A contribution by the Bank of Italy summarises the issues we face and the paths we should take

Production and distribution, within a complex and volatile landscape where one has to deal with the long-term consequences of change, as well as the usual economic constrictions. This is what happens nowadays (and it not only affects businesses but, in fact, every facet of a large part of developed societies). Piero Cipollone, deputy director of the Bank of Italy, explores this tangle of issues in his contribution entitled “Transizione energetica, finanza e clima: sfide e opportunità” (“Energy transition, finance and climate: challenges and opportunities”).

Cipollone’s argument first tackles the theme of climate change and its impact on the economy, and beyond. From there, the Bank of Italy’s deputy director goes on to examine the economic policies adopted and as such the role of central banks and finance as they grapple with a difficult balance between economic efficiency and effectiveness while also trying to meet environmental goals.

The contribution then proceeds to examine the “challenges” that the economic and social system is facing: first of all, the expansion of sustainable financial tools, then the reliability of data and finally the need to promptly solve a number of pressing issues. Next, Cipollone reiterates the necessity to take notice of how much companies and society are aware of the situation they find themselves in.

Underlying it all, explains the author, there is a need to develop “green finance” practices as a more evolved and different way to understand the economy and production culture. Cipollone writes in his conclusion that “Green finance is also an intellectual challenge requiring financial institutions to integrate new knowledge and information derived from other scientific fields into their standard expertise.” And it is precisely such an open attitude that makes this contribution by the Bank of Italy’s deputy director so intriguing – as well as, of course, the topics it addresses. An attitude bent on outlining a new culture of production and a novel way to conceive the relationships between society and enterprises, as well as between politics, economy and society, and which needs to be discussed, but also welcomed.

Transizione energetica, finanza e clima: sfide e opportunità (“Energy transition, finance and climate: challenges and opportunities”)

Piero Cipollone

Bank of Italy, 21 June 2022

“Culture is not superfluous, it’s a distinguishing element of Italian identity” – these are the words that Italian president Sergio Mattarella used in his inauguration speech and that were reiterated last week in Turin, during the Stati Generali della Cultura (General assembly on culture) organised by newspaper IlSole24Ore. A chance to discuss with prominent figures from institutions and businesses, as well as cultural and information bodies, how to enhance Italy’s wealth of humanist and scientific knowledge and use them as leverage for sustainable environmental and social development.

Indeed, Italian identity is a complex and candid one, dialectical, the unique result of a mix of different and often conflicting elements. It’s both Mediterranean and Mitteleuropean, intensely marked by its Greek and Latin roots and yet also influenced by other worlds. It’s contentious and inclusive, aware of history yet also prone to innovation. Its attitude entails the future of memory – hoping that the past has a future (as per the unforgettable teachings of Leonardo Sciascia). Its key feature consists of blending a sense of beauty, creativity, industriousness, entrepreneurial spirit and the fulfilment of a good quality of life.

These are major themes that concern both Italy and Europe and that, fortunately, recur in public debate (though, unfortunately, much less than they should within the context of political and government choices). They were discussed at the General Assembly in Turin but also in Treia, a beautiful town in the Marche region, at the annual Symbola seminar, which focused on sustainability topics, and will continue to be present in the many festivals dedicated to books and culture that, every summer, crowd the agenda of several cities and tourist destinations pretty much all over Italy.

Beauty and culture. Literature and science. Artistic creativity and scientific knowledge. Awareness of one’s roots (“To have been is a condition for being”, taught us Fernand Braudel, one of the major 20^th-century historians) and forward-looking vision towards change. A future-oriented history, indeed, as per the significant title of the book curated by the Pirelli Foundation, published by Marsilio, which narrates 150 years of life of a great Italian multinational and its prospects for the future (including essays and accounts by, among others, Jan McEwan, David Weinberger, Renzo Piano, Salvatore Accardo, Ernesto Ferrero, Monica Maggioni, Bruno Arpaia, Giuseppe Lupo, Maria Cristina Messa, Ferruccio Resta, Guido Saracco, etc.).

