In its April 1952 issue, Pirelli magazine published an article on “Lombard houses”: a reflection on the vernacular architecture that dotted the Po Valley landscape with farmsteads and livestock buildings, creating a sort of “geography of the spirit”. The dry, evocative prose bears the signature of a poet from Luino, Vittorio Sereni: this was his first contribution to the magazine published by Pirelli and directed by Arturo Tofanelli and Leonardo Sinisgalli. Not yet forty, Sereni was already a well-established author. In 1941, before being called up to the front, he published Frontiera, a collection of poems, and in 1947 came his Diario di Algeria, about his experience as a prisoner of war in northern Africa from 1943 to 1945. In 1952, Sereni was teaching Italian and Latin at the Liceo Classico Carducci in Milan, living with his wife Maria Luisa and his two daughters, Maria Teresa and Silvia.

He was one of the “great names” of Pirelli magazine which, ever since it first came out in 1948, published works by great writers and contemporary intellectuals: Ungaretti-Quasimodo-Montale, the “hermetical threesome”, in 1949, Riccardo Bacchelli in 1950, and Piero Chiara and Michele Prisco in 1952. The director himself, Leonardo Sinisgalli, was nicknamed the “engineer poet”. It was Sinisgalli’s name that Sereni wrote in the “references” section on the application form for a job at Pirelli SpA, which he submitted on 16 August 1952. The two of them had known each other since university: these “travelling-companion poets” were joined by Alfonso Gatto, Carlo Betocchi, Giancarlo Vigorelli and none other than the great Salvatore Quasimodo himself, who had already had the chance to praise the young Sereni on his thesis on Guido Gozzano. Pirelli and its magazine were destined to be the place where Sereni and Sinisgalli would meet again. The job application was successful and Sereni entered the “Servizio Propaganda”, now the Communication Department. Its undisputed head was Arrigo Castellani, who had the foresight to set up an office devoted to relations with the Press, and Sereni, who had already worked with magazines like Corrente and Rassegna d’Italia, was put in charge of it. It would be Castellani himself, just before his annual contract expired, who wrote to Human Resources: “We are absolutely satisfied with the work carried out by Dottor Sereni and, indeed, we believe he should in time be made an executive.” The contract was open-ended: the personal file of Dott. Prof. Vittorio Sereni, now in the Pirelli Historical Archive, bears registration number 4062, centralised accountancy office 0400, “Direzione Propaganda”.

During his six years as a Pirelli employee – he left in 1958 for Mondadori – Sereni gradually wrote less for Pirelli magazine. Just a few articles, but weighty ones. One of them, already in issue no. 6, signed V.S., is a “Secret assessment of a year of advertising” after “his” Servizio Propaganda had won the Palma d’Oro della Pubblicità award, thanks to Bruno Munari’s Coria soles, Ezio Bonini’s Stelvio tyre, and Bramante Buffoni’s hot water bottle. Another of Sereni’s Pirelli articles, entitled “A fifty-year-long P”, became a milestone in the history of the magazine, with a legendary account of the birth of the Pirelli logo in New York.

Sereni continued working with the magazine even after he left the company: in 1963 came his clearly autobiographical story “The capture”, which played on the moral conflict between victors and vanquished during the landing of the Allies in Sicily. In 1964, Sereni went from being an external contributor to the magazine to running a literary section called “Nei libri e fuori”. This introduced the Italian public to Primo Levi’s La Tregua, and to Mary McCarthy and Massimo Bontempelli, to Henry Miller’s The Colossus of Maroussi and to the poems of Georgios Seferis, through to Hemingway’s posthumous A Moveable Feast, reviewed in the no. 4 issue of 1964.

Then came “The blue-black phantom” in no. 5-6 of 1964: “So here I’m supposed to be taking the side of Inter, or rather justifying the blue-black shade of part of my thoughts and feelings”. The intellectual gave way to the fan inside him, mourning the loss of the legendary footballer Giuseppe Meazza, called Peppino, the “blue-black phantom”. And where there’s a phantom, there’s a mystery. The original article was published with an abstract drawing by Alberto Sughi. A drawing by Riccardo Manzi, which has recently been purchased by the Pirelli Foundation, dates from the same year, 1964. It shows a football player wearing a blue-black jersey with a note written by a Pirellian: “Nose too big!”. Might this have been an illustration for Sereni’s article? We cannot be sure, but we can date with absolute certainty Vittorio Sereni’s last contribution to Pirelli magazine: an article entitled “Two Venetian voices” in no. 5/6 of 1970.

