories, then houses”. And they set their sights on a united Europe, viewing this as a positive horizon of further freedom and opportunities for economic growth. The “economic boom” that followed, and lasted until the mid-1960s, was driven by a cross between the vital spark of the various social players of the time and the positive public intervention measures they took (although this reformism was hampered over time by more conservative instincts).

IRI (the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction), founded in the early 1930s, had been crucial in saving Italy’s frail industry from the consequences of the Great Depression that started on Wall Street in 1929, and the institute was relaunched after the war. Since its foundation, the IRI had been led by managers inspired by the culture and ethics of responsibility championed by civil servants, such as Alberto Beneduce, an economist with a socialist background who was capable of great autonomy, even under an all-consuming regime like Fascism. And in the post-war period, at the behest of other great managers, such as Oscar Sinigaglia, Agostino Rocca, Giuseppe Luraghi and Pasquale Saraceno (who would go on to lead the most successful efforts of Cassa per il Mezzogiorno), and educated, broad-minded bankers, such as Raffaele Mattioli, president of Banca Commerciale Italiana, the IRI, together with Enrico Mattei‘s Eni, played a fundamental role in restarting the reconstruction, supporting the relaunch of Italy’s economy and the process of industrialisation: infrastructure (the Autostrada del Sole motorway being one of the most famous examples), energy, services, finance and core industry, from steel to chemicals. Then, from the Seventies onwards, the decline began: excessive political influence, frequent bail-outs of insolvent companies (the futility of the famous panettone di Stato, the “state pie”), and a management team chosen – with a few exceptions – for their party loyalty rather than for their skill and foresight in the world of business or for their pursuit of a productive and competitive corporate culture. Not forgetting the inefficient banking system, which, by the end of the Eighties, had been reduced to a “petrified forest” (this expression, more apt than ever, was coined by Giuliano Amato, Minister of Treasury and subsequently President of the Council in the early Nineties, a complex period of economic renewal and privatisation).

Those days are gone. They are not missed. If anything, in order to clamber out of the crisis, the Italian economy is in need of a relaunch, of internationalisation, greater productivity, superior competitiveness, dedication to the green economy and a sustainable approach to business that is both efficient and responsible. The public authorities, the state, governments, are responsible for establishing clear rules, implementing effective controls, investing in basic infrastructure, research and training, and ensuring the conditions exist for an open and transparent market. Instead of having an entrepreneurial state that gets involved in business management, Italy must focus on being a good builder of political strategies, both within its borders and in the EU, to help companies grow and make markets as efficient as possible.

In short, we need good policy, and not small power plots or ideological decisions implemented by the pervasive public purse.

The issue is that unfortunately, we are dealing with a political situation that is very fragile, and not up to the challenges that lie ahead. We are emerging from years of diatribes (some of which have been founded, and many of which have been specious) against the “caste” of politicians and elites, years characterised by an anti-parliamentary populism which has aimed to “open Parliament up like a can of tuna”, and by a parochial and anti-EU desire for sovereignty, with institutions populated by representatives appointed by party leaders for their loyalty rather than for their skill or competence. Good politics, and the initiatives associated with it, has been replaced by an obsession with frantic social media communication, against a backdrop that is teeming with fake news and background noise that favours neither the knowledge nor the capacity to put forward responsible criticism. The horizon of long-term transformations (the political endeavour of a good politician, a statesman) is overshadowed by the mediocrity of the instant and compulsive personal gratification provided by “likes”.

However, in clawing our way out of the crisis, we must make our way up a slippery slope. And a change in tone, choices and the very culture of government is what we must jointly commit to in the immediate future. Both in parliament and in government, there do exist personalities and factions that display a certain degree of foresight, coupled with a clear sense of responsibility. And there are also alert social forces at work, boasting both knowledge and skills, with the capacity for informed criticism, proposal and collaboration. The Quirinale is a firm point of reference, a place of rules, competence and democratic guarantees, with a solid pro-EU vision. This country, which has proved itself so generous and so responsible even in the current era of difficulty and pain, deserves serious choices, and a better future.