Here’s the crux of the matter: the role of an enterprise as cultural subject, as creative agent for culture. A beneficent enterprise, that is, able to make investments aimed at safeguarding and enhancing the cultural heritage, in both public and private terms. A cultural enterprise, with entrepreneurial and managerial skills suitable to the management of cultural activities (museums, cinemas, theatres, music, visual arts, publishing, etc.), as well as business more in general – this, if we take culture not just as a narrative but also as a chemical formulas, the creation of new materials, productive processes, new products or services, corporate museums and historical archives as competitive assets, employment contracts, unique governance choices, the discovery and application of new languages in the fields of marketing, advertising and communication.

Culture not as a thing, but as a way to do things (as exemplified by Angelo Guglielmi, sophisticated and popular intellectual as well as great TV innovator).

Culture, to give an example, also entails the sustainable shift made by a major iron and steel group like Arvedi, the first green steelworks in the world, certified at international level as net-zero emissions: “A symbol of the success that can be achieved – and in economic terms, too – by Italian companies that build a close relationship with their territory and that have understood how strategic a focus on sustainability is for financial success”, states Ermete Realacci, president of Symbola.

Sustainability as a choice of productivity and competitiveness on global markets that are becoming increasingly selective, as a set of values that generate economic wealth and social responsibility – good corporate culture, basically.

In fact, a strong “polytechnic culture” is indispensable, so that Italy can re-establish and strengthen the foundations of its own development path, precisely in these times of radical crises, of great geopolitical changes, of industrial and social rifts and of much needed economic and social paradigm shifts, in order to face uncertainty and, looking beyond its vulnerabilities, create the conditions for a fairer and stronger circular and civil economy. A culture that intermingles humanities and scientific knowledge. A new “industrial humanism” that, as it evolves towards an extensive use of Artificial Intelligence, can also be termed “digital humanism”.

Enterprise is always at its heart: data driven, that is, steered by a clever use of data in terms of research, production, services, logistics, relationships with the market and consumption. It needs algorithms designed by engineers, neuroscientists, statisticians, philosophers, jurors and – why not? – by intellectuals who know how to blend efficient results with an understanding of the direction and values we should follow. Mathematics and ethics. Productivity and the whole range of consequences on which a company builds its unique social standing. Experimentation and narration – that is, sustainability.

What’s all this if not culture?

The challenge that we face, as women and men of culture and business, but also as citizens/spectators/lovers of art as an expression of beauty, is not only to learn to coexist with innovation but, above all, to actively be involved in the construction of new ways to participate in and enjoy cultural activities, to engage, with both a critical and constructive attitude, with the identification of unique forms of popular culture: new languages, new ways to build cultural processes, new relationships between the past and cutting-edge technologies – for a new and better civilisation.

The Paris Expo in 1900 and the one in St Louis in 1904 were followed by one in Liège, Belgium, in 1905. Italy took part only on the sidelines, however, and Pirelli did not show up. Towards the end of 1906, a new exhibition was announced for 1910, again in Belgium, but this time in Brussels. The National Committee for Italian Exports and Exhibitions immediately started preparing for Italy’s official participation in the event, and its work was endorsed by law on 10 June 1909. In the autumn of that year, however, another international exhibition was announced. The expo was to be held in the city of Buenos Aires, starting in the spring of 1910, to celebrate the centenary of the Argentine Republic. The National Committee signed up to it, for it could see the political and commercial benefits of having Italian producers take part in the event in South America. Having two expos at the same time caused many logistical headaches, particularly in the “cars and cycles” section at the Brussels Expo, where initial registrations would have been enough to cover an area of over 1,000 square metres. However, when the Buenos Aires event was announced, all the exhibitors opted to take part in it. It was only with great difficulty that it was possible to ensure the participation of a few firms in Brussels. These included Pirelli, which showed its tyres, accessories for cars and bicycles, and sportswear in waterproof fabric, in the “international gallery” of the Italian section reserved for motoring, cycling and sports items. Its activities in the cable sector were illustrated with a display of 14 photographs that showed the electrical substation in the factory and the one on board the Città di Milano cable-laying ship, the laying of electricity cables beneath the Nile, and the Ontario Power Co. plant in Niagara. The display also included views of the main factories (in Milan, La Spezia, Villanueva y la Geltrù in Spain and the new plant in Greco Milanese – which is that of Bicocca), and the photograph of workers leaving the factory in Milan taken by Luca Comerio.