The tales of entrepreneurial experiences outline the multiform essence of those who create and move production organisations

Confidence in what one feels capable of but also the desire to get things done and to involve others. And also something that is difficult to summarise and even more difficult to understand by anyone who hasn’t experienced it. The synthesis of being entrepreneurial is nevertheless in danger of always outlining a partial image. So it is necessary to tell the story better to understand. And this is what Ray Smilor has done with his “Audaci Visionari. Come gli imprenditori fondano aziende generano fiducia e creano ricchezza (Daring visionaries. How entrepreneurs found companies, generate confidence and create wealth) published in Italy a few weeks ago in a new edition.

Smilor is currently Chairman of the Foundation for enterprise development  in addition to being a long-standing teacher at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Texas. He knows a lot about companies and therefore understands the elusiveness of their essence if you only look at the theory. The book is therefore a presentation of concrete business success stories and failures. It is through this technique of narration that the author deciphers the entrepreneurial genetic code, as well as illustrating the qualities that enable entrepreneurs to overcome obstacles and to move towards the future with energy and optimism, managing to involve other people in their journey.

Comprising six sections and an epilogue, the book (a little over 200 pages long) starts by searching the entrepreneur’s soul, and then attempts to understand what he defines as the “secrets” of entrepreneurship and subsequently the qualities that every self-respecting entrepreneur has to have. Smilor then looks more closely at the “dark side” of entrepreneurship (i.e. the failures and bankrupted companies as well as the negative image that may accompany going out of business), and then at the social impact of the same. What emerges is a multi-faceted portrait of entrepreneurship, which is never the same, always different and constantly evolving, made up of many victories and just as many defeats. Far from the business theory set in textbooks, but totally immersed in a contradictory reality which is also continuously changing.

Entrepreneurs, Smilor argues, “firmly believe in their ability to influence events, in their ability to divert fate and in their power to shape the future”. Daring, precisely, and also visionaries.

A history of business stories, the book – which perhaps has the sole inconvenience of having too many forewords, presentations and premises before getting to the true essence of the author –, should be read attentively and perhaps even reread in some parts.

Audaci Visionari. Come gli imprenditori fondano aziende generano fiducia e creano ricchezza (Daring visionaries. How entrepreneurs found companies, generate confidence and create wealth)

Ray Smilor

Guerini Next, 2017

28 January: almost a century and a half has gone by since that winter’s day in 1872 when a twenty-three-year-old engineer, Giovanni Battista Pirelli, went up to Stefano Allocchio, notary public in Milan, and put his signature on the “Constitution of a limited-partnership company for the manufacture and sale of articles in elastic rubber”. It was the beginning of a long history of people and machines.

A history of mixers and vulcanising machines, heaters and rolling presses: tools that the young Pirelli had discovered a couple of years earlier on his scholarship “study trip” to the first rubber factories in France and Germany. It was January and Ingegner Pirelli would soon be leaving to buy those machines himself and he would install them in the factory being built in Via Ponte Seveso. The best mixers were made by Joseph Robinson & Co. in Manchester, England, while his choice of heater would go to Edoardo Süffert & C. of Milan. The young businessman talked about his plans and programmes with a journalist from Industriale magazine, which stated that: “we ourselves are always well pleased to write of all that is proof of our growing economic development, and we are thus content to publish some news about this new plant, which we greet with joy…”. And if business went particularly well, in time it would even be possible to face an investment in one of the gigantic machines produced by the Farrel Foundry and Machine Co. over there in Connecticut, USA. In January 1872, all of this may have been going through the head of this “romantic student”, as Pier Emilio Gennarini referred to him in the history of the company written many years later, in 1949, for Pirelli magazine. A romantic student who had a blueprint for a new industry.

Almost a year later, on 1 January 1873, Ghezzi Francesco fu Giovanni was hired as a worker and rubber labourer, with serial no. 1, at the plant in Milan. He would soon learn to operate the Robinson mixer and control the Süffert heater, and he would teach others after him.

