The history of FAI speaks of a civic passion that everyone can learn from, even in modern industry

Doing business is a multi-faceted undertaking. Entrepreneurial adventures are not always measured by the amount of profit they make. First and foremost, doing business involves setting a goal and working hard to achieve it. Rarely is that goal achieved by a lone individual. In fact, a good business is one that succeeds in its endeavours by involving many people. This is true not only in business and in manufacturing, but in the fields of art and culture, as well as the social sphere.

At the core there must always be a culture (and not only of production) that manages to put people ahead of everything. To understand more about this complex reasoning, it’s helpful to read Il paese più bello del mondo. Il FAI e la sfida per un’Italia migliore (‘the most beautiful country in the world: FAI and the challenge of making a better Italy’), written by Alberto Saibene, a thoughtful historian of 20th-century Italian culture. The subject of the book is the complex, fascinating and certainly not uncomplicated history of FAI, the National Trust for Italy.

Written not as an essay but rather an often frantic chronicle, of what has happened since the day after the end of the Second World War, up until to the present day. The history is centred around the companies who made it their a goal to save the most beautiful country in the world from increasingly pervasive and rapid degradation. It explains how a cultural and natural ecosystem that had made it through the Second World War more or less intact found itself, in just a few years, seriously threatened. More than the disasters of war, it was rapid unchecked reconstruction that ruined the face of our country. Some began to react. First was the association Italia Nostra in 1955, then the exhibition ‘Italia da salvare’ (‘save Italy’) in 1967. In 1975 FAI was founded to acquire and manage property and assets and then open them to the public. It was an organisation not for profit but for another goal, that of defending Italy against the havoc caused by the economic boom and an unrestrained race for affluence at all costs. Saibene tells its history without holding back and leaving no stone unturned. The characters and events appear before the reader’s eyes. They represent the cream of Italy in terms of its culture and care for its heritage. The story speaks not only of those who dedicated their lives to FAI, like Giulia Crespi, Elena Croce, Antonio Cederna and Renato Bazzoni, but also wonderful figures from post-war Italian culture (Corrado Alvaro, Giorgio Bassani, Italo Calvino, Benedetto Croce and many others). Then finally up to the often enlightened entrepeneurs in industry, pillars of the country’s history (the Falcks, Agnellis, Borlettis, Pirellis and others).

The history of FAI is therefore a history of Italy in another form. A history of successes, both economic and not, combined with crushing defeats, has fostered a civic passion that could probably only find space to grow and develop in this, the ‘most beautiful country in the world.’ Alberto Saibene writes in a journalistic style and, for the first time ever, tells the history of the largest private cultural enterprise in Italy. It is a story of passion and responsibility, of beauty and daily struggle. These are the necessary qualities of every good organisation.

There is a beautiful quote in the opening pages, from a travel report by Cesare Musatti, who was touring Italy for Olivetti in the early years of reconstruction. Musatti notes that there can be no economic development without social and civic progress. An affirmation that holds true today.

Il paese più bello del mondo. Il FAI e la sfida per un’Italia migliore
Alberto Saibene
Utet, 2019

Milan, and within a hundred kilometres radius, Brescia and Bergamo, Monza, la Brianza and Lodi, hubs for competitive manufacturing. Then Como, Varese and Lecco, Pavia and Piacenza, Novara, with Ivrea and Turin just a little further away. A concentration of industrial areas, full of innovative companies and hi-tech services, research centres, first-class universities and international cultural initiatives. Just beyond the natural boundary created by the river Po, lie Parma, Modena and Bologna. To the north, the Brenner pass leads to Austria and Germany. To the east, from Verona to Padua and Treviso and on between Pordenone and the Friuli region in the direction of Central Europe. Milan is the focal point of a very European and simultaneously Mediterranean Italy, one of the most dynamic and productive areas of the EU.

According to a recent report from McKinsey, by 2025, 66% of the world’s population will produce two thirds of the world’s GDP in 600 global cities. And if, already, international competition no longer takes place between nations but rather between wide, well-connected metropolitan areas and “integrated territorial systems”, the “great Milan”, with its network of relationships and flows of people, ideas and businesses “within a hundred kilometre range”, has all that is needed to play a leading role. In terms of smart city, of circular and civic economy, and of that green new deal held dear by the EU Commission, too.