The Buenos Aires Expo opened in May, with sections devoted to “Railways and Land Transport”, “Fine Arts”, “Agriculture”, and “Hygiene and Medicine”. Pirelli had been exporting to Argentina for over twenty years and in 1910 it opened a branch office, which it entrusted to its agent, the Alvaro Company. It naturally viewed the Expo with great interest. Alberto Pirelli wrote to the agent on 16 August 1909, saying: “Of all the Italian companies that can take part in an event devoted to means of transport – including the transport of electricity – we are one of those that exports the most to South America, we are in a position to compete in almost every sector, and we are willing to participate in a serious manner.” Pirelli managed to secure a  stand in an excellent position in the Italian Pavilion. Two areas were reserved for the company on the right and left of the central corridor, opposite the main entrance of the pavilion. The show included tyres, cables and technical items in rubber, the model of the Città di Milano cable-laying ship, which had been shown at the 1900 Paris Expo, and the photographs and factory views that had been displayed in Brussels. 10,000 brochures on the Peking to Paris race were sent to Buenos Aires (the winning car was on show at the Itala stand), as were 20,000 brochures with views of the company’s factories, to be handed out to the public. A film made on the suggestion of and by the National Committee for Exhibitions was screened at the Expo cinema, with the aim, as we read in a letter dated 22 April 1910, of “using projections and cinematographic spectacles to show other countries both the natural and artistic beauty of Italy, and the industrial development of our country”. A 50-metre film showed workers leaving the factory in Milan. Furthermore, thanks to its partnerships with car manufacturers, Pirelli ensured that all Italian cars and bicycles at the exhibition were fitted with Pirelli tyres.

1910 brought superb results for Pirelli abroad, as well as important awards, which were given both in Brussels – where the company won two Grand Prix diplomas and a bronze medal – and in Buenos Aires, where it obtained three Grand Prix diplomas, four honorary diplomas and two Gold Medal diplomas. Its success was by now widely acknowledged around the world.

The bond between the silver screen and the world of racing goes back a long way. The twentieth century celebrated the “beauty of speed” and, from the Futurists onwards, the thrill of racing only increased as the decades went by. What better than cinema, the art of the moving image, could convey the dynamism of motor racing? From the 1950s and 1960s, when the economic boom made cars ubiquitous, car journeys became a staple in films, with seaside holidays, racing along the motorway, and nail-biting car chases. In some cases, also Formula 1 races, which started up in the 1950s, came to the fore in feature films, such as the 1955 film The Racers, which arrived in Italy under the title “Destino sull’asfalto”. It was shot during tests for the 1954 Belgian Grand Prix, with the Swiss Toulo de Graffenried taking part as a stunt double for Kirk Douglas in a Maserati A6GCM fitted out as a camera car. Also in Italy, in 1951, Gianni Franciolini shot a melodrama film on the Monza circuit, called Last Meeting, of which we have some backstage shots in our Historical Archive, showing Jean-Pierre Aumont, Amedeo Nazzari and a young Alida Valli, back in Italy after her time in Hollywood. The screenplay, to which Alberto Moravia contributed, was based on the novel La biondina (1893) by Marco Praga. The actors included some illustrious names from the world of car racing, such as Juan Manuel Fangio, Nino Farina, Consalvo Sanesi and Felice Bonetto, who all played themselves, and, as a brief piece in Pirelli magazine recalled, Pirelli mechanics and tyres could be seen everywhere “as modest but indispensable… extras”.

During those same years, rallying also entered the world of cinema, this time not on the big screen but by organising a car race that, from 1954, saw the most famous Italian actors at the wheel, in pairs. Mike Bongiorno, Gina Lollobrigida, Sophia Loren, Raf Vallone, Renato Rascel and Eleonora Ruffo, to name but a few. Over the years, many competed to be the first to reach the chequered flag in a stage race, often having to get the better of fans who would do anything to get an autograph from their movie idols. Our Historical Archive contains precious photographic documentation of the 1957 race, showing the actors Roberto Risso and Magali Noël, the future “Gradisca” in Fellini’s Amarcord, with their Fiat TV no. 2. We also see the actress Marisa Allasio, fresh from her great success in Poveri ma belli and Belle ma povere by Dino Risi, appear next to a Pirelli Technical Assistance vehicle. Later that year it was none other than Marisa Allasio who – with Nunzio Filogamo and Fiorella Mari – presented the Sanremo Festival, before definitively abandoning the stage in 1958. But she remained forever in the hearts of Italians, together with the other great actresses – and great actors – who have lit up the firmament of the “seventh art”.