A hundred and forty-six years of people and machines have gone by since then: today we have reached Industry 4.0. A wealth of experience and humanity, all starting from that signature of 28 January 1872 on the deed of incorporation that still bears witness to our long history.

The full name of the publication was “Pirelli. Rivista d’Informazione e di Tecnica”. But everyone knew it simply as the “Rivista Pirelli” – Pirelli magazine. Published in Milan by the Group’s “Direzione Propaganda” – what we would now call the Communication Department – the magazine was on newsstands from 1948 to 1972. Unlike virtually any other publication, it was the voice with which an industrial group wished to converse directly with its target public – its “stakeholders”, we would call them today – about all sorts of different events and issues. From traffic problems to the economic situation, through to scientific discoveries and tourism, sport and architecture: its focus ranged across the board, just as the field of vision of a multinational corporation needs to if it is to make culture and social commitment one of its most fundamental intangible assets. The greatest names of the time wrote for Pirelli magazine: Eugenio Montale and Giuseppe Ungaretti, Umberto Eco and Carlo Emilio Gadda, Domenico Rea and Vittorio Sereni, Mario Soldati and Italo Calvino.

But when it came to mountaineering, the first name was that of Dino Buzzati. Born in Belluno, Buzzati was already talking about the mountains with Bàrnabo in his first novel in 1933. One wonders what it must have cost him to write “The Stupidity of the Mountains” as the title of the article published in Pirelli magazine no. 5, in October 1951. This is the story of Pietro B. – who is already long in the tooth, a widow, wise and wealthy – who tries to convince his nephew Enrico that climbing Mount Mishap is just a great waste of time and energy: why make all that effort to go up if you then have to come down? How stupid can mountaineering be? Buzzati’s highland spirit naturally has Enrico’s passion win out in the end: “Bye-bye, Uncle Pietro, I’m off, I’m taking the train, I’m going to those stupid idiotic moronic marvellous mountains of mine!”

Then came the famous but controversial Italian expedition to conquer the K2 in the Himalayas: this was in 1954. It was he – in Pirelli magazine no. 1, 1954 – who had the task of reporting in the minutest detail about how Ardito Desio prepared the venture, about his companions Compagnoni and Lacedelli, about the young Walter Bonatti, and about their doubts and excitement before leaving, and their meticulous choice of equipment: isothermal tents, boots for 7000 metres, anoraks with “brilliant colours, to be seen against the white snow”. It took a lot of Pirelli rubber to conquer the K2: in particular, special open-circuit breathing masks were tested in the Bicocca laboratories so that they could use the available oxygen in the air even at 8000 metres. These masks were far lighter than traditional closed-circuit ones with their extremely heavy cylinders. A full six months before they set off, Ardito Desio and the K2 project had earned the front cover of the January 1954 issue. For the decidedly forceful personality of the Friuli-born explorer, the cover was probably designed to offset another one that the magazine had devoted to Piero Ghiglione in December 1950. Considered as the father of Italian mountaineering, Ghiglione had accomplished the first “tricolore” ascension of the Rwenzori, in Africa, in 1949, before going off to conquer the so-called 6000s in the Andes in 1950. Also on those expeditions, Pirelli soles and air mattresses had made the difference.

But it was not just Buzzati, Desio and Ghiglione who talked about the mountains from the pages of Pirelli magazine. “Three Deities on the Apennines” was the title of the article by Riccardo Bacchelli in the 2nd issue of 1950. True, this is light-years from the 8000 metres of the K2 and even from the peaks of the Dolomites, but these are mountains all the same, even though gentler and enveloped in myth and mystery. In Bacchelli’s dream, it is Minerva, Apollo and Dionysus who formed the “web of rivers and mountains that huddle together in the regions of Catria and Falterona”, whence “the rivers and voices of Tuscany and Lazio, Umbria and the Marche all melt and flow”. Here we have Minerva’s Arno and the sunny Umbrian valleys of Apollo, as well as vineyards that are the “splendid gifts” of Dionysus. Mountains of the gods, on the borderline between art and legend.

