On 2 September that year, the F1 Italian Grand Prix was again held at the Monza racetrack. It was a cloudy Sunday in 1956 and the race was also designated as the European Grand Prix. Up to that moment, Ferrari had dominated the championship, having inherited all the know-how of Lancia, which had abandoned motor racing. Even so, fifty-six was no easy season. The shock of the previous year still remained to be exorcised, for the terrible accident at Le Mans had cast serious doubt on the whole idea of motor racing and had seen the withdrawal of Mercedes, which up until then had monopolised Formula 1. But a world without motor racing was just unthinkable. So the Championship had started up again, even though with the loss of historic Grand Prix races like those of Spain and Switzerland. The driver everyone was out to beat was always the same: Juan Manuel Fangio, who had stepped out of his Mercedes as the World Champion and into a Ferrari, to keep his career going just a little bit longer as the champion. With him were the emerging young Englishman, Peter Collins, and other top Ferraristi like Eugenio Castellotti and Luigi Musso. Britain was out in force in Formula 1, keeping an eye on the very young Vanwall, a car designed by a certain Colin Chapman, who was still taking his first steps. Behind the wheel of the Vanwall was the American Harry Schell and the Frenchman Maurice Trintignant, as well as the “silver fox” Piero Taruffi, with his fabled engineering skills. The British racing stable also had Pirelli, which brought all its tyre technology to bear.

And then there was Maserati: by this time a legend in racing. The Trident logo appeared on its six-cylinder 250F at Monza, ready to do battle with the Prancing Horse’s eight cylinders. And possibly to win, as it had done at Monte Carlo at the beginning of the season. Because Maserati too had its champion: the twenty-six-year-old Stirling Moss from London. He had first driven for Cooper, and briefly with Maserati, but, like Fangio, he too had been with Mercedes the previous season. Moss had ended the 1955 championship in second place, naturally behind the Argentinian. He did not yet know that his role as the “eternal runner-up” would stick with him throughout his future career. But that Sunday, 2 September 1956, Stirling Moss won at Monza, leaving his Argentinian rival-friend behind him. The news reports at the time praised the performance of Maserati’s Pirelli Stelvio tyres – Moss also achieved the fastest lap – pointing out how the competitor’s tyres on the Ferraris had not been up to par. In the end, the Championship was won by Fangio, with the British driver second, once again. The eternal runner-up.

Sir Stirling Craufurd Moss turns 89 on 17 September. Many happy, eternal returns!

A photo report by Federico Patellani entitled “Rubber on Holiday” appeared in Pirelli magazine no. 4 in August 1950. “It could be said that rubber works while we rest”, wrote the photographer. In the years of the economic boom, inflatables began to play a triumphant role in our holidays. The absolute star of the summer was the rubber dinghy, no longer a rescue vessel for lost soldiers or flooded-out peasants, but now the aquatic version of mass motorisation. The Nautilus made by Pirelli’s Seregno company was unmistakably orange, with blue seats and rowlocks. Its successor, towards the 1970s, was the Laros, which became an icon of freedom and of respect for the environment, for the discovery of deserted beaches and coves. For those who preferred the peace and quiet of a lake, Pirelli offered a range of fibreglass boats from its Monza company – the Itaca, Ninfa, and Levriero. With oars or engine, they were light and easy to load onto the roof of a Seicento, or to tow on a special trailer.

The air mattress was a champion of adaptability and transformation: perfect for the beach, or for camping, “letting your thoughts mingle with birdsong and distant calls”, as Patellani philosophised while showing a foot clad in trekking boots with Pirelli rubber soles. Another icon of rubber for the perfect Italian holiday was the mask, which with flippers and spear gun – all in the Seregno company catalogue – made up the classic “pinne, fucile ed occhiali” of Edoardo Vianello’s hit song in 1962. The Pirelli mask for observing marine life found an exceptional endorser in Ingrid Bergman, who was initiated into underwater wonders by Roberto Rossellini himself in 1949, while filming Stromboli. And Miss Sweden also showed how she appreciated Pirelli flippers. After years and years of seaside success, bathing caps have rather gone out of use, but way back in the 1920s, they were the subject of advertising sketches that were minor masterpieces of Art Deco.

Bathing costumes in Lastex stretch fabric reached the height of popularity in the 1950s. They were produced by Pirelli’s Revere company and were worn by none other than Marilyn Monroe, on the beaches of California in 1952. For everyone, Seregno also offered Walrus, a compressed-air breathing apparatus with 10-litre interchangeable cylinders, as well as PVC marker buoys complete with line and flag. And while dads dived the deep, mums and kids stayed on shore to play with the highly colourful Pirelli balls: a real evergreen that never stopped bouncing from holiday to holiday, decade to decade.

