When talking about the South of Italy, two key terms come to mind: knowledge and markets. Let’s forget bad old habits involving claims for reparation (“…the State, which from the Unification of Italy onwards has humiliated and marginalised the South, must give us…), Neo-Bourbon nostalgia, and welfarist lures (using the “citizenship income” – the Italian welfare allowance dependant on income and citizenship – as a shortcut to find employment it’s just the latest unhealthy practice). Let’s think, instead, about productively investing in infrastructure, starting from education (quality schools and universities) and digital networks, and supporting all that’s required to encourage entrepreneurship, productivity and competitiveness, to enable companies to grow and fulfil their fundamental role as positive social actors for wealth and change.

More in brief, when redrawing the map of a Mediterranean territory that’s become strategic within international geopolitical and geoeconomics relationships (the war in Ukraine is the latest, shocking chapter in a series of wide-reaching changes), let’s reimagine the South of Italy as an economic area strongly integrated into the European Union as well as a dynamic space.

The chances arising from the constantly evolving “knowledge economy” and the “digital economy”, with their implications related to the extraordinary applications of Artificial Intelligence in all industry, services and cultural sectors – leading to a drastic alteration in terms of time and space – are precisely those that can situate the South of Italy in a position where seizing economic, civic, environmental and social development opportunities, rather than “making up for delayed growth”, is now the priority.

This is a novel European and international context that can only be understood by gazing beyond the narrow horizons of patronage-driven localism and provincialism. It’s a context that poses new challenges not only to Brussels and to Rome and Milan – the two Italian capitals where political power and innovative economy reside – but also to public administration bodies and social actors, starting with companies and without neglecting the more progressive and enterprising individuals hailing from the South of Italy.

These are the themes that resounded throughout the “Verso Sud” (“South-bound”) Forum, held in mid-May in Sorrento by Italian Minister for the South and Territorial Cohesion Mara Carfagna (“Over the course of a thousand conferences, the South has been defined as the ‘Mediterranean logistics platform’. And, today, we’re actualising that platform, thanks to major investments in its sea ports – €1.2 billion – and reforms and infrastructure provided by the Southern Special Economic Zones programme, because this is a territory that lies at the ‘heart’ of our development gambit. A territory where investing will finally be more convenient, easier and faster, thanks to reduced bureaucracy and tax relief measures.”). Those same themes were also discussed in Palermo at the end of last week, at the “Med in Italy” international meeting, promoted by the Confindustria Young Entrepreneurs organisation and chaired by Riccardo Di Stefano – “Med” as in the Mediterranean area, of which the South of Italy could become the focal point for “investments and innovation”.

Of course, a focal point not merely in geographical, but also in political and economic, terms. In a world where trade routes and power relationships are being redefined, under the thrust of the dramatic events we are experiencing (the effects of climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and the recession, and now the war in Ukraine and its direct impact on European obligations), the push towards a veritable “paradigm shift” in political relations and social and economic development is accelerating.

What we need, in fact, is a critical reinterpretation of the many ideas that, recently, have guided the course of globalisation and the digital economy, as well as a plan for a “selective re-globalisation” that includes reshoring processes aimed at shortening supply chains (length makes them fragile and not very efficient) by relocating them in the heart of industrial Europe – without yielding to the temptation of protectionist notions but rather renovating and relaunching the whole international exchange system under the banner of fair, well-regulated trade.

Bringing back production in Europe – and as such in Italy, too – is what would bring the South of Italy into play, an area that should be made attractive in terms of resources, investments, talent, high-tech production hubs, as well as services, logistical infrastructure (ports, “sea routes”, interports as part of the modernisation of railway and airports), and knowledge hubs.

The South of Italy is brimming with smart and creative human capital – indeed, for years, young women and men from the South have had to leave their home towns in order to find better working and living opportunities elsewhere, from Milan to larger cities in Europe and in the world. And let’s not forget about its widespread entrepreneurship that, though fragile, endures despite the many constraints (a sub-culture built on patronage, prevalent inefficient and corrupt public administration, cushy temptations of welfarist assistance, rampant illegal work, and the many facets of an economy based on crime and terrorising mafia organisations that “bring bread and death”).