A rulebook from the Ministry of Education, on the use of mobile phones as a didactical tool, has just arrived in Italian schools. It represents a discussion, based on extensive consultation, about the need to improve, especially in the school environment, students’ knowledge of the digital world, and also about the proposal to create a specific “grammar school for digital culture”. These are core ideas for the economic development of the country, but also and indeed more particularly for its system of cultural and social relationships, for the dissemination of news and, why not?, for the very maintenance of our long period of democracy itself.

An opportune debate, then. To which an essential contribution has been provided by Francesco Profumo, ex-minister for Public Education, Universities and Research (but also ex-chairman of the CNR – Science Research Council -, ex-rector of the Polytechnic University of Turin, and now chairman of the San Paolo Foundation, one of the most prestigious cultural and social institutions in Italy).

In an article from the “Avvenire” newspaper (19th January), in the course of his contribution to a debate launched by this daily paper from the Episcopal Conference, professor Profumo gives a favourable view of the idea of a “grammar school for digital culture”, insists upon a reform of the educational system which still relies too heavily upon the educational canons drawn up in the 1920s by the minister Giovanni Gentile and inspired by idealism and crusading history, and looks forward to the prospects offered by the labour market as regards its quantitative and qualitative aspects: a workplace “ which is not just the reflection of technological change, but which is also influenced by a combination of other variables, such as environmental sustainability, globalisation, demographic change, an increase in inequalities, and political uncertainty”.

These are all issues which require new teaching and learning methods and new programmes: “It is becoming essential to acquire literacy and to develop digital skills and competencies not simply via the use of informal mechanisms, but also via the utilisation of formal methodologies, which should be acquired in a scholastic environment and via experiences which alternate between school and work”. Perhaps, in fact, a “grammar school for digital culture”. Or perhaps also – and it is worth adding this – a robust commitment to the digital culture in all our scholastic structures, from compulsory schools to the numerous and varied further educational institutes.

The “rulebook” from the ministry is useful, even if it only covers part of the issue. It is worthwhile considering, on a more ambitious scale, a “responsible digital education” (Pierangelo Soldavini, “Il Sole24Ore”, 21st January) and to provide a framework for the use of mobile phones and tablets as tools for learning for which there should also be clearly defined limits and possibilities. Dante, Petrarch and geography on-line? Why not? On condition that we do not lose sight of the purpose of study as a serious commitment, for research, handled responsibly, without falling victims to the commonplace fashion for their use purely for playing games.

We are in fact facing a situation where cultures and jobs are changing. Profumo is completely correct. We need better knowledge. Not so much competencies, which are acquired over the course of time, recognising perfectly well that the need for ongoing training, for long life learning, is and will be ever more widespread. But rather, specifically, knowledge. And an ability for critical reasoning. A method, much more than a technique. An ability to go critically to the heart of issues: “Adess ghe capissarem on quaicoss: andemm a guardagh denter” is inscribed on part of the entrance to the Pirelli Foundation – in order to understand something, “let us look inside” a machine, a process, a technology, according to the quip attributed to the engineer Luigi Emanueli, a scientist and entrepreneur during the first decades of the 20th Century, the time of the tremendous growth of Pirelli, of its hi tech excellence and the sophisticated “civility of the motor car”.

Going critically to the heart of issues. Precisely that method which the scientific culture of the 20th Century has bequeathed to us: that habit of “falsifying” everything which was dear to the heart of Karl Popper and his “open society” (always attempting to disprove any new scientific theory, to seek new data and create new experiments in order better to validate or invalidate their worth, and then to move forward), the understanding that science is a condition in a state of flux, where nothing is a given for ever. An extremely pertinent example of this was also the debate, which was often harsh and incisive, in the first half of the 20th century between Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein on the foundations of quantitative physics, relativity, the nature of chance, the “principle of indetermination” and on scientific and ethical questions (this is well-documented by Gabriella Greison in “L’incredibile cena dei fisici quantistici” [The incredible supper of the quantitative physicists], published by Salani).

Critical analysis, then. In accordance with the teachings of Kant. Knowing that among the characteristics of the digital world there is the constant change that affects relationships, materials, technologies, environments, and life and workplace habits. Which pervades the digital world itself. And, indeed nowadays, not just the logic of its workings but also its “acceptability”, its social legitimisation.