For the past ten years, the Pirelli Foundation in the Milano Bicocca district has been home to a wealth of knowledge and understanding that is open every day to the community, to scholars, and to undergraduates, for it is also available online. This is the Pirelli Group’s Historical Archive, which can also be consulted on the fondazionepirelli.org website: a gateway to the over three kilometres of documents in the Pirelli archive. A journey of discovery that often meets teaching or research requirements, or that is embarked upon simply out of curiosity or to have an overall view of the company’s almost one-hundred-and-fifty-year history.

The area of the site dedicated to the Archive is the first step towards a global vision of an extraordinary legacy of documents, photographs, drawings, and films that has been declared a Cultural Heritage by the Italian State. This section of the site is constantly updated by the analysis and digitisation of new documents, such as the collection entitled “Documents for the History of Pirelli Industries“, which was compiled in 1942 and 1943 to celebrate the company’s seventieth anniversary: from the Deed of Incorporation of 1872 to photos of factory interiors in the 1920s, from the General Provisions through to company patents, the materials provide a complete overview of the ebb and flow of Italian and international industrial history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The photographic collection, on the other hand, consists of hundreds of thousands of items, including negatives on plate and film, prints, and slides made or commissioned by the Advertising and Communication department since the 1910s. There are photos of products, factories, trade fairs and exhibitions, company events, the vehicles for which the tyres were made (cars, motorcycles, bicycles, planes, and agricultural machines) and motor-racing competitions using Pirelli tyres. Reports on motor races, cycling races and shots of everyday life with people cycling and of fashion and exhibitions, and an enormous wealth of materials on the construction of the Pirelli Tower are all available online. The site also contains hundreds of original studies, sketches and drawings commissioned from famous artists, illustrators, and designers from the 1910s to the 1960s for advertisements, to celebrate the objectives attained by the company and to illustrate Pirelli magazine. Over the coming months, thousands of printed advertisements produced mainly from the 1950s to the 1970s will be added to these original drawings, with posters, catalogues, folders and window displays.

Hundreds of movies on film and magnetic tape made from the early twentieth century to the end of the 1990s are already online: from the film of King Victor Emmanuel III at Bicocca by Luca Comerio, one of the great Italian directors of silent films, to cinema advertisements and Carosello television commercials by the great masters of Italian animation, such as the brothers Pagot and Gavioli, through to the latest ads on television.

There is also a vast amount of publishing materials that has been produced by Pirelli over the years, with the periodical Vado e Torno and Pirelli magazine already online. The latter offers unique insight into corporate culture in the late twentieth century. Published from 1948 to 1972, generally bimonthly, and on regular sale at newsstands, Pirelli magazine was launched with the declared aim of combining technical-scientific and liberal culture. Issues concerning industrial production, science, and technology appeared alongside others that ranged from art to architecture, sociology, and economics, through to urban planning and literature. To assist the reader, the magazine has been divided into its original sections, also in its online version. Today, Pirelli’s commitment in the world of publishing continues with Fatti e Notizie and with World, an English-language publication with texts by great international authors. In future, these too will be available in digital format on Fondazionepirelli.org. Stay tuned!

Summer holidays. An expression that burst into post-war Italy, marking the dawn of a new age of well-being and leisure time. Previously, the rich had gone “out of town”, to the family holiday home, as in the buen retiro of intellectuals, but now all that had changed: one could go on holiday for just a fortnight, loading up the Seicento and driving off to a guesthouse with “full board and lodging”. Pirelli magazine, first published in late 1948, could hardly fail to turn its keen eye to the phenomenon of the Italians’ summer holidays, and it followed its development every step of the way, from families in their runabouts to hiking with rucksacks in the 1970s.