In 1956, on the barriers in Piazza Duca d’Aosta in Milan, around the construction site of the Pirelli Tower, an enormous elephant rose up with the outline of a Pirelli tyre for industrial vehicles in place of its head and trunk. A colossus like the mythological Atlas, it was accompanied by the slogan “the giant that will go a long way”. This advertisement, which was designed in 1955 by Armando Testa for Pirelli and its new line of truck tyres, made a huge impact on the skyline of Milan, and was more effective than any poster or advertising page. Born in Turin in 1917, Armando Testa was a pupil of the abstract artist Ezio D’Errico at the Scuola Tipografica Vigliardi Paravia, and by the mid-1950s he was already at the helm of a small graphic arts company that was soon to become Studio Testa, a firm that would make history in the world of advertising. Among the various clients he worked with during that initial period, such as Martini & Rossi and Carpano, his collaboration with Pirelli was one that led to a particular degree of creativity: the idea of portraying a tyre as an animal is as simple and immediate as it is of great emotional impact.

Together with the gigantic Atlas, Armando Testa also turned another Pirelli tyre into an animal: the Stelvio, the winner of Formula 1 races and a champion of performance together with the Cinturato. While Atlas is a stoic elephant, Stelvio is a vigorous lion. A lion sinking its claws into the asphalt, with the tyre represented by a mane. In the 1950s, the collage technique introduced by the Dutch artist Bob Noorda and his master Ezio Bonini was making its way into advertising graphics: the image of the product, which was photographed to reflect the look of the tyre on sale appears against a background drawn in the traditional manner. In actual fact, it is not an original photograph but rather a skilful work of retouching that brings out the pattern of the tread, which in a photo of the type taken in those days would have appeared as a black mass with no detail. The original sketches for the two advertisements “It’ll go a long way” and “Claws the asphalt” are preserved in our Historical Archive. The one for the Stelvio lion has a distinctive feature: the animal is looking to the side. But the artist has written next to the drawing: “Careful! The lion’s head needs to be turned”. And the final poster does indeed show the lion looking straight ahead, rather than behind, as in the original sketch, highlighting the importance of safety while driving. Similarly, the original airbrush drawing of the Pirelli Atlas also bears a handwritten note that says “bring out the red a bit” to improve the colour scheme and composition. These notes constitute a precious testimony of an age that possibly really can be referred to as the “artistic renaissance” of the 1950s – of which Armando Testa was one of the greatest masters.

“On the evening of 4 February 1968, Pino Tovaglia went up to the twenty-fifth floor of the Pirelli Centre. It was twenty past six. Tovaglia preferred to meet Castellani in a place of peace and quiet.” It is no coincidence that the article devoted to the recently deceased Arrigo Castellani, which was published in Pirelli magazine in 1969, should begin with a reference to the Milanese designer Pino Tovaglia. The designer and the Pirelli advertising director were friends for over ten years and together they created some of the most famous and brilliant works in the history of the visual communication of the “Long P”. On the one hand there was the meticulous young graphic designer, and on the other Castellani with his Roman ebullience and passion, and his constant desire to go one step farther and astonish people. These two personalities together created an outpouring of creativity and masterpieces.

Pino Tovaglia started working with Pirelli in 1957, when Castellani himself took him on, together with five other “superstars” – Antonio Boggeri, Franco Grignani, Erberto Carboni, Ezio Bonini and Bob Noorda – to create a collaborative advertising campaign for tyres: six different styles, six ways of interpreting the product, six artistic forms. Tovaglia’s contribution for the Pirelli Rolle was clear from the outset: clean lines, nothing superfluous, and an “optical” preference for black and white. His bold style was destined to make its mark in the following decade, at the height of Pop Art, culminating in the Un viaggio, ma advertising campaign for the Cinturato tyre in 1966. Tovaglia’s geometric black-and-white figures that frame and often cover the surreal nursery rhymes invented by Castellani became an authentic cultural symbol in the “swinging” Milan of the late 1960s.

The writer Camilla Cederna was clearly amused and fascinated by them in her article for Pirelli magazine: London cannot have been that far away, for the same play of blacks and whites dominated the 1966 film The Tortoise and the Hare made by the British Pirelli Ltd for the Cinturato. Tovaglia’s minimal touch appeared again the following year, when he and Roberto Menghi were asked to think up a novel approach to the Pirelli stand at the Paris Motor Show: an almost hypnotic sequence of black and white lines conveyed the idea of the “radial”, interrupted by a sort of red “heel”. A vision of the Cinturato that is as powerful as it is immediate. Tovaglia and Castellani wrote the last chapter of their partnership in 1968, for the advertising director died suddenly at the end of the year. He did, however, leave behind two more minor masterpieces. One was the “flags” advertising campaign: the Pirelli Cinturato known in every country of the world, shown only by its stylised national flag. The other was the cover of Pirelli magazine no. 3 of that year – the one for which Tovaglia went up to the twenty-fifth floor of the Pirelli Tower that evening on 4 February. The meticulous designer once again wanted to provoke the vivacious manager, knowing that, as usual, he would come out on top in their friendly duel: “The time of man. Work and more” was written on the cover. In black and white – of course.