Here’s a key point: the aptly named Next Generation EU Recovery Fund, whose resources are especially important to Italy and its South – 40% of national funds are destined to the latter, if it proves it can invest them in productive projects and radical reforms – should be mostly used to support the southern region’s younger generations, to regenerate and relaunch their schools and universities, freeing such institutions from familial hegemonies that are stifling their potential and encouraging them to grow, building virtuous collaborations with the best Italian and European institutions and enterprises.

As a matter of fact, the 2021 investments from Apple and other high-tech companies in Naples point to a trend bent on enhancing local skills and talent in southern cities. Moreover, just a few days ago, news came in about similar ventures by Pirelli and BIP, in Apulia and Sicily respectively: on Friday, Pirelli announced the opening of a Digital Solutions Centre in Bari, integrated into the group’s international software services network, in collaboration with the Apulian region, university and polytechnic university, while BIP (Business Integration Partners, a multinational consulting company from Milan headed by Palermitan Nino Lo Bianco) has presented the project for a Centre of digital services in Palermo, interlinked with the other 13 BIP offices worldwide. These two instances represent a major acknowledgement of how the new dimensions of the digital economy and of smart working can offer extraordinary opportunities for growth, skill development and employment, as well as a recognition of the new generations’ capabilities and undertakings within a European and global context rather than just a local one.

Knowledge, entrepreneurship, skills and markets – as we said above.

Thus, drawing new knowledge, production and consumption maps has now become a real necessity in order to reassess political, economic and cultural decisions about “progress” and the geographic, social, gender and generational balance in the South of Italy, too.

Environmental and social sustainability, accompanied by strong reformist convictions, is key: we’re not talking about implementing green washing or welfare adjustments, but about forging a new political and economic path following the criteria inherent to a civil, circular and “just economy” (to reiterate the message from Pope Francis, a message also widespread within the most prominent international economics literature and major financial and business circles).

Italian companies possess some fundamental qualities at their core: the innovative power integral to a dynamic social capital and the depth of a culture moulded by industrial humanism, an ideology that has defined Italy’s economic history – a culture that combines historical awareness of its own open and multifaceted identity (and the South of Italy is an inspiring example of this) with forthcoming social and civil assets, with the ultimate aim of defining what can be termed the “future of memory”, a future with a distinctive Mediterranean flavour.

The Pirelli Foundation will be taking part in the Festival dell’Economia di Trento 2022 with two events linked to the promotion of the company’s corporate culture. The Festival is organised by the Autonomous Province of Trento and the 24 ORE Group, in collaboration with the University of Trento and the City of Trento.

On 3 June at 5 p.m., at the Municipal Library, Antonio Calabrò, director of the Pirelli Foundation, together with Paolo Bricco, correspondent for Il Sole 24 Ore, will present the book Thinking Ahead: Pirelli, 150 Years of Industry, Innovation, and Culture. The new book, edited by the Pirelli Foundation and published by Marsilio, is a collective account of the most important technological innovations made by Pirelli from its foundation in 1872 through to the present day.

At 7.30 p.m., the evening will continue with a concert entitled “Il Canto della Fabbrica” at the Filarmonica, where Maestro Salvatore Accardo, conductor and solo violin, together with the Orchestra da Camera Italiana, will perform the Piano Concerto no. 1 by J.S. Bach – with Gile Bae as solo pianist – and Giuseppe Verdi’s Quartet in E minor. The musical programme of the evening will revolve around ‘Il Canto della Fabbrica’, a piece inspired by the rhythms of Pirelli’s digital factory in Settimo Torinese. Commissioned by the Pirelli Foundation in 2017 from the composer Francesco Fiore for the violin of Maestro Accardo, the work represents the contemporary factory and its most recent transformations in the form of music – a beautiful factory, in the sense of beautifully designed, bright, safe, and sustainable.

Today and tomorrow – 1 and 2 June 2022 – the notes of ‘Il Canto della Fabbrica’ will also resound inside the Auditorium of the Pirelli Headquarters in Milan, where Maestro Salvatore Accardo, first violin Laura Gorna and the members of the orchestra are guests for the concert rehearsals.