A Eugenio Montale’s short story “Holidays in Versilia”, which was published in issue no. 4 of 1949, the amusing account of the great poet grappling with the surge in working-class tourism essentially typifies this epoch-making change. True to its pioneering spirit, the magazine soon launched into a critical analysis of the phenomenon: Ignazio Scurto’s “The Gold Vein of Tourism” (no. 4 of 1950) opened the debate about the inadequacy of Italian reception facilities in the face of the growing demand of tourism. The Italians had begun to move, and they wanted “to know Italy so as to recognise themselves”, as we read in “Knowing Our Country and Knowing Ourselves”, an article signed “G.P.”, published in issue no. 3 of 1951. New words cropped up, and one of these was “motel”, short for motor-hotel, as common in America as it was unknown in Italy. In issue no. 4 of 1953, Franco Vegliani talked about these hotel facilities for tourists on wheels, and about how here they were initially referred to, pioneeringly, as “Jolly Hotels”. Another modernist take on an ancient dream was camping. Once only for a few daring souls armed with pick and heavy-duty boots, it now meant the freedom to set up one’s own little canvas house by the seaside and spend all day, from dawn to dusk, in one’s swimming costume. Giovanni Mira’s “Tourism Set Free”, also in no. 4 of 1953, clearly substantiates this.

Italy becomes shorter in summer and – in the long and impassioned article by Bartolo Cattafi in no. 3 of 1955 – the islands that seemed so far away and lost in the Mediterranean were now within reach of a summer holiday by car: Egadi, Aeolian, Lipari, Marettimo… So why not go camping in Palinuro, as suggested in issue no. 3 of 1956 by Andrea Giovene, or go off to enjoy a lobster in Ponza, upon the invitation of Franco Fellini (the pseudonym of Giovanni Pirelli), writing in the same issue of the magazine? In the meantime, both customs and costumes were changing and, thanks to Pirelli’s Lastex yarn, Gianna Manzini’s article “Women at the Seaside”, also in the summer of 1956, is an ode to holidays “in the full sun” and to the coming women’s revolution.

The word “holiday” gave way to the more bureaucratic “paid leave” in an article entitled “Minor tourism in southern town” by Antonio Terzi, in issue no. 5 of 1956. The first two weeks in August ran the risk of becoming highly stressful: initial doubts were expressed by Silvio Magrini in an article in 1959. Prophetic? Maybe: Giovanni Arpino agreed with the idea in “How can we fill our empty time?” in no. 6 of the same year.

We end this brief overview of the Italians’ holidays as seen by Pirelli with the joyful, colourful and enthusiastic article “A shell for the summer”, by Fausto Malcovati, with photographs by Rodolfo Facchini and Fulvio Roiter in no. 9 of 1968. The “shells” are the “bungalows” – a somewhat old-fashioned term these days – designed by the architect Roberto Menghi for the Touring Club village in La Maddalena, Sardinia. Boats sail the golden sea off ​​Caprera, while mule rides criss-cross the beach of Cala del Cefalo, in Marina di Camerota. The girls on the rocks recall the stars of the famous Pirelli Calendar, in 1968.

A city piazza, in Milan. An ancient one, Piazzetta Liberty, well-remembered by the older Milanese citizens for its elegant blocks of flats and traditional bars. An ultra-contemporary one, now, with its huge fountain within a glass prism which opens onto a staircase leading to the new large Apple retail store. An extraordinary synthesis between European tradition and the image that recalls New York. Milan is continuously renewing itself, as a rounded, welcoming and inclusive city. And its main players are the good public administration body which upgrades the locations and stimulates the businesses and the multinationals in a network alongside Lombardy industry, and its citizens, with a strong sense of innovation. “The Apple world in a superstar shop. Milan, the capital of the ‘app economy’”, enthuses the Il Sole24Ore newspaper (25th July) as it focuses on this project from the Norman Foster studio and reminds us that the entire economic segment of digital apps provides work for 25 thousand people. And the mayor, Beppe Sala, adds: “From Apple to the outskirts of the city, this is how we re-invent Milan”, noting that Siemens has just opened its new headquarters on the edge of the Adriano District, a rather run-down suburb, and reminding us about the many other town planning novelties, from Porta Nuova to CityLife, from the Bicocca to the Human Technopole, and how we are currently awaiting the inauguration of the new Starbucks centre in Piazza Cordusio, one of the group’s biggest investments in Europe.

There are over 4,200 foreign-owned companies, in Milan, representing 208 billion Euros of sales, a third of the Italian total and employment for 431 thousand people. And the Assolombarda calculates that it is precisely thanks to the presence of these companies that a favourable comparison can be made between Milan and the other most dynamic metropolitan centres, from Chicago to Barcelona, and from Munich to Frankfurt or the great cities of London and Paris.