“Il mondo nuovo della Silicon Valley che spaventa tutta l’America” (The new world of Silicon Valley which frightens the whole of America), has been described in the “la Repubblica” newspaper (15th January) by Enrico Moretti, an economist at the University of California (his most famous book is “La nuova economia del lavoro” [The new geography of jobs] published by Mondadori), where he outlines how the hi tech universe, which is innovative, global, cosmopolitan, cultivated, liberal, extremely productive and embodying a high degree of respect for the environment and for civil rights, is becoming ever more unpopular, in the USA, not only within the right-wing public opinion represented by Trump but also in left-wing, democratic circles, where people are fearful of violations of privacy, disinformation from fake news insufficiently held in check, and abuses of the dominant position held by the digital colossi in a conspiracy against consumers. The recent revelations about the vulnerability of IT systems and about related financial speculation have worsened the picture.

The cover story of “The Economist”, in its latest issue, also confirms that the system of values and trust in the digital world is in crisis. “Taming the titans”, reads the heading, set against a disturbing dark red background featuring three steel monsters with the symbols of Amazon, Facebook and Google. A warning that we need to neutralise or render inoffensive these giants: “How can they be controlled?”.

This is a turnaround in direction and consensus which demands careful reflection. Opposition cannot be carried out Trump-style, all populism and “Luddite” attitude.

The digital world is our reality, in our manufacturing activities, in our movements, in our interpersonal relationships, in the safeguarding of our environment and in our construction and management of more easily inhabitable smart cities. With positive processes. And radical improvements in the quality of life and work.  Therefore we need a more critical culture, and a knowledgeable attitude which allows us to understand and direct its processes and prospects. Starting with school, precisely. Our digital natives, and that means our children and grandchildren, cannot avoid increasingly becoming the actors who are the most aware of this world.

The latest book by Salvatore Rossi tells a story that entrepreneurs and managers need to know

Good corporate culture is also fostered by good history. Not arid erudition, but a source of information about the past better to understand the present, to act with greater care, to manage their production organisation with prudent wisdom, to look at the role of the company beyond mere black and red numbers on a balance sheet. A necessity for all, the historical knowledge of economic facts is even more important for entrepreneurs and managers. Reading “Oro” (Gold) by Salvatore Rossi (current General Manager of Banca d’Italia), is therefore a dutiful act for anyone who wants to understand more about the economy today, but it is also something to do with the intention of finding out more about the issues that affect everyone’s lives, even if only a few people realise this.

Rossi is an economist capable of telling a story and making sure the reader understands it. The reasoning focuses on the significance of gold in history and in the economy of both past and present. Starting with an observation. Gold is linked to an ancestral sentiment: the confidence that it can always be exchanged, wherever and whenever. And not just that. Gold has always been a symbol of wealth, beauty, divinity, power. But also of savings and exchange. Whoever owns some keeps it safely caskets, safes, strongboxes and vaults. Even today, in the age of digitalisation of our lives. Rossi wonders why. And he tries to find an answer to this question starting from the premise that gold is a mystery that has resisted six thousand years. Today, in the age of paper money and virtual money, gold should appear anachronistic to us. Yet it is not at all forgotten by those who are looking for a safe place for their savings. Starting with Countries and central banks, this metal remains the safe haven par excellence, the linchpin of economies and monetary systems.

To explain and understand, Rossi begins with people (with the fascinating and dramatic tale of what happened at Banca d’Italia in 1943), then he continues to write about the ties between gold and people as well as with the economic forms that have been built over time and affording digressions as important as the one on the production and distribution of wealth. Gold, therefore, is topical.

What emerges is a remarkable story, but also and above all a tale where there is a thick intertwining bond between economy and humanity, between production and the use of the same, between wealth and poverty. A rare quality in “technicians”, the clarity and transparency with which Rossi wrote “Oro” make this book a gem to read in one go.A good story for good business culture.

Oro (Gold)

Salvatore Rossi

Il Mulino, 2018

January is the time for skis and skiers. An article entitled “Accessories to Happiness” in the January 1949 issue of Pirelli magazine gave a truly imaginative definition of the skier: “a main course and side dish: meat with a certain amount of vegetables […] that look nice and tasty – a skier’s accessories need a number of qualities: they have to be practical, long-lasting, and compact, making them ideal not for the palate but for use.” There are lots of accessories that can improve a skier’s life – and they are all made of Pirelli rubber. The straps used to tie the skis, or to fasten the boots to the attachments, for example: “which mustn’t be a source of curses – which is what ice-hardened leather straps can so often be”. If you don’t want a stream of obscenities from the skier, just make them out of rubber.