A published inventory of mining archives narrates a century of hard work

Documents recording toil and entrepreneurial ingenuity. Papers, drawings, maps, work plans, photographs, individual stories – this and much more can be found in the Montecatini – Montedison – Solmine mining archives, recently opened to the public. The result of this long and delicate reorganisation and cataloguing work carried out by Simonetta Soldatini has just been published: yet another significant element in a widespread corporate culture that makes Italy pretty much unique.

Gli archivi minerari Montecatini – Montedison – Solmine a Massa Marittima (1898-1989) inventario (The Montecatini – Montediso – Solmine mining archives at Massa Marittima, 1898-1989 inventory) – this is the title of the recently published research work that collects the inventory of the mining archive preserved in the Documentation Centre of Niccioleta, in Tuscany, which consists of over 20,000 binders full of documents of all kinds: from personnel files to pay slips, tags, correspondence and over 7,000 maps, mine plans, photographs and drawings of machinery. An enormously valuable heritage resource that helps piecing together the history of the mineral exploitation of Tuscany’s Colline Metallifere (Metal-bearing hills) between the end of the 19^th century and the beginning of the 20^th century. Soldatini spent ten years reorganising the mass of documentation retrieved from the mines: a painstaking cataloguing work that was undertaken thanks to the support and collaboration of local bodies and institutions and that is now collected in a research work that is also an inventory and a work tool.

And what does it all amount to? Well, to an almost century-long profound testimony to mining work, as well as the record of the technological skills of an industry that has been too quickly forgotten.

Yet, the region succeeded in keeping its memory alive through some significant volunteering initiatives (which, in fact, also led to this inventory of documents).

But there’s more: Simonetta Soldatini’s research has now become a work tool for the investigation and narration of further entrepreneurial stories, thus contributing to cultural growth in the broader sense – that is, available not only to scholars but also, for example, to young people and schools. This is a book to be browsed and read, and – especially – to be used as a means to understand part of our past history.

Gli archivi minerari Montecatini – Montedison – Solmine a Massa Marittima (1898-1989): inventario (The Montecatini – Montediso – Solmine mining archives at Massa Marittima, 1898-1989 inventory)

Simonetta Soldatini (curated by), Polistampa, 2022

A comprehensive narration of Adriano Olivetti’s human and entrepreneurial vicissitudes

Olivetti was an entrepreneur and thus, above all, a human being, with contradictions but also dreams and the strength to realise them. He was an example, in constant evolution, of entrepreneurial capabilities – of how to do business. And this is the reason why companies and corporate culture should not be restricted to the theoretical sphere, because a company is not just about production organisation, technology and – nowadays – automatism and digitalisation. A company is something else, it’s much, much more. Something that can only be grasped through the life stories of the men and women who have conceived, founded and developed their own businesses. This is the instance of Adriano Olivetti, whose very recently published biography attempts to depict as Adriano, the man, rather than just Olivetti, the entrepreneur.

Adriano Olivetti, un italiano del Novecento (Adriano Olivetti, an Italian man from the 20^th century), written by Paolo Bricco, is the result of a long period of research, analysis, interpretation and narration of the life of one of those entrepreneurs who has taught the world how to do business, and who has brought prestige to Italy. A legend, as many often said of him, but also, more simply, a man – and not a very consistent one, but a man full of contradictions and yet – or perhaps precisely for that – a genius.