A meeting with several speakers, on the subject of “When History Builds the Future: Pirelli, 150 Years of Industry, Innovation, and Culture”, was held at 11 a.m. today in the wonderful setting of the Sala Alessi in the Palazzo Marino, in Milan. The mayor of Milan, Giuseppe Sala, the executive vice president and chief executive officer of Pirelli, Marco Tronchetti Provera, and many other representatives of the institutions and of the academic world looked back over 150 years of a company whose history has on several occasions become intertwined with that of Italy and the world, looking to the future through the lens of innovation. Minister Maria Cristina Messa and European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Paolo Gentiloni spoke remotely, adding their voices to those who were there in person with Ferruccio Resta, the rector of the Politecnico di Milano University, and the journalist Silvia Boccardi. The moderator was the director of the Pirelli Foundation, Antonio Calabrò. The discussion was enlivened by the screening of photographs and videos by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert, taken from our Historical Archive. These showed the forms, patterns, movements and colours of raw materials, but also experiments and people, art and culture, sport and technical innovation. They illustrated the industrial humanism that has been a fundamental aspect of Pirelli in every area of its research and in its technological development of processes and products in the rubber sector ever since 1872.

“In its history and, we are convinced, in its future, Pirelli is two things at the same time: it is quintessentially Milanese, and therefore very Italian, as well as being extremely international. In other words, it fully reflects the fundamental characteristics of this city, where Pirelli was born and where it grew up and immediately started looking out at the world” – Antonio Calabrò, Director of the Pirelli Foundation and head of Pirelli Institutional Affairs

“Companies with such a long and meaningful history – those that have been through times of error and moments of glory, and that know how the world works in all its countless forms – should be viewed with great interest and called upon to do their duty.” – Giuseppe Sala, Mayor of Milan

“This story shows us the true importance of Giovanni Battista Pirelli’s determination, strength, skill and entrepreneurship a hundred and fifty years ago. But it also shows us how important study, knowledge and science can be when it comes to making any decision. And this is a fundamental concept when knowledge and competence lead to innovation” – Maria Cristina Messa, Minister of University and Research

“During this century and a half of history, Pirelli has managed to interpret the epochal changes that have swept through both production processes and society: from the great industrial transformations to the rise of globalisation and digital technologies through to today’s leadership with regard to climate change. Pirelli’s experience offers a useful example that will help guide our economic and industrial policies” – Paolo Gentiloni, European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs

“The making of a company is always the making of the future” – Marco Tronchetti Provera, Executive Vice President, Chief Executive Officer of Pirelli

“Pirelli and the Politecnico University have worked along shared lines and some special research projects were started up fifteen years ago. The first was for the cyber tyre – a tyre with internal sensors that connected the vehicle to the infrastructure. This is what we would now call “digital transformation”. The second was into natural materials – or what we now call “green transformation”. We may not have used these words back then but the work certainly opened up a new dimension. And I would add a third dimension: these two technologies also meant thinking about how tyres needed to be made, so also the factory needed to change. And this called for an “industrial transition”, which meant accompanying the green transition and the digital transition as they changed both the labour market and the factory” – Ferruccio Resta, Rector of the Politecnico University of Milan

“These, days, consumers are no longer passive. They are extremely mindful, which means that companies must – and indeed do – have a new role to play in society. To some extent this also runs alongside that of the institutions, and indeed it must run alongside that of the institutions. At the same time, people must consume mindfully and thus put pressure on companies to renew themselves and keep up with the times” – Silvia Boccardi, Journalist and Social Equity Expert at Will Media

A doctoral thesis looking at CSS applied in Italian foundries

Working well even in difficult situations. And not only to achieve the optimum results, but to thrive in one’s work. These are the ideas that Leonardo Ciocca worked on in his psychology PhD thesis discussed at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. Ciocca explored a particular aspect of good corporate culture: managing to make even difficult and dangerous production environments liveable, respecting each role, focussing on results but also on people.