Here is the point: Milan is continuing to grow by attracting capital and know-how from almost every corner of the world, into its universities, into its manufacturing companies and its services, into the extraordinary segment of life sciences  (now renowned internationally for its excellence), and into its property sector. And it can serve as a reference point for the rest of the country and as a locomotive for its growth, with a European dimension. It cannot close itself down, therefore. Indeed, it must continue to insist upon its tradition as an open city. As are well aware all its social protagonists, who watch with annoyance the current policies of protectionism, chauvinism and argumentative choices with the EU (which needs reforming, certainly, but not by irresponsibly seeking to drive it into a crisis and destroying it). Europe is a key word, in the context of the cultural and conceptual history of business. In respect of which the tiller should be firmly held in the direction of future growth.

We must ask ourselves, then, the fundamental question of whether we want growth or slowdown. The former is balanced and sustainable, according to the shared recommendations of Pope Francis as well as a substantial part of the best economic literature and in line with the choices for competitiveness made by the most innovative businesses and those which are most attentive to the social and ethical questions of economic development. The latter, in contrast, is never pleasant (with all due respect to the domestic followers of Serge Latouche) and, if anything, is laden with constraints which lead towards a comprehensive impoverishment. A slowdown which – it is worth adding – combines with the ideology of those who say “no” (to the TAV high-speed train infrastructure, to methane pipelines, to the Pedemontana Como motorway by-pass and to the Terzo Valico port/rail link which should finally connect the port of Genoa to the regions of the Po valley which are the most productive in Europe, to public works, to infrastructure, and to the modernisation of our country), carries the flavour of egotistical provincialism which the Anglo-Saxon media have for some time referred to as “nimbyism” (from “nimby” – not in my backyard)  and which, in its hostility to market and business culture, seems ever-more-inclined towards a passion for public exposure (according to a survey by SWG-Corriere della Sera, 18th July).

The problem is that wealth, before it can be distributed, must first be produced, thanks, indeed, to the commitment of businesses and workers. And it is from this same wealth that, via taxation, are derived the resources to pay the salaries of public workers too. Obvious concepts, naturally. But which are worthwhile repeating, in times of increasing economic and scientific ignorance, of illusions that there exists an idealogical “toyland country”.

Businesses, as creators of wealth, jobs, well-being and also welfare (this is also documented in many of the recent employment contracts, both for industry sectors and permanent employment with specific companies, which we spoke of in last week’s blog) are thus returning to the forefront of the debate. And the mass protests in the Veneto region (a land of small and medium-sized businesses, not major international groups) are right to rail against the new constraints on employment of the so-called “dignity” decree, attracting the close attention of the governor of the Region, Luca Zaia, a member of the Northern League, who is worried about an electorate who have always considered the Northern League to be close to the world of manufacturing and who are now witnessing with dismay the anti-industrialist tendencies of the Five-Star Movement in key roles of government.

The protests in the Veneto region are naturally not simply an isolated regional case. In Lombardy there is considerable alarm at the anti-corporation climate on the part of the chair of the Assolombarda, Carlo Bonomi, and of the chair of the Lombardy Confindustria association, Marco Bonometti (a steelworker from Brescia, the land of dynamic small and medium-sized businesses which are open to the world). In Piedmont, concerns are emerging from Dario Gallina, chair of Turin’s industrialists: “the first measures of the government show all the signs of an anti-industrial drive”.

The voices being heard, then, are those of the core part of what for some time has been defined as “the GDP party” (that brilliant definition is from Dario Di Vico, in the Corriere della Sera newspaper): industrial confederations, banks, tradespeople, financial institutions and, with the exception of representational bodies, all that diverse and complex world of business which during these recent difficult years have learned how to react to the Great Crisis and have invested, innovated, conquered a role for exports and investment overseas, and have reacted with considerable success to the extremely hard challenges of the digital transformation of the economy, and the turning point of Industry4.0  (strongly supported by intelligent fiscal assistance measures introduced firstly by the government of the centre-right and then by that of the centre-left).  It is a world full of know-how, creativity, and entrepreneurial spirit yet also sound civil instincts for a sense of community and inclusion. Which has every right to be listened to and taken carefully into consideration. A world whose “dignity” should be recognised, appreciated and supported.

In July 1971, just a couple of months after the Pirelli house organ Fatti e Notizie had adopted the large format typical of magazines at the time, the “Varietà” entertainment section was launched, with songs, TV, the pop star system, the Sanremo Festival and Canzonissima. The first “semi-serious interview” in “Varietà” in July of 47 years ago was devoted to Virginia Ann “Minnie” Minoprio, a soubrette whom the not-so-young will certainly remember. She appeared together with Fred Bongusto in the closing signature tune of Speciale per noi, aired on television in January and February that year. A professional dancer, born on 4 July 1942 in Ware, not far from London, Minnie Minoprio was discovered by Walter Chiari, who was talent-scouting in England for a musical, Io e la margherita. Coming up for thirty, Minoprio had already had a career in musicals, films, advertising, and Saturday-night shows. But the Italians will always remember her for her performance with Fred Bongusto, to the notes of Quando mi dici così. 