This is what was discussed at length at the Festival Città Impresa in Bergamo last weekend, organised at Kilometro Rosso (an extraordinary site blending research and industry) by ItalyPost, with the support of Assolombarda, Confindustria Bergamo and the Brescia Industrial Association. The event was attended by entrepreneurs, economists and political and cultural personalities. And here is the summary: the region under discussion has developed, even during those long years of crisis, much more than the national average, and at European speed. Companies have done a great deal, with their investments and innovations, but it is becoming increasingly urgent for government and political parties to start pulling their weight. For instance, with responsible and forward-looking choices for public investment in research, training and infrastructures, and with tax measures encouraging businesses growth and attracting international investments. Just the opposite of what has been happening in government chambers so far (and with only a few exceptions, such as the measures introduced by the former minister Calenda for Industry 4.0).

Milan has little to boast about. Yet it believes to be an engine in the service of Italy’s European development. Milan does not see itself as a “city-state”, like the archetype beloved by the political scientist Parag Khanna. Nor does it want to be perceived as unpleasant, arrogant in its achievements, or suffering from narcissistic self-obsession. Far from it. If anything, it recalls the edict of Bishop Aribert, who in 1018 proclaimed “Those who know what work is come to Milan. And those who come to Milan are free men.” Once again, Milan distinguishes itself as an attractive, open, curious, enterprising, well-disposed metropolis, agreeable to economic innovation and solidarity. “The city on the rise”, as Umberto Boccioni wittily described it at the beginning of the twentieth century, is back. With the handsome Porta Nuova and City Life skyscrapers in conversation with the “Pirellone” and the Velasca Tower, architectural masterpieces from the early sixties still crucially relevant today. The city, too, grows and expands, communicates and includes. A useful “platform” from which the whole of Italy can enter the global world, starting from the South. A pulling force towards inclusiveness, to paraphrase Carlo Bonomi, president of Assolombarda. Milan inspires envy, a feeling based on instrumental and provincial polemics (Milan drains resources from the whole of Italy without giving anything back), pitted by those who do not know how to interpret figures and projects. These opinions arise from a social climate that has nothing good to offer and the long standing reply from Milan and the Lombardy region is definitively worth its while: the constant development of the country’s engine, defining initiatives based on essential links between North and South. Milan is an open city, the connection between continental Europe and the Mediterranean, driven by innovative business. Positive examples are not in short supply: investments in the cutting-hedge avionics of General Electric in Cameri (Novara), Milan and, in the South, in Brindisi and Pomigliano: their plants are considered examples of international excellence; the programmes launched by Microsoft and Apple in Naples; the dense network of business relations between the Puglia, Basilicata and Lombardy regions in the fields of mechatronics and digital services. In Milan, a city vibrant with southern energy, it is clear that the country’s development must accommodate the balance and needs required by the South. Meanwhile, the South should not give in to provincialism, neo-Bourbon nostalgia, and easy populism. Indeed, Milan-Italy, as suggested by the name of one of the best RAI broadcasts from the nineties (when a well-governed Rai had a much better idea of its own responsibilities as a public service than nowadays).

Let’s consider some figures, collected by Osservatorio Milano, project supported by the Municipality and Assolombarda, now in its third edition. They were presented last Thursday at Palazzo Marino, in a debate open to the whole city: 244 indicators, with data processed by authoritative institutes co-ordinated by the Centro Studi Assolombarda, to discuss businesses and employment, savings, healthcare, schools, safety, social conditions, culture, education, etc. A reliable portrait of the city, built on competently collected and well analysed figures, a valuable experience in a time of nonsensical chatter. These are opinions devoid of political rejoinders from luminaries holding government positions, where knowledge is not scorned and science is not derided by ignorant demagogues (working with figures is essential to defend the merits of democracy).

What do these figures say? GDP growth in Milan between 2014 and 2018 was 9.7%, twice the national 4.6%. A GDP per capita of 49,000 Euros, compared to the national average of 26,000. A good result, which however includes a growing social imbalance: 9% of the Milanese population holds more than a third of the total wealth. Milan knows how to make money, but income distribution must be corrected and rebalanced. The Municipality, well governed by mayor Beppe Sala, has been aiming towards a social investment plan in the suburbs for some time. Another key social player, the Church, insists on the need to combine economic growth and inclusiveness, as always done throughout the history of Milan: “Blessed are you Milan, for the multicoloured faces of your people, for giving voice to those who have no voice and helping those who have no help,” says Archbishop Mario Delpini, promoter of a close dialogue between economic and social forces in the interest of inclusion and responsibility.