The paper, the research summary explains, explores the constructs of Corporate Social Sustainability (“CSS”) culture and sustainability of organisational life in Italian foundries, which are regarded by the sector literature as high-risk organisations. This is one of the crucial points of Ciocca’s work: taking difficult and risky production conditions as the subject of the research. Foundries, he explains, are commonly perceived as “3D Industries: Dirty, Dusty and Dangerous’, with little regard for environmental, social and economic sustainability. Ciocca’s hypothesis is that in these environments it is possible to identify cultural elements that can “clean up” a “dirty” job, so as to improve the sustainability of working life and contribute to the transition from “3D Industries” to “3P Industries”: Profit, Planet and People”.

The author first considers the concept of CSS, then the particular field in which it is to be applied, and then the research method to use. The next step was therefore to investigate CSS in Italian foundries, trying to draw both theoretical and operational conclusions.

Ciocca writes in his conclusions that the application of CSS to these particular environments “offers opportunities to improve working conditions and increase organisational well-being in foundry companies”, in addition to this, “it has been noted that this positively impacts on health and safety protection conditions of the staff involved, a factor that could translate into increasing the attractiveness of the sector for young workers, as well as an improvement in the sector’s reputation in the eyes of public opinion and of the workers themselves’. For Ciocca, then, the big challenge “is guiding foundries to invest in the sustainability of staff and the culture of CSS, supporting their employees, especially those in management and responsibility roles, through training courses that combine management aspects (…) and the protection of employees (…)”. A difficult path to put into practice, which involves the “evolution of management and management policies” and then the “overhaul of the plant and technological side”.

Tute pulite per un lavoro sporco. Culture della Corporate Social Sustainability nelle fonderie italiane (A clean suit for dirty work. Corporate Social Sustainability culture in Italian foundries)

Leonardo Ciocca

Thesis, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan, PhD Course in Psychology, Cycle XXXIV, 2020

Just translated and out in Italy, this is a book that delves into the realities and impact of Artificial Intelligence

Robots or in other words, Artificial Intelligence. In our everyday lives and in the work of companies. AI is the most recent industrial revolution that, like its predecessors, both fascinates and frightens, and must be understood and managed, however it is approached. To do this, you might want to carefully read “The Rule of Robots. How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Everything” written by Martin Ford, one of the most thoughtful and disenchanted experts of the subject, who in a few hundred pages that can almost be read in one sitting, has managed to illustrate the reality of AI, its advantages and its considerable risks . In addition to explaining the need for governance to be put in place.

Ford first explains and describes the various roles of Robots. This includes the invention of driverless cars, applications that translate incomprehensible writing into meaningful sentences, homes that switch on lights and heating at our command, the complete automation of restaurants and supermarkets, the manufacture of weapons capable of killing without human intervention, disinfectant robots capable of eliminating all bacteria from hospital rooms, algorithms used in personnel selection, discoveries in the chemical, health and energy fields made possible by deep learning and sophisticated facial recognition systems used by governments to identify political opponents. Ford does not forget AGI, the “Artificial general intelligence” that, if realised, would allow a machine to communicate, reason and conceive ideas on a human level or even higher.

What is perhaps most important about Ford’s book, however, is the series of insights into some crucial phases of AI. Its control, its effects on labour and business, on social living, on climate change, its positive power to solve a number of crucial issues for all of us provided it is guided well and democratically.

Martin’s book only appears like a journey into the world of robots, because it is actually a serious analysis of what AI really is and what it could be.

Rule of the Robots. How Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Everything

Martin Ford

il Saggiatore, 2022

Recurrences and similarities. During this difficult period, there is much being said and written about the 1980s. Remembering its glories: Italy becoming World Cup champions in Madrid on 11 July 1982, just forty years ago. But also its darker legacy: “Inflation (8%) returns to 1986 levels” read the “Il Sole24Ore” headline on Saturday 2 July. Celebrating the successes of a country that was trying to draw a line under the anguish and mourning of the “anni di piombo” (years of lead) with a great sporting and popular celebration. And not forgetting the risks, as then, to the standard of living and purchasing power of Italian families.

Anniversaries have an extraordinary amount of appeal. They allow us to play with the bittersweet taste of memory, selecting from it that which pleases us the most. But they risk causing us to drift along on melancholy and nostalgia, deluding us into thinking that “the way we were” is better than the way we are and perhaps will be. And so it is perhaps worth partially leveling the playing field and turning to a brutal historical reconstruction. The future of memory, in the patterns of intellectual and moral duties, calls for a lucid comparison of the past and the future. And critical awareness.