And we cannot fail to recall the protagonist of the Varietà section in September 1971: Nicoletta Strambelli, alias Patty Pravo. So many years have gone by that we do not know if the interviews with Varietà were real or if they were concocted by the editors, but Patty Pravo talking about herself for all of page 19 is exactly how we imagine her. From her opinions about her singer colleagues, to her dim view of journalists, to her ambivalent relationship with the public, through to insights into her private life which, in 1971, which were quite eye-opening. The “Varietà” section in Fatti e Notizie continued until July 1972: after portraits of other queens of Italian pop, such as Mina and Ornella Vanoni, the section gradually moved towards actors. But music always remained part of the company magazine: right from the outset, the “Canzoni” section appeared alongside “Varietà”. a complete panorama of an Italy that sang, listened to 45 rpm singles, followed Cantagiro and Festivalbar and, especially, never missed a word of musical gossip. Is Rita Pavone having family problems? Is Nada on the decline? Will Gianni Morandi cold-shoulder the Sanremo Festival in ’72?

Like “Varietà”, also “Canzoni” first came out in Fatti e Notizie in July 1971. The subject was the flop of Cantagiro that year, with Aretha Franklin and Led Zeppelin firing up the audience at the Vigorelli until the police were called in. The last “Canzoni” came in October 1972, with an interview with a certain Cristiano Rossi, a twenty-five-year-old from Palermo, living with his family in Milan, a former player with Palermo and Mantova. A few years previously, Mina had heard him singing and convinced him not only to hang up his boots, but also to take part in Pippo Baudo’s “Settevoci”, with the stage name “Christian”. He sang the signature tune of the “Chissà chi lo sa” television programme in 1972. “Future plans?” “Lots of evening gigs, then the Sanremo Festival and a trip to Japan for a tour.

Theory U illustrated by its inventor in a book which has now been translated in Italy

A winning business is one that adapts the most and the most rapidly to the changing environment.But it is also the one that manages to be different – in a positive way – from others. Organisation and method are required. The task of entrepreneurs and shrewd managers. And a task that can be facilitated with conscious management and organisation. Reading “Teoria U. I fondamentali. Principi e applicazioni” (The essentials of Theory U. Core principles and applications) by Otto C. Scharmer can be a good thing to change the “tone” of a business.

Otto Scharmer’s Theory U is considered one of the most widely appreciated methods in what is referred to as contemporary change management, i.e. in the management of companies that need to evolve rapidly in order to respond effectively to change.Substantially Theory U tries to answer the question: how can our companies and our organisations learn to see and co-create emerging possibilities in the contexts in which they operate?Or rather: in a landscape marked by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, how can we actually learn from the crisis situations and co-design effective solutions? Scharmer’s idea is to start “from individual awareness to achieve change in the systems.” In particular, what counts is realising “that our ability to direct the attention literally shapes the world”. What prevents us from being present in situations with effectiveness is therefore that we are not fully aware of the interior condition which our attention and our actions originate from. Scharmer calls this lack of awareness the blind spot of contemporary leadership. The aim of the book is therefore to illuminate this blind spot and offer concrete tools for leaders and organisations from any industry and sector to strengthen their ability to co-create the future.
The book starts specifically with the examination of the “blind spot” and then immediately illustrates Theory U and the ensuing method.

Awareness of one’s own person and ability to be involved, empathy and emotion, forward-thinking looking toward the company’s horizon and the ability to go beyond the events. These appear to be some of the key aspects of Scharmer’s Theory U. Which should not be taken as a dogma nor even refused uncritically. No, they should be addressed and understood.
Scharmer’s book has a great merit: it is one of those books that shake you, also for the way in which it conducts a dialogue with the reader.

Teoria U. I fondamentali. Principi e applicazioni (The essentials of Theory U. Core principles and applications)
Otto C. Scharmer
Guerini, 2018

To have a reasonable debate about Italy, leaving aside rhetoric and propaganda (alas, more widespread than ever) it is worthwhile having a good look at some numbers. From reports over recent days we have selected several: 5, 47, 31 and 8 (but also, closely connected, 0.91). One could try playing them in the Lottery, as a fine set of four winning numbers. Or instead start from there to discuss our economic and social situation, with competency and knowledge (qualities which, in politics, are sadly increasingly rare).