Bricco has been able to reconstruct Olivetti’s life by situating it within the industrial, social, political and cultural context of an Italy between the end of the 19^th century and the economic boom, without painting a glorifying image, however, but by capturing his human essence. Therefore, Bricco succeeds in retracing the milestones of an entrepreneur devoted to a company that was not a mere production organisation focused on making money, while also revealing the contradictions, conflicts and many shortcomings of Adriano the man. Thus, in less than 500 pages (as enjoyable as a novel), we learn about the deep and tormented relationships he had with his family, his two wives and the other women he loved; his passion for a scientific organisation of work and his attraction towards spirituality, astrology and Oriental wisdom; the difficult path that he undertook in the 1920s, leaving his family’s socialism for the theory of corporatism as well as his actual integration within fascist society in the 1930s; the daring relationship, at the fall of the regime, he entered with British and American secret services, and the constant fiendish temptation to go into politics, though his Movimento di Comunità (Community Movement) organisation failed to become a full political party; the identity of a businessman who sensed the potential of the new technological frontiers (in electronics) and who combined humanistic knowledge with technical and manufacturing culture, without however succeeding in overcoming the limits dictated by his family’s capitalist leaning. Essentially, Adriano Olivetti was at the centre of a world, yet he was not its sole protagonist because, as Bricco’s book masterfully conveys, at the very heart of this story lies a utopian vision (partly realised): that of the factory as a beautiful place in which to live and work, a place where technology and humanity blend with harmony. An environment that, as Olivetti himself stated, “believes in the value of spirituality, science, art, culture and, ultimately, in the notion that the ideals of justice cannot be undone by the disputes between capital and work that still exist. An environment that believes in humanity above all, its divine flame, its potential for elevation and redemption.” A concrete utopia, which indeed characterises the entire Olivetti story and whose influence is still very much felt today.

Paolo Bricco’s book tells it all, does not leave anything out, gives each detail its own well-deserved space. It’s the result of ten years spent researching and writing, a literary work that at times reads like an adventure story – which is just what the life of a good entrepreneur is, after all.

Adriano Olivetti, un italiano del Novecento (Adriano Olivetti, an Italian man from the 20th century)

Paolo Bricco

Rizzoli, 2022

On the evening of 7 November 1953, at the 4th Advertising Congress in Milan, Dino Villani awarded Dottor Paolo Polese, the representative of the Pirelli Group, with the Palma d’Oro for the best advertisement of that year. “An advertising campaign that has reached the finish line without a puncture” joked the commentator on the La Settimana Incom newsreel. The golden award acknowledged Pirelli as a ground-breaking company in terms of its communication but, in more general terms, it also highlighted the ever-greater importance of advertising in the post-war period. These were years of extraordinary vivacity for Italian visual communication, and advertising reflected – and in some cases anticipated and emphasised – the forward-looking enthusiasm that was a feature of this early period of the economic boom. Pirelli worked closely with graphic designers and artists in these years to create campaigns that made the history of Italian graphics. This can be seen in Joan Jordan and Ezio Bonini‘s advertisement for Pirelli Coria soles, the advertisements for the Stelvio tyre by Franco Grignani, Ezio Bonini, and Pavel Michael Engelmann, the one by Raymond Savignac for Pirelli hot water bottles and many others. To celebrate this important award, Pirelli magazine, under the then editor-in-chief Arturo Tofanelli, commissioned the cover of the sixth and last issue of the year from the graphic designer Erberto Carboni, who designed it in the form of a graphic reworking of the precious palm-shaped trophy. In this issue, an article signed by “V.S.” – the initials of Vittorio Sereni – outlined the “Secret balance sheet of a year of advertising”, telling the story of an intense year of work “at number 94 Viale Abruzzi, second floor” and the secrets involved in creating a good advertising campaign. Here the absolute master is always the product – the object – for it has the graphic artist’s pen and pencil at its service, while the advertiser is “the servant and at the same time the master of this haunting muse who challenges the cinema for its place as the tenth muse.”

To celebrate International Museum Day, the Pirelli Foundation joins ICOM to talk about “The Power of Museums”

Today is International Museum Day 2022, as established by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) to raise public awareness of the role of museums in the development of society. This main message this year is that of the power of museums, of the potential and ability of museums to have a positive impact on the cultural and social setting they operate in, and to help their communities grow, starting with the younger generations.

Also the Pirelli Foundation believes that museum education has an important part to play in this increasingly mindful process of community building. Company museums are hybrid in nature, for they are places that preserve and promote historical memories, but at the same time they are in a privileged position when it comes to looking to the future, and indeed they can help open up fascinating new discussions, especially with the very young.

The various teaching and creative courses put on by Pirelli Foundation Educational, which are revamped each school year, introduce children and young people to the very varied world of corporate culture, which includes research, technology, digital innovation, products, people, art and communication, sustainability, and welfare. With in-person visits to the Historical Archive and to temporary exhibitions, production centres and the Research and Development departments or – remotely – by using multimedia content and digital tools such as virtual tours, videos and online catalogues, the students can explore a variety of topics. These include the history of technological development, scientific progress and cultural, social and lifestyle changes in Italy.