Let’s take a closer look, then. At that very July 1982 final between Italy and Germany, on the pitch of the Santiago Bernabéu stadium in Madrid. On the pitch, the Azzurri coached by Enzo Bearzot (here their names, each going on to become a legend: Zoff, Gentile, Cabrini, Bergomi, Collovati, Scirea, Conti, Tardelli, Rossi, Oriali, Graziani and, on the bench, Bordon, Dossena, Marini, Causio and Altobelli) and the Germans coached by Jupp Derwall. In the stands, next to the tall and strutting King Juan Carlos of Spain, the President of the Italian Republic, Sandro Pertini, all bursting with energy and cheering wholeheartedly. It ended, as everyone knows, 3-1 to us. A triumph.

“You don’t realise what you have done for your country,” Pertini told the Italian players immediately after the victory, “intending to emphasise that it was not “only” a football result, but something more substantial, confirming that sport, when it becomes legend, takes on an anthropological value,” with all the scenes “of a secular and mythological theatre,” recounts the skilful writer Giuseppe Lupo (“Il Sole24Ore”, 21 June).

A date that takes a sporting success as its symbol and turns it into a metaphor for a redemption from the gloom of the past and a rebirth in the name of a radical renewal of behaviour and hopes.

Behind us, we leave behind the dark and painful era that began with the massacre in Piazza Fontana, Milan, in December 1969 and was followed by attacks, ambushes, shootings, from the bombs of the neo-fascist “trame nere” involving bodies within the State and the killings by the Brigate Rosse terrorists and other extreme left-wing extremist groups. Political and social tensions. The dramatic 1973 oil crisis. Inflation ravaging the economy, topping double digits.

Looking forward, an extraordinary will to live. The liberalist economic policy of Ronald Reagan in the USA and Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain (“There’s no such thing as society, there are individual men and women”). The signs of a coming “lightness” (in the vein of Italo Calvino’s ‘”American Lessons” and an extraordinary novel by Milan Kundera, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, which quickly became a catchphrase for the irony of TV broadcasts, from RAI with “Quelli della notte” and “Indietro tutta” with Renzo Arbore and the Mediaset channels with “Drive in” and “Emilio”). Everything was a bright colourful mix of fashion and manners, elegance and advertising (“Milan to drink” declared a successful ad for an alcoholic drink), a turbo-economy fuelling a growing stock market and major investments thanks to the activism of small and medium-sized enterprises, but also unscrupulous speculative finance (the “making money by using money”).

A dynamic and greedy tale, nonetheless vital to tell. But not the only story to be remembered.

Because that unforgettable 1982 World Cup celebration year also has other dates to be etched in our minds. 30 April, in Palermo, the assassination of the Sicilian PCI secretary Pio La Torre and his bodyguard Rosario Di Salvo. 3 September, again in Palermo, the Via Carini massacre, when Carabinieri General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa (who had been the city’s prefect for a hundred days with a clear mandate to fight the Mafia but was left isolated and powerless) lost his life, along with his wife Emanuela Setti Carraro and escort officer Domenico Russo: “The meeting of Cosa Nostra and political and economic sectors”, said magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino on the origins of the crime. La Torre had been a supporter of a stricter and more incisive anti-mafia law, which was finally approved by Parliament only after Dalla Chiesa’s murder.

Here it is, the full picture of 1982. A party. And a massacre. The joy of recovery. And the mourning of a mafia war that left ten thousand victims in its wake in the early 1980s across Sicily, Calabria and Campania. Ten Thousand (a well-constructed account is laid out in the pages of Enrico Deaglio’s “The Red Harvest”, Il Saggiatore).

To put it succinctly: there was Milan to drink and Palermo to die.

Once again, the portrait of Italy is multifaceted, contrasting, laughable and dramatic.

Those 1980s of social and political firsts (including the first socialist Prime Minister in the history of the Republic: Bettino Craxi), of economic dynamism, but, with a rift that would reverberate in the years to come.

Indeed, public debt exploded, rising rapidly from 60% to over 120% of GDP within the decade. Public spending to maintain widespread living standards and the “buy consensus”, debts dumped on the shoulders of new generations.

The “generational pact” (where each generation is better off than the last, because fathers and mothers invest in their children’s future) was broken. And we are still suffering the consequences, spanning crisis, uncertainty and fragile trust.