Let us start with the 5. It signifies 5 billion Euros: the cost, for State coffers, of the increase over the past two months in the interest rate spread, which determines a higher rate of interest for refinancing the bonds in our public sector borrowing (which has grown, according to the Bank of Italy, as of last May, to 2,327 billion Euros, 80 billion more relative to the end of 2017: a movement which appears to be unstoppable). That spread also has an impact on the cost for our banks of refinancing themselves on the international markets and, in consequence, has repercussions on the borrowing costs for businesses and families. As for that 5 billion of increased cost of public sector debt, in order to pay the increasing interest cost for servicing it we have to use State resources, which are taken away from reforms, public sector investment, and commitments to create jobs or improve health, pensions and profits. To put it simply, this equates to less money for all of us.

What has caused that increase in the spread? Uncertainties about Italy, as assessed by the international markets, about the quality of our politics, about our government announcements, about the reliability of public sector accounts, and about the costs of reforms which have been announced. To say it in another way: every pot-shot by a member of the government against the Euro, every clash with Europe, every declaration against open markets and international trade, every bit of chatter about sovereignty and protectionism which slow down the economy has an incidence on the spread. It raises its level, causing negative consequences to flow from it. Is politics, then, a hostage to the markets? If you are a heavily indebted country, you cannot avoid taking into account what your creditors think about you.

Someone thinks: let’s leave the Euro, let’s go back to the Lira, as if this were a solution. In the circles of government, there has been talk of “a plan B” to leave the single currency. Currently, they are talking about a “black swan”, an unexpected condition of crisis which would drive other EU countries to push for an exit from the Euro. It is a responsible reaction, to discuss negative hypotheses and to prepare the tools to tackle a crisis. It is an irresponsible one, to chatter about them as if you were at a bar or on a page of social media. One valid judgement, in respect of all the alarmist opinions about anti-Euro policies spread around the political circles of the majority, is that of Jamie Dimon, the banker from JP Morgan, a major international bank which has been present in our country for over a century: “We stand side by side with Italy; it would be a catastrophe to leave the Euro” (Il Sole24Ore newspaper, 10th July). It would seriously affect the savings of Italians, their salaries, the cost of public sector borrowing and of money in general, investments (the cost of financing them in a weak neo-Lira would be very high), and the competitiveness of the whole country. This was very clearly explained by eight authoritative economists (Lorenzo Codogno, Giampaolo Galli, Alfredo Macchiari, Mauro Maré, Stefano Micossi, Pietro Reichlin, Guido Tabellini and Vito Tanzi) in a recent appeal to the government that it should reassure the markets, the other countries within the EU and all Italians about its clear determination to remain within the boundaries of the Euro (Il Sole24Ore newspaper, 10th July). An appeal which drew the support of a number of people, from Carlo Cottarelli to Michele Bagella, and from Ernesto Auci to Antonio Patuelli. People who are reliable, competent and responsible.

Other fronts, however, are opening up. Someone thinks, in a very determined way: let’s close our borders. Not just to immigrants. But also to foreign capital. To Canadian grain. To Chinese goods. And that way we’ll defend our small and medium-sized companies. A sort of mini-policy of “home-grown Trumpism”. Protectionism salami-style. Ah well… who knows …

Let us return to the numbers, so that we can better understand things. To number 47. This is the 47 billion Euros (to be precise, 47 billion 448 million) which represents the difference between Italian world-wide exports in 2017 (448 billion Euros, up by 7.4%) and imports (400 billion 659 million Euros, up by 9%). The figure was 41 billion 807 million the previous year. Those 47 billion Euros of excess in the trade balance confirm one of the fundamental characteristics of our economy: its international orientation, a growing propensity to conquer important positions in international markets.Positions, it is worth adding, which are precisely in the niches where there is higher added value. Those which are the richest, the most innovative, and of the highest quality. Here is the key word: quality. Thankfully, those times of “competitive devaluations” which accompanied the end of the Lira and our entry into the Euro are now over, and our companies have learned to compete no longer based on the lowest price but on the best quality. They have achieved and continue to achieve a great deal of success. They have created jobs, distributed profits (shared between salaries, company welfare and the remuneration of shareholders, in the case of quoted companies), improving the lives of thousands of people. It would truly be a grave error if, between crises about the Euro and protectionism, this extraordinary economic engine constituted by our companies were to be obstructed.