However, the main purpose of looking at the history of the company, from the beginnings to the present day, is to show how the company’s historical heritage and therefore its history in general can be a breeding ground for ideas that can help us plan our future. By drawing on what has been done in the past and adding in the creativity of the children, the museum becomes a powerhouse from which it is possible to take inspiration to design a new communication campaign, for example, or to create new products or production spaces, to find new solutions for more sustainable lifestyles and, more generally, to guide young people towards innovative forms of development. The experience of the museum and the company archive thus constitutes a powerful means to help young users – and not only them – to face the challenges of the future in a more conscious and proactive way.

A sociological research study looks at enterprises and territories with enough entrepreneurs yet too few organisational leaders

Enterprise presupposes the presence of entrepreneurs, but also of managers. The relationship between the two is both an important and delicate one, as it entails a partnership that can be the making, or the undoing, of a company. As such, this is a relation that needs to be thoroughly understood even when entrepreneurs find themselves increasingly deserted by women and men wanting to take charge of their corporate organisation. Vincenzo Fortunato’s research study, “Classe dirigente, cultura manageriale e sviluppo nel Mezzogiorno” (“Ruling class, management culture and development in Southern Italy”), recently published in the journal Sociologia del lavoro (The sociology of work) focuses precisely on such circumstances.

The article analyses some of the main results identified by a recent investigation on the presence of managers and executives in Southern Italian companies and, more in general, on the low prevalence of managerial culture on the territory. Indeed, this is a topic that has never drawn much research interest and that, more often than not, has mainly been looking at the role of entrepreneurs, trade unions and institutions. Mistakenly so, as managers and executives actually constitute an exclusive research topic that can be useful to the understanding of the dynamics that take place within companies, the tension felt between entrepreneur and management, its more backward and innovative elements, its potential and the constraints preventing the development of modern, competitive enterprises able to successfully tackle the challenges of global markets. The presence, more or less authoritative, of managers is something that strongly characterises both businesses and territories and, amongst other things, it can also affect their growth.

Using data deriving from a real-life investigation, Fortunato sets himself the aim of exploring the role of management in the South of Italy, as well as of better understanding how widespread managerial culture is, a factor able to affect the development of companies and, as a consequence, of the territories in which they operate. Fortunato then goes on to analyse which policies and interventions might succeed in removing existing obstacles and promoting the growth of a managerial culture in the South of Italy.

Vincenzo Fortunato’s research study is important, not only because of its original theme – which, by the by, particularly illustrates a specific production culture – but also because it clearly elucidates both the theory and practices related to it, as well as opening up possible development paths for an entire territory.

Classe dirigente, cultura manageriale e sviluppo nel Mezzogiorno (”Ruling class, management culture and development in Southern Italy”)

Vincenzo Fortunato , Sociologia del lavoro, volume 162, 2022, pp. 184-207

How problems could be overcome thanks to the creative and sociable sides of human nature

Creativity, ingenuity and sociability could be the means to tackle – and overcome – both the old and new problems the world has to face after the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the deceivingly simple answer that Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret (founder and executive president of the World Economic Forum the former, managing partner of  The Monthly Barometer the latter), offer in their book The great narrative. For a better future, recently published in Italy as La grande narrazione. Per un futuro migliore, which ambitiously aims to analyse, in a rather limited number of pages, the challenges that the world is facing after the pandemic, as well as the possible ways in which they could be overcome.

This work acknowledges that the serious issues in need of a shared solution are many. The key questions concern the economy, the environment, geopolitics, society and technology and, the authors clearly explain, these questions all feature common traits involving complexity and speed, as well as the possible creation of utopias and dystopias, for instance.

In the second part of the book, however, Schwab and Malleret go on to illustrate how the solutions to such questions are already there and within our reach, and proceed to define a seven-stage path that, they believe, could lead us to overcome our present issues. Thus, they discuss collaboration and cooperation, imagination and innovation, as well as morality and – political and public – values, resilience, and the role played by companies and technology: all elements forming a single path leading towards a better future. In this respect, The great narrative certainly takes an upbeat stance that is in stark contrast with the gloomy perspective adopted by too many apocalyptic narratives – Schwab and Malleret optimistically assert, instead, that creativity, ingenuity and sociability, qualities innate to human beings, will prevail in the end.