An article by Nino Nutrizio, “Cable Cars Have Opened the Doors of the Mountains”, also published in Pirelli magazine, in the December 1949 issue, had the same message: “Only those who have experienced the effort it takes when wearing gloves can appreciate these little things, which are so easy to use. It just takes a light pressure for the beauty of the snows to undo the rubber strap that ties skis and sticks together.” The “beauty of the snows” that Nutrizio refers to is a lovely blonde who appears in photos on the same page to promote another accessory that no modern skier can be without: ultra-light skiing sticks with grips and rings in indestructible Pirelli rubber. And it was the same classy blonde skier who brought 1949 to an end, interpreting the entire Pirelli line for skiers on the back cover of the last issue of that year. Together with her elastic straps and ski sticks, she also shows off a very practical Pirelli windcheater, as well, of course, as the Alpina rubber soles on her boots.

In 1951, the skier changed and the “beauty of the snows” made way for the “ski girl from Madesimo”, but “the allure of little comforts” stayed the same, as we read in the article by Vittorio Bonicelli for the December issue of Pirelli magazine. This tells of the countless opportunities that rubber offers the modern skier: “My gratitude also goes to the simple, modern devices that make it easy to carry skis and baggage on the roof of a car, without the excruciating struggle there used to be with a whole tangle of wet ropes that always came loose.” Among others, no less a genius than Ingegner Carlo Barassi had worked in the development of the ski rack. His real day job was to design Pirelli tyres, but he just couldn’t resist the joys of being an inventor. And so, between a Cinturato and a BS3, Barassi also designed a futuristic ski rack in elastic fabric and foam rubber. With a Pirelli-Kartell patent, they were made for the Topolino cars of the time.

This brings us to what was possibly the most important “accessory” for any skier: the car, which had to take them in absolute safety and as quickly as possible to the foot of the snow-covered slopes. It would be quite reasonable to think of the Inverno winter tyre as a Pirelli product for skiers. In 1958 it replaced the old pre-war Artiglio, launching a line of special tyres for snow and ice. The advertising image for the Pirelli Inverno was created by the very young, but already well-established Dutch designer, Bob Noorda. And lastly, should the motorist-skier imprudently be without the right tyres, no problem: here we have non-skid Pirelli chains with rubber tensioners. When used on a normal Stella Bianca, you can drive off even on snow and ice, without any unpleasant surprises. Filled with enthusiasm, skiers in the early 1950s rushed off to the snowy slopes to forget the previous years, with a “main course and side dish” of Pirelli accessories.

A book tells 24 stories of companies and entrepreneurs who are able to combine good balance sheets and good manufacturing culture

Companies are truly made of courageous men and women. People who make a commitment, if somewhat visionary, not mad but determined. It is therefore these human conditions which give rise and grow the corporate culture, which in time makes every self-respecting manufacturing concern truly unique. And, as is often the case, it is precisely from the story of experiences already made that we learn the most, in addition to knowing better and in-depth the reasons for the success (and sometimes the failure) of what has happened.

This is why it is useful and important to read “Storie di ordinaria economia” (Stories of routine economy)

by Massimo Folador which was published a few weeks ago.

The book collects testimonies from 24 companies and of the key players involved in each one. Stories, tales of men and women – precisely – before stories of production organisations. Stories which bring to the light first and foremost a predisposition to drive business forward gradually, in some cases even slowing down; being entrepreneurs and managers almost having the far-sighted outlook of a family man and especially in contrast with respect to the hectic pace of change. Walking instead of running. And despite this, not missing any important appointments, getting to each company commitment on time.