The risk exists, and is current. We can read about it, for example, in the third of the numbers which we quoted, 8.

It is a percentage, 8%, which indicates the increase in Italian exports to Canada, one of the main global economies. An increase encouraged by the provisional application of the CETA, the treaty for free trade between Canada and the countries of the EU: tariffs almost completely cancelled, and protection for products with brands of specific origin. We now know that the minister for Work and Economic Development, Luigi Di Maio, has absolutely no intention of ratifying that treaty, and has invited the Five-Star Movement members of parliament to vote against it in Parliament, hoping, one assumes, that the members of the other majority party, the Northern League, will follow their initiative. Why? Taking on board the protestations of the Coldiretti, which considers that products such as Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano cheese are insufficiently safeguarded, Di Maio claims that this treaty will damage Italian exports. Perhaps he has not read it, or perhaps he has not carefully done the sums.

Someone who has done them, in contrast, is a worthy economist by the name of Giorgio Barba Navaretti in the Il Sole24Ore newspaper (15th July) and a journalist who is usually very attentive with his research, Federico Fubini, in the Corriere della Sera newspaper (14th July) in documenting the advantages for the Italian manufacturers of electrical machinery, cars and motorbikes, fashion items, ceramics, and boats but also ham, pasta and even to a major extent DOP cheeses, from fontina to Asiago. Within the inter-country share of trade between Italy and Canada worth more than 50 billion Euros, the entire cheese sector is worth 50 million Euros: this is the 0.91%. If that agreement is not ratified, we would revert to the old tariffs. We would lose around 400 million Euros of additional sales, according to calculations by the Corriere della Sera. “He is hunting for the most short-sighted consensus”, charges the Il Sole24Ore, criticising the entente between Di Maio and Coldiretti, which cares only about the producers of Grana cheese (who could be better protected by renegotiating a few clauses of the agreement). And that is ignoring the fact that the CETA, which Di Maio defines as an “unholy treaty” is instead considered to be “a major opportunity for the Made in Italy brand” specifically by Cesare Baldrighi, the Chair of the Consortium for the safeguarding of Gran Padano cheeses and of the Association of the Consortia for brands of geographical origins. The cheese war, in actual fact, perhaps conceals an clash between different producers. Provincial quarrels. Which are so important that a minister has to blow out an international treaty which is particularly important for Italian companies?

It is better to return to the numbers. And to read the last of them: 31.2. These are billions of Euros. And they represent the value of medicines produced by Italian companies. A record. Which beats the great Germany, home of colossal pharmaceutical groups, and gives us the lead among major European countries which produce pharmaceuticals, with a high propensity for exports. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Italian pharmaceutical industry appeared close to extinction, with the closure or sale to foreign groups of the major brands such as Lepetit, Sclavo, Farmindustria Carlo Erba, etc.  Then, by focussing on research, innovation, and quality, our businesses started to grow again. Others were either newly founded or developed strongly (e.g. Dompé, just to quote one example) Others still became specialised in extremely high-added-value niches (anti-cancer drugs). The result is a major success. For the companies. For those who work in them. For those who use their products by improving our health, and our quality of life. These are companies which need to be considered carefully. And to be supported in their growth, their innovation, their research, and their international expansion. Precisely what we expect from a good government. One which knows how to do its sums and read the true numbers properly.

“Now we will be able to understand something: let’s look into the matter”. Since the very beginning, Fondazione Pirelli adopted this phrase – the original in local Milanese dialect “Adess ghe capissaremm on quaicoss: andemm a guardagh denter” was uttered by Luigi Emanueli, the engineer who headed R&D for many years – as its motto for setting the tone for visitors. In its simplicity, the idea of taking a look inside to figure something out sums up the concept of science in itself, as application, study, research and systematic overcoming of obstacles. Doing science necessarily means capitalising on the knowledge and awareness offered by the technological heritage that Pirelli has accumulated in nearly one hundred and fifty years of operations. The Fondazione – and in particular the Archive it keeps, consisting of over three kilometres and a half of documents – is where this know-how is protected over time and where is has been deposited year after year to offer an all-encompassing view which is artistically represented by in the large mosaic entitled La ricerca scientifica (Scientific Research), made in 1961 on a drawing by Renato Guttuso, preserved in the rooms of the Fondazione Pirelli today.