Written in a comprehensible and lively style (and inspired by conversations had with 50 major global experts in various fields, from economy to neuroscience, from biotechnology to philosophy), this book by Schwab and Malleret makes for a quick read, though much attention should actually be paid, and a second reading would not go amiss.

La grande narrazione. Per un futuro migliore (The great narrative. For a better future)

Klaus Schwab , Thierry Malleret

Franco Angeli, 2022

“Do not let intellectuals play with/ matches”, wrote Jacques Prévert in 1946, because “with all that prodigal talk about builders’/ work” we find that “as soon as it’s left alone … The world of the mind/ conceives/ monumental lies.” Prévert was a master of irony, a fine poet who could write intense love poems, and a scathing critic of social hypocrisy, including the haughty attitude of the educated classes – of the intellectuals – towards “popular” sentiments. Yet, he was an intellectual himself, able to offer profound interpretations of ideas, passions and feelings, as well as strict advice on lifestyle choices – just the opposite of a merely “prude” conformist.

Those verses about intellectuals and matches recur throughout the pages of a recent lucidly and meticulously written book by Sabino Cassese, one of the finest jurists in European political culture, published by Il Mulino as part of its stimulating series Parole controtempo (Syncopated words) and simply and appropriately entitled Intellettuali (Intellectuals).

In such “dark times for both intellectuals and the means they adopt to make themselves heard” – because “if ‘one is as good as the other’ there can be no difference between the wise and the ignorant” – Cassese rekindles the values of intellectual commitment, study, research, the dissemination of knowledge, and emphasises the intermingled relationship between freedom and responsibility. And it’s precisely in these difficult, controversial times, loaded with new political, economic and social challenges and ancient tensions resurfacing under new guises (the crisis of globalisation, the pandemic, war, environmental disasters, the increasingly unbearable inequality concerning rights, living conditions and opportunities for development) that intellectuals have the responsibility to ask meaningful questions as part of the public debate, in order to sharpen the tools that can provide the answers.

The “triumph of populism,” insists Cassese, “feeds the rejection of intellectuals” because “the populist attitude and the political forces that inspire or encourage it are based on a false egalitarianism that, depending on the circumstances, either declares it can do without intellectuals by often accusing them of betraying people’s expectations, relegates them to a lower position, or exploits them.”

A negative trend, to be countered with some careful thinking about intellectual work and the need for a real “battle of ideas” against demagogy, the bigoted vulgarity rampant on TV and social media, the spread of fake news, the devaluation of knowledge, the rewarding of irresponsible incompetents’ wrongdoing.

We need to go back to studying, reading, writing, researching, discussing issues and viewpoints in depth – we need to draft new knowledge maps, work on the relationship between memories and the future, between roots and innovation, and enrich our social capital with competent skills, because “the elites, competent people, are a key critical ingredient of democracy.”

The challenge concerns the intellectual professions (rereading Max Weber‘s works is recommended), but also the political and economic spheres, social organisations and businesses, the structures of association and representation. No one should be allowed to wallow in mediocrity, ignorance, conjecture.

Indeed, the economic and social spheres are not talk shows, and the complexities inherent to the “risk society” require articulate and exhaustive answers, some proper pondering, rigorous investigations on the evolution of social balances and advice on what should be done in terms of political choices and policy instruments. We need to adopt deep thought as a working tool, politics as a civil servant’s duty.

Cassese continues, “The role of university professors as public intellectuals or public moralists is part of the Italian tradition (one needs only remember Francesco Saverio Nitti, Gaetano Salvemini, Vilfredo Pareto, Luigi Einaudi). It’s precisely when we mistakenly set the people against the elite that the members of such elite need to make themselves heard – not to prolong the fight but to show that they do know how to interpret the society to which they belong (and, by extension, the people).” Essentially, we need to “react against such a worn out attitude towards dialogue, the result of the crisis affecting our political parties and of the endless opportunity everyone has to vent their opinions on the web.”