Are you passionate about sports and motor racing? Are you interested in advertising, photography, creative writing? Do you like using your smartphone to take original shots or videos, inventing new stories?

The Pirelli Foundation launches #playwithpirellifoundation. The game is simple: each week some keywords or slogans from the world of Pirelli will be put out on our social media channels to give you inspiration. You will be able to put your imagination and creative skills to the test by following the instructions, taking photos and creating short videos, gifs, and stories. Speed, safety, and visual communication will be just some of the concepts you will be able to interpret and render in the form of images and stories. In particular, you will be able to take up the challenge on Instagram, sharing your own creations using the tag @Fondazione Pirelli and using the hashtag #playwithpirellifoundation. The challenge is also open to the very young and their families. Full instructions for little ones will be published on Facebook, as well as on this web page, so that – with the support of grown-ups or on their own – they will be able to create new games and objects inspired by Pirelli’s values, which they can share with others on the social media channels or send to info@fondazionepirelli.org.

The most interesting creations will then be selected and reposted on our social media channels or on our site.

Follow the Pirelli Foundation, play with us, and become part of the world of Pirelli!

Let’s start playing with

PLAYWITHPIRELLI#4

Pirelli è… the most wanted tyres!     
Click here to download the activity for families or take part in the challenge on our Instagram profile.

PLAYWITHPIRELLI#3

Pirelli is…a friend for your bicycle!
Click here to download the activity for families or take part in the challenge on our Instagram profile.

PLAYWITHPIRELLI#2

Pirelli is… Advertising with capital P!
Click here to download the activity for families or take part in the challenge on our Instagram profile.

PLAYWITHPIRELLI#1
Pirelli is… Power is nothing without control!
Click here to download the activity for families or take part in the challenge on our Instagram profile.

Italian companies, especially small ones, are caught in a vice which, despite the government’s repeated promises, they can’t get out of. During the pandemic months they’re not working, delivering, invoicing or earning. Factories are at a standstill, workshops are shut and services are frozen, from restaurants and bars to hotels and sports centres and countless other businesses. Theatres and cinemas are closed. Most bookshops are closed. A widespread, growing fear grips everyone: the fear of having grown too weary to start again, once the lock-down is finally softened or ended. We need money, ready cash, to carry on living. If not “helicopter money” – an immediate handout to everyone, as if money really were falling from a helicopter, as if it were raining down from the sky – at the very least a rapid financial safety net so the economy doesn’t lose all its dynamism. This would not be merely a subsidy for people in need of an income to struggle through the emergency. It would be a timely way of allowing financial players to keep on doing their job, to produce and to generate wealth and employment.

Prime Minister Conte knows this well. Indeed, on 6 April he called the financial support for small and medium operators “formidable”: 400 billion, half for the domestic market and the other half to support exports. “Firepower,” he added, himself falling into the warlike language so common in these difficult times. Two days later came the “Liquidity Decree“. And so the process has begun, involving SACE (the state-owned export credit company), the Ministry of Economy, the Central Guarantee Fund and the banks.

The Prime Minister’s announcement has given hope to thousands of entrepreneurs; it’s an emergency lifeline, with quick loans at a very low interest rate, guaranteed by the government. But, three weeks after the “formidable” announcement, most of the economic operators have yet to see a single euro.

“An opportunity that’s drowning in the bureaucratic swamp,” as Ferruccio de Bortoli reported yesterday in the Corriere della Sera magazine L’Economia. Bar a few banks, everything remains at a standstill for many institutions: “70% of the system is frozen,” report the banking unions. Mechanisms between funding bodies aren’t clear, computer systems are not aligned, there are still constraints of paperwork. It takes 19 documents to borrow 25,000 euros, Dario Di Vico estimates in Corriere della Sera. And bank managers, without an indemnity policy to protect them from legal liability in rushed investigations and not in line with the drawn-out traditional procedures required by the ECB, refrain from signing the funding applications.