Folador’s book of about 150 pages therefore brings up the vicissitudes of companies that decided to calculate within their balance sheet the welfare of their human capital and their ability to act socially in the territory in which they operate.And it is not just a question of small companies, perhaps scattered across unknown territories, on the margins of the economy. The large group of companies that Folador brings to the fore consists of all sorts.  Page after page, the reader comes across stories of Add Value, AIDDA, Arimondo, Assimoco, Banca Etica, Basf, Call&Call, Cemon, CivitasViate, Ai Rucc social cooperative, Eurospin, GOEL, Teddy Group, Gulliver, Loccioni, Manital, Nau, Locarno Hospital, Pedrollo,Phonetica, Sacchi, Yamamay. These are supplemented by the cultural and sporting concerns of the Rossini Symphony Orchestra and the experience of Rugby Parabiago.Efficient organisations of production – there is no doubt about that – yet managed with a different pace and in very different sectors ranging from distribution to chemicals, via art and culture, for finance and logistics or health.

At one point in the book the author tries to sum up the sense of what is being told: “As for the farmers who every day experiment with what they need to to ensure the harvest is plentiful, preparing the soil for subsequent crops, similarly in the business world today it has become important to “scrutinise the soil” where we “sow” our actions”. The introduction by Marco Girardo is appealing as, describing the conditions under which companies have to operate, he explains the presence of “a tug of war between the forward drive of the market and the search for quality that would instead require longer time frames and a different focus”.

“Storie di ordinaria economia” recounts precisely this business tug of war can be won on a daily basis.

Storie di ordinaria economia (Stories of routine economy)

Massimo Folador

Guerini Next, 2017

It snowed long and hard in the winter of 1955-6. Carlo Barassi was head of the Technology Office of the Pirelli Tyres Technical Department at Milano Bicocca at the time. Already with almost twenty years’ experience as an engineer in the company, he was known as a highly imaginative, extroverted inventor. He was an “ingenious dreamer”, just as Luigi Emanueli had been before him, and Emanuele Jona before that. The tradition of inventiveness goes back a long way in Pirelli. Acting on a hunch, he went back to engineer Lugli’s invention of some years previously, which had never found practical application. Giuseppe Lugli, who for years headed the Physics Laboratory of the Pirelli Rubber Sector, had gone so far as to imagine a tyre in which the casing and the tread were independent and interchangeable. The idea was to vulcanise the casing and tread rubber separately and keep them together simply by the pressure of inflation. Barassi came down – like an avalanche, one might say – on his colleague’s invention: what if the tread ring were itself divided into three bands? And if each band could act differently – and optimally – from the other two? A detachable tread, or “Battistrada Separato”, with 3 interchangeable rings for a winter design that would fear neither snow nor ice… At the end of the winter, one could just replace the three winter rings with Cinturato 367 rings and the same tyre would be perfect for the summer. Pure genius.

In the autumn of 1959, the launch of the Pirelli BS3 was a truly international event: the tyre with three different tread rings on a separate casing was seen as absolutely revolutionary. The press conference was held at the shrine of motoring: the Turin Car Show. With a visit by the president of the Italian Republic, Giovanni Gronchi. And a presentation film shot at the Cortina Ice Rink. Directed by Ermanno Scopinich, it showed female skaters chasing an Alfa Romeo Giulietta, which was safe on the ice thanks to the magic design of the BS3 tread.
That winter of 1959 was just the beginning of the career, which was to be both complex and interesting, of Pirelli’s detachable-tread tyres. They presided, for example, over the launch of tyre dealers at the Autogrill rest stops on the Autostrada del Sole in 1961: while you sit and enjoy your cappuccino and croissant, on go your four BS3 tyres so you can ride out the winter snow in safety. And then a sudden, victorious appearance in rallies, a discipline that was still in its infancy: the idea of changing the tread for each special test was simply brilliant. Just ask the gentlemen-drivers at the 1961 Monte Carlo Rally. Then came the advertisements designed by Riccardo Manzi, with a pensive little man under the snow, but sheltered by his umbrella-like BS3.

The BS3 was an invention. And, as such, it had its day. A few years later – in 1964 – it was simplified: no longer three rings but just one, still with the option of summer or winter. Its name shortened to just “BS”. It began to be considered for trucks, as the perfect answer to retreads. But it was rallying – which had been the testing ground for the Battistrada Separato – that led to the idea of a tyre that could combine both winter and summer performance. And that was how the Pirelli Winter was born – and a new Winter’s tale was written.