Integral part of the company heritage and included in the Italian National Library System, the technical-scientific library counts over 16,000 books on the history of rubber and cables from the 19th Century to the current day being a collection with no equals in the world. Only in the Fondazione, for instance, can readers browse the first copies of the India Rubber Journal (1888) and of the India Rubber World (1889), which are the oldest publications on the caoutchouc industry in the world. Another area of the Archive is home to a precious folder. It contains just a few typed sheets but its historical significance is outstanding. It is the contract with which Pirelli appointed Giulio Natta to start researching synthetic rubber in the Bicocca laboratory in 1938. It marks the beginning of a technological revolution. Natta would go on to win the Nobel Prize in 1962 for having invented plastic. Traces of his work are found in thousands and thousands of test specifications produced by the Tyre R&D department. These documents contain the word “Cauccital” for the first time, marking the beginning of the tests conducted on the man-made material that today is commonly employed in the rubber industry.

The test specifications are kept in the Archive alongside technical sheets describing the size of tyre vulcanisation moulds, tread patterns and original sidewall markings, such as size, tyre type and company logo. After the early 1930s, these documents accompanied the development and evolution of all Pirelli tyres step by step, such as the large Stella Bianca and Cinturato “families”, the racing versions and the fabrics experimented in the “Cord” models. Directly supporting the current “Collezione” tyre production, this documentation has allowed vintage car experts to retrace the partnerships Pirelli and auto makers from initial prototype development to the final model launched on the market. By cross-referencing the technical details with the price lists of the time – we can trace these back to the first years of the 20th century – and with the extensive advertising production also kept in the Archives with over three hundred original airbrushed drawings, Pirelli can produce vintage style tyres which are absolutely correct from the historical and philological points of view but which implement all the safety standards offered by modern technology at the same time.

Fondazione Pirelli also provides services for schools to equip youngsters with tools for understanding the concept of industry today. By making documented reference to the stages of technical progress, students are introduced to current topics, such as robotics and Industry 4.0. The pinnacle is naturally collaboration with Universities. Fondazione Pirelli has been the pivot between knowledge and industry, research and technology for the Milan Polytechnic, the Turin Polytechnic, Bocconi University and Milan Bicocca University.

Today we shall look at music in the “Stories from the World of Pirelli” section, going back over some of the close-ups that Vado e Torno, the “Servizio Propaganda Pirelli” periodical for road hauliers, devoted to female singers who helped write the history of pop music. And those who, like Patty Pravo, have continued to make history to this day. It is almost superfluous to say that Nicoletta Strambelli-Patty Pravo was born in Venice on 9 April 1948: on the cover of the May 1970 issue of Vado e Torno, she has the fluffy curls she wore at Sanremo, where she took her La spada nel cuore with Little Tony, obtaining a very honourable fifth place. In November that year came her Tutt’al più. At the age of twenty-two, Patty Pravo was universally known as “La ragazza del Piper” – after the club in Rome that launched her into the star system of pop music – and had already notched up hits like Ragazzo triste, Qui e là, and Se perdo te. And especially, the whole world had been singing La bambola for a couple of years: 9 million copies sold in 1968 alone, 40 million to date. After that, it would be almost impossible to list all the successes of “the Piper girl”, from Pazza idea, which caused such a scandal in the 1970s, to her reinterpretation of Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side, and then Pensiero stupendo, through to her recent Cieli immensi. An icon of pop music, she still manages to amaze audiences today with her vitality and ability not to give in to the passing of time.

Exactly a year before it displayed the blonde Patty Pravo, the May-June cover of Vado e Torno was taken up by the French-Bulgarian singer Sylvie Vartan. Of Armenian origin, she was born Vartanian, her real name, in 1945 in Iskrets, a suburb of Sofia. She moved to Paris in 1952 and married the rock star Johnny Hallyday in 1965, becoming a massive star in France as the “twisting schoolgirl”. But it was in Italy that she became “la ragazza yé-yé”: Mina and Gino Bramieri competed to have her on their television shows, where she reinterpreted herself in Italian with songs like Come un ragazzo and Irresistibilmente. In 1968 Sylvie was involved in a car crash that led to her having to undergo delicate plastic surgery on her face, but she lost none of her appeal.

Two covers – in October 1964 and September 1968 – were devoted to Catherine Spaak, who inevitably calls to mind her versions of two Burt Bacharach songs, rendered as Io non m’innamoro più and Promesse promesse (1970) – with her future husband Johnny Dorelli. Born French in 1945 but naturalised Italian, she had already been famous for some years for another two iconic pop songs: L’esercito del surf (Noi siamo i giovani) and, especially, the Italian version of that ode to French musical existentialism that is Tous les garcons et les filles, which was sung in France by Françoise Hardy.