Here’s the problem: the money is there but it’s not getting to the recipients. And the recipients are aware that with each passing day their company nears closing down. And despite professed commitments, nothing else is reaching them: those 600 euros for self-employed persons, the money from the redundancy fund for employees whose companies are closed. Whilst the whole country fights the virus and does all it can to avoid infection, another danger gradually grows worse, that of an economic collapse. It seems like a mockery. Because the money is there, on paper: the ECB has made an enormous amount of funding available (at least 750 billion euros), the EU Stability Pact has been suspended and Italy can fall into debt without the traditional restraints to support recovery; funds for an EU recovery plan, with 1,500 billion for the restarting phase, can be glimpsed on the horizon.

Money on the horizon but not in anyone’s pockets.

Here’s the point: confronted with the consequences from the coronavirus pandemic, there are plenty of political announcements, monumental and complex documents laying out the government’s instructions, but the actual promises are ineffectual. Last night, during a meeting in Milan, Carlo Bonomi, the president of Assolombarda appointed by Confindustria, and Carlo Sangalli, president of Confcommercio, underlined to Prime Minister Conte how an intervention is of the utmost urgency and made practical suggestions so that money could immediately reach the companies. All they got in return was generic reassurance. In an interview to Il Sole24Ore, the Minister of Economic Development, Stefano Patuanelli, announced that 15 billion has been earmarked for small businesses, including non-repayable contributions and government participation in the capital of companies, for a period limited to six years. Another assertion made in good faith. But tangible results? There’s not enough time to sit back and watch.

“If we don’t inject liquidity in small companies the system freezes,” Carlo Robiglio, president of Confindustria’s small business group, fretfully reminds us. “We need 15 billion euros by the end of this week.”

It’s hoped that now, after three weeks of unnecessary delays, something concrete will finally happen.

The investigation by Corriere della Sera‘s L’Economia shows how Germany, Spain and Switzerland have done more, better and quicker than Italy, helping their companies stay on their feet with prompt and tangible support, and placing them in a stronger competitive position.

The feeling is that both government and parties lack knowledge of the economy’s mechanisms and perception of the urgency for concrete measures rather than generic choices. And time is a key factor. Companies don’t deserve to let time pass them by in vain, until disaster strikes, not only for them but for most of Italy’s economy.

An analysis of musical education and business education reveals the many common traits between two activities that are not as dissimilar as one might think

Educating yourself and others in being rigorous is important, and even more so when you face difficult periods and new challenges. This advice applies to everyone, in fields of activity that although different share some common traits. Just like doing business and making music, and, therefore, with business education alongside musical education. Calculation and art, only apparently at odds.

This is the topic discussed by Daniele Morselli’s contribution to the collection entitled “Donare donarsi. Per una pedagogia della Community music” (“To give and to give oneself: for teaching community music”). The author undertakes an interdisciplinary investigation of musical education and business education that offers some interesting food for thought and finds much common ground.

Indeed, in “Verso una integrazione di educazione musicale ed educazione all’imprenditorialità in un’ottica di lifelong learning. Un’analisi della letteratura” (“Towards an integration of musical education and business education through the lens of lifelong learning: a literature analysis”), Morselli asks whether “a musical education programme can include elements from business education.” And, further, whether “a business education programme can make use of musical education.”

Starting from the premise that business and music could both be “key skills for lifelong learning”, he reasons that, after all, even the arts require a certain amount of business sense. The author proceeds by looking at how different learning methods intersect, to demonstrate how much business can benefit from music and vice versa.

Morselli writes: “A false myth often heard in artistic circles is that the same people who are successful in the creative arts are those who lack economic skills. Even more crippling is the myth that musicians who choose to prioritise the business aspect of their career at the expense of the musical side risk selling out.” He continues: “A holistic approach to business education in the musical field allows to overcome a rationalistic view that sees business as a stand-alone subject, and that as such is in danger of segregating, rather than integrating, business and musical education.”

Basically, doing good business is akin to making good music.  And vice versa.

Verso una integrazione di educazione musicale ed educazione all’imprenditorialità in un’ottica di lifelong learning. Un’analisi della letteratura (“Towards an integration of musical education and business education through the lens of lifelong learning: a literature analysis”)

Daniele Morselli

In “Donare donarsi. Per una pedagogia della Community music” (To give and to give oneself: for teaching community music), edited by Antonella Coppi, Libreria Musicale Italiana, 2020

An HBR book collects 20 essays that are a must-read to better understand how to act in times as difficult as these

Times of crisis, times of opportunity for those who can seize the chances that arise in periods when great changes hold sway. Still, difficult periods must be faced with a suitable store of knowledge, that’s for sure. Knowledge which must be acquired. It would be apt, then, to read Affrontare e vincere le crisi. Della pandemia e di altre catastrofi: lezioni da apprendere per contenere i danni e ripartire alla grande (Facing and overcoming crises: on pandemics and other catastrophes – lessons on how to minimise damage and restart with a bang), edited by Enrico Sassoon (editor-in-chief of Harvard Business Review Italy), an expert, above all, in current business trends.

The book’s aim is made explicit from the first pages: to provide readers with a collection of contributions (20 essays) by high-brow figures – from the worlds of economy, high politics, finance, and international relations – reflecting on the situation and on the developments of the Covid-19 pandemic. A true “toolkit” for those who wish to acquire the right instruments to better understand what is happening.

The editor writes, in the first lines: “A pandemic crisis, notwithstanding its violence and length, does not constitute a normal period in the unfolding of history and time. Its global reach and the paralysis it imposes on the whole world make this crisis different, a real and unexpected discontinuity, the extent of which we are still struggling to understand. The cost is and will be very high in terms of human lives, but its impact will also have to be measured in psychological, economic, political and social terms (individual and collective). We are witnessing the rupture of an epoch.” He continues: “Covid-19 represents a further exacerbation of global crises, not only because it highlights the enormous difficulty in managing a crisis of this nature, but also because it suddenly reveals a truth that we would rather not have learned: the great historical catastrophes which we have seen in the past and that we imagined would come in the future can happen now.”

What’s extraordinary, then, is the guiding principle of what is happening, and the book attempts to interpret it with 20 essays divided into five sections that touch on all the main areas hit by the pandemic.

The first section is an in-depth investigation of the pandemic itself, an exceptional event that is causing, and will have not only a heavy economic impact but also deep implications for management styles, new working methods such as smart working, and different relationships within organisations. The second section looks more broadly at crises, whether in relation to health, economic or other emergencies. The third section concerns new approaches to risk management and the new organisational and leadership models required to comply with them. The fourth section invites us to look to the future with professionalism and awareness, in order to be ready to manage any unexpected event. Lastly, the final section touches on communication issues in times of crisis.

Authors include: Nitin Nohria, Condoleezza Rice, Yuval Noah Harari, Martin Reeves, Robert Kaplan, Heidi Gardner, Andrea Granelli, Emilio Rossi, Luigi Consiglio and many others.

Sassoon edited a book that, though not always easy, should certainly be read, and perhaps reread a bit later.

Affrontare e vincere le crisi. Della pandemia e di altre catastrofi: lezioni da apprendere per contenere i danni e ripartire alla grande (“Facing and overcoming crises: on pandemics and other catastrophes – lessons on how to minimise damage and restart with a bang”)

Enrico Sassoon (edited by)

Mind Edizioni, 2020

Advertising poster designers brought colour to the world in the 1920s and 1930s. This was one of the most vibrant periods in the history of advertising and it laid the foundations for what was to become modern visual product communication. Our Historical Archive preserves the original advertising sketches for Pirelli products created by the greatest pre-war illustrators, each with their own individual style but all with unprecedented creative impact. Their creativity was also inspired by the many innovative products that the rubber industry was bringing to market in those years: consumer items that had been unknown in the nineteenth century but that were becoming increasingly popular in the New World.

Giuseppe Cappadonia – who was born in Messina but moved to Milan at a very young age to attend the Accademia di Brera – could thus let his imagination run wild in Pirelli advertisements for heels and rubber sponges. He put his name to the sketch with a pixie for Marca Stella heels, which could be adjusted to the shoe depending on the degree of wear. Giorgio Muggiani, who was born into a family of merchants in Milan in 1887, was inspired by the brilliant invention of overshoes, which would keep the rain off the precious pumps worn by elegant ladies.