That is why the headlines during these times comparing today’s inflation with the 1980s are disturbing. It reminds us of political errors and short-sighted calculations, a lack of sense of responsibility towards the future and unscrupulousness in administering public affairs.

It’s true, today we have greater limitations and constraints, starting with the EU’s decisions and the need for convergence of public accounts. Yet, we must commit to not giving in on easy public spending, on the rush to debt to satisfy the electorate, corporations and customers.

Indeed, that very 1982 still has lessons to teach us, to reflect on. Victory at the World Cup was the result of seriousness, commitment, sporting quality and team spirit. That responsible and supportive community spirit is still sorely needed.

And after the murders of those early 1980s, it was aptly in Palermo, drawing on the lesson of Dalla Chiesa and La Torre, but also of other politicians (Pier Santi Mattarella) and men of the institutions (Terranova, Costa, Chinnici, Basile, D’Aleo, Giuliano, Cassarà and many others), that the state was able to set up the mass trial of the Cosa Nostra bosses, which began in 1986 and ended in 1992 with the severe and well-founded convictions of the most powerful of them. There, the state won and the mafia lost. The state wins when it performs the role of state well.

And this is a good memory, worthy of being passed on to new generations.

(Photo by Peter Robinson/EMPICS via Getty Images)

A recently published article summarises the definition and meaning of a word that is full of content

Archives are places where memories and work are stored, repositories of countless lives, places full of life, meditation, and stories that have finished but are not forgotten. The word “archive” can be discussed at length. Above all, we need to separate the word from the useless and dusty image that it is often associated with. Gianni Penzo Doria does this in “A new definition of archives”, which was recently published in the Italian Journal of Library, Archives & Information Science.

The article does not attempt to introduce a new idea of archives but to explore the features and specific characteristics of ones that are already in circulation, leading to a new definition of “archives” that is derived from existing ones. This is an important task because it helps readers, and anyone who wants to learn more about the subject, make sense of the definitions and concepts that contain different worlds and ways of understanding what it means to preserve documents and evidence from the past. Doria began this task “after an in-depth review of the established guidelines on this specific subject, analysing each lemma in the new proposal, word for word”.

This comes with an important premise: “No definition is valid in every context”. He also acknowledges that “archival theory seems to suffer heavily from a heterogeneous view, not quite a rigorous scientific approach, but full of unexpected conceptual and lexical contingencies”. This could only be the case since – on closer inspection – everything that lies behind the word “archive” reflects the history that the archive preserves, one that is made up of lives, events, connections and experiences that are different every time. Defining an archive once and for all seems almost impossible (and is often misleading). Doria explains: “Each term, with its meanings and contexts, does not provide a simple meaning, but refers to a specific set for each disciplinary and cultural tradition”.

Gianni Penzo Doria’s article may not be an easy read, but it is nonetheless a must-read for anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of the importance of storing memories in places that we know as “archives”.

Una nuova definizione di archivio (A new definition of archives)

Gianni Penzo Doria

JLIS.it, Italian Journal of Library, Archives & Information Science, May 2022, vol. 13 Edition 2, p156-173. 18p.

A book about the early 20th century that helps us understand the present and be better prepared for the future

If we want to understand who we are today and who we will be tomorrow, we need to understand what we were like yesterday. So, a well-rounded view of history is an essential tool for everyone. History told as more than a mere sequence of dates, diplomatic agreements and major events, described through a complex (yet understandable) collection of views and in-depth insights that look at the past from several different points of view. A history of people, men and women, companies and institutions. History as an integral part of everyone’s culture, and enjoyable to read, like the recently published “L’alba del Novecento. Alle radici della nostra cultura” (The Dawn of the 20th Century: The roots of our culture) by Fabio Fabbri.

The book describes the ’dawn of the 20th century, in other words, from 1895 to 1914, when a genuine “cultural revolution” took place in every field of human knowledge, and led us to where we are today. Writing in a style that is easy to read but not lacking in precision, Fabbri uses different sources to describe those twenty years when the world, our world, became modern: the roots of our contemporary culture.

The book briefly retraces the “great history”, while addressing the major transitions that went with it. For example, in just a few months in 1900, we went from the inauguration of the Universal Exhibition in Paris to the publication of Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams or Max Planck’s quantum theory, to Sergei Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.2. Similarly, in