Cassese calls for the “reflection method”. He reminds us how the importance of science and research has gained new value, precisely during the pandemic period. He very well knows the weight and reputation that cultural figures and associations dedicated to study and debate have. He emphasises the value of writing and well-informed “public discourse” that applies critical thinking. He further asserts that, “Intellectuals need to teach rationality and dialogue, as well as give us hope in a potentially better future, which does not mean lesser criticism when things go bad but a less gloomy view of the future.” Thus, “they should not neglect their scholarly activities but expand them, share them with a wider audience if they believe they have something interesting to tell such audience. This also requires the ability to ‘reinvent oneself’, yet without betraying one’s vocation.”

Such reinvention also calls for a re-evaluation and a revival of the importance of words – spoken or written – as well as clarity of language and awareness of how significant what we say and do might be. We need a “linguistic ecology that could give back words the power to enlighten, rather than to hide and commandeer reality, and that could allow us to understand and interpret the world with eyes unencumbered by judgement or clouded by prejudice; that could teach us the art of naming things” reminds us Latin scholar Ivano Dionigi in his Benedetta parola. La rivincita del tempo (The holy word. The revenge of time), published by Il Mulino. Words that clarify. Words that teach. Words that change the world.

Words that lead us across history. Just like – to mention a name amongst many – Ludwig Wittgenstein taught us: “Our language can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of buildings with additions from different periods; and all this surrounded by new neighbourhoods with straight streets and uniform housing blocks… To imagine a language is to imagine a form of life.” A key intellectual responsibility, then, following new maps of knowledge that needs to be both rediscovered and rewritten.

The Piccolo Teatro della Città di Milano first opened its doors on 14 May 1947, at number 2 in Via Rovello. It was set up by Giorgio Strehler, Paolo Grassi and Nina Vinchi, with the support of the City of Milan, and presented itself as a municipal theatre “for everyone” with the aim of offering shows to the broadest possible audience. The project found open arms in the Pirelli family and company. “Even workers do not live on bread alone” was the headline of a short article in 1947 in the company Notiziario – a publication edited by the Group’s workers just after the war – which continued like this: “if we are to soothe the minds of workers […] we need to bring them closer to art, to plain, life-giving art […] A project to achieve this has recently been launched under the mayor of Milan, and is already up and running. A low-cost season ticket is all it takes to access this theatre (and our Cultural Centre itself has joined up).” Right from the outset, the Piccolo did indeed adopt a policy of facilitations for cultural associations and companies, in order to encourage “popular” participation. Pirelli had just opened its Centro Culturale, or Cultural Centre, a company club run by Silvestro Severgnini, a friend of Paolo Grassi, which offered workers events and activities in the fields of music, theatre, figurative arts, cinema and literature. On 30 May 1947, Maxim Gorky’s The Lower Depths, the first show ever put on for Pirelli workers by the Cultural Centre, was staged at the Piccolo Teatro. This is how the event was hailed in the Notiziario: “Workers of all categories and their families, from the most senior managers, in the person of Dottor Alberto Pirelli and a family member of his, to the youngest of our worker friends, a student at the company school, who brought his mother to the theatre, all without any distinction of places, all mixed together, to watch one of the most humanely sympathetic works by the great genius of Russian theatre.” In the following years, the partnership between the Piccolo Teatro and Pirelli was flanked by ties with other cultural institutions in Milan, such as La Scala, the Pomeriggi Musicali and the Teatro del Popolo. As the years went by, the Cultural Centre had more and more to offer: in 1952 it brought 12,495 admissions to the opera and concert season in Milan, becoming “a notable presence in the city’s culture due to its size” (Pirelli magazine, “La fabbrica è aperta ai movimenti della cultura“ – “The factory is open to the latest in culture”) and, from 1960, it acquired a prestigious space of its own: the auditorium inside the Pirelli Tower. The Piccolo and Pirelli still work together on common cultural projects. Two examples of these are the launch in 2012 of Settimo. La fabbrica e il lavoro, a show directed by Serena Sinigaglia, based on hundreds of interviews with workers, technicians and engineers at the Pirelli factory in Settimo Torinese and, more recently, the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the Pirelli Group, brought to the stage of the Piccolo, a theatre with which it has intertwined its history for more than seventy years.