Pirelli named them “Hevea”, a tribute to the waterproofing properties of latex produced by the rubber tree, or Hevea brasiliensis. Raincoats were inspiration for Giorgio Tabet, a Genoese artist who was born in 1904 and graduated from the Accademia di Brera, in a drawing made in 1929 for a range of women’s trench coats, with a display of simplicity, elegance, and a skilful use of colours. And then there are tyres, which in those futuristic years evoked roaring engines, speed, and action. It was this synthesis of modernity that in 1925 prompted the Emilia-born Nino Nanni to create his memorable sketch for the Pirelli Superflex Cord: the amazing tyre that, on the road, could outstrip planes in the sky and speedboats at sea. Renzo Bassi, a Genoese emigrant in Milan, expressed the artistic mood of those years when he created the advertising campaigns for “Stella Bianca” tyres, as Pirelli Cords became known in 1927. The ground-breaking poster designers who brought to bear all their ingenuity for Pirelli products continued to make their mark in the 1930s with new stylistic forms and new graphic ideas. The work made in 1933 by Antonio Salemme, also for the Pirelli Stella Bianca tyre, is emblematic, for here the artist uses a style of lettering that is absolutely innovative in terms of its solid-to-void ratio. We know little about the life of the Genoese Mario Bertoglio, but it is certain that his interpretations of the Stella Bianca tyre, mounted on powerful, elegant cars tackling mountain roads, are some of the clearest images in product communication of that time.
An annotated analysis of the entire artistic heritage of advertising sketches now in our Historical Archive appears in a book called A Muse in the Wheels, published in 2015 by the Pirelli Foundation. It is a tribute to the masters of artistic visual communication, and to their interpretation of the Pirelli style and its products.

One of the top names in the history of automobiles was Vittorio Jano, who was born Victor János on 22 April 1891. Originally from San Giorgio Canavese, in the province of Turin, Jano graduated from the Istituto Professionale Operaio and entered Fiat in 1911 as a mechanical designer of racing cars under Giulio Cesare Cappa. Those were the days of the Fiat 804 and of the victories of Felice Nazzaro. He remained at FIAT until 1923 when, thanks to the good offices of Enzo Ferrari, he moved to Alfa Romeo: thus it was that the meeting of the two great minds, of Jano and Ferrari, led to the encounter with Luigi Bazzi from Novara and to the creation in 1924 of the Alfa Romeo P2, an icon of motorcar racing in the 1920s. The car was fitted with Pirelli Superflex Cord tyres, which were praised by engineer Nicola Romeo himself: a further guarantee of high performance and safety. Antonio Ascari won the Italian Grand Prix at Monza in October 1924 in his P2, ahead of the other Alfa P2s driven by Louis Wagner, Giuseppe Campari and Ferdinando Minoia. The following year, Gastone Brilli Peri took his Alfa P2 to victory at Monza, in the first World Championship for Grand Prix cars: a triumph for Alfa Romeo and for Vittorio Jano.

1925 also saw the unveiling of the Alfa 6C at the Portello factory. Jano had been asked for “an economic, lightweight car with brilliant performance”, and here it was: light, robust, and modern. For over twenty years, the 6C – renamed NR as a tribute to Nicola Romeo – was followed by a whole generation of six-cylinder Alfa 6 cars, all the way to 1950.
Vittorio Jano later moved to Lancia, where he helped design the amazing Aurelia, which came out in 1950: another stroke of genius. It was the legacy of a man who, behind the scenes, contributed to the success of the Made in Italy label and to the memorable records broken by motorcar racing champions.

It was the late American photographer Peter Beard, who passed away at the age of 82, who put his name to the 2009 Pirelli Calendar. His photos remain in the history of “The Cal” as a warning about harming the environment: “My real concern is the destruction of nature – we’ve totally forgotten that it is to her that we owe our survival”.

Set in Botswana, in the Okavango Delta and in the Kalahari Desert, Beard’s Pirelli Calendar is much more than an exercise in photography: it is a written, drawn, and narrated diary – and also photographed, of course – that the artist referred to as a “living sculpture”. A powerful tale of Africa in 56 plates, in which seven models have the task of reconnecting mankind with nature in a close dialogue. Peter Beard met Karen Blixen in Denmark in 1961 and, the following year, on their two adjacent ranches outside of Nairobi, they shared their experiences of the continent, which she so brilliantly described in her masterpiece, Out of Africa. In 1965 Beard published The End of the Game, a book with a collection of photographs and texts in which he documented the disappearance of elephants in Kenya and the end of the myth of the invulnerability of nature. From that moment on, his photos became an extraordinary, surprising new vision of Africa. A life spent exploring the world, leaving traces everywhere he went.