Some further figures. Milan welcomes 7.6 million tourists and has an 8 million quota at its fingertips (tourism is strong for different reasons: culture and shopping, but also business, health and wellbeing, training and conferences, making it a year-round destination). Milan is home to 4,600 of the 14,000 multinationals present in Italy. Milan is thirtieth in the world for foreign investments in the real estate sector (13 billion expected in the next decade, stimulated by the entrepreneurial and social dynamism of a European metropolis). Milan, with 32% of Italian patents and 27% of the most cited scientific research globally. Milan, with its local administration increasing the expenditure in social services from 409 to 414 millions between 2016 and 2018. Milan, enterprising and wearing its heart on its sleeve. Milan, “the place to be” as ingeniously defined by the New York Times at the time of the World Expo. But never self-congratulatory.

Milan is the cornerstone of the so-called New Industrial Triangle, between the Lombardy, Emilia and the North East regions, with a GDP of 782 billion Euros. If ranked among EU countries (ahead of the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Belgium and Austria ), it would be in sixth place; and it would be first among the richest and most industrialised regions (Ile de France, Rhineland-Westphalia, Bavaria or Greater London; data provided by the Edison Foundation). Moreover, Milan is a New Industrial Triangle, fourth among EU countries for manufacturing added value, first among competing regions, and always in the lead with regard to exports.

An extraordinary financial engine indeed. Although it is now beginning to suffer from the repercussions of severe international issues, from the global automotive crisis to the aftermath of the “trade wars” triggered by Trump’s America (industrial production stopped even in Brescia, despite years of steady growth).

In summary, Milan, the Lombardy region and the New Industrial Triangle combine into an engine that should not be stopped. Far from it. If anything, we should keep on considering it within the context of the interests and values of European Italy. As a long-term political and civic strategy supporting constructive and inclusive values.

Photographs of motorcycle races from the 1920s to the 1980s go online today on our website

EICMA 2019, the Milan International Bicycle and Motorcycle Exhibition, came to an end yesterday and, to mark the occasion, the Pirelli Foundation has placed a splendid series of photographs in the Historical Archive section of its website, with hundreds of shots showing the exhilarating world of motorcycle racing. The photos include many fascinating portraits of champions of yesteryear – men who wrote the history of this perilous but thrilling sport right from the early days of the twentieth century.

We see Erminio Visioli’s enigmatic expression just after winning the Circuito delle Tre Regioni in August 1921 on his Pirelli-shod Harley-Davidson 1000, just a week after his victory in the historic uphill Como-Brunate race. Wearing a crewneck sweater and Scottish beret – in August! – Erminio Visioli looks straight at Strazza, the photographer for La Stampa Sportiva, the newspaper that devoted a triumphant article to him. This photo, now in our Historical Archive, is one of many that can be viewed online as from today.

Alongside Visioli’s smile, we find the “tough guy” look of Miro Maffeis, the “bel Miro”, who was so adored by the girls. Maffeis knew every inch of the eight hundred kilometres of the Raid Nord-Sud, from Milan to Naples: He had won it in 1920 on his Indian 500, and took third place in 1925 on a Bianchi 350, which was enough to earn him a reputation as a champion. And then, of course, there is the great Tazio Nuvolari, “the incarnation of the devil” as some saw him, even before becoming the “Flying Mantuan”. Nuvolari, who would let go of his brakes when coming down from the Ghisallo Pass: when he needed to turn, he would run his (padded) elbow against the walls of the houses along the road, using them as a pivot to suddenly change direction and start shooting off again. Ahead of everyone else, needless to say, on his Bianchi 350 Freccia Celeste fitted with Pirelli Motocord tyres. In one photo we see him with his companions in the Bianchi team: all of them in uniform, except for him, of course. A proud, haughty look can be seen on the face of the driver-engineer Piero Taruffi, who in 1937 set an extraordinary series of speed records on the motorway between Bergamo and Brescia on the Gilera Rondine bike with aerodynamic fairings he made himself, fitted with “ultralight ribbed S” Pirelli tyres.

Raffaele Alberti, in a photo of 1948, rests his hand on the saddle of his “Guzzino” and puts on a serious, martial look. To tell the truth, it was not so much a “saddle” as a thin foam rubber mat he would lie on, facing forward, on his way towards the 1 kilometre speed record from a standing start. Alberti clocked up four in a row in February 1948, on the Charrette-Saxon circuit in Switzerland. and then another nineteen in Monza, in November, together with Gianni Leoni and Bruno Ruffo. Breaking records over the kilometre, over 500 miles, the hour, and twelve hours, winning all the way: on his Guzzi 65 – raised to 73cc but forever a “Guzzino”. He never abandoned his Pirelli tyres. What you can see today is not just a gallery of historic photos, but a story made up of looks and eyes, and expressions of a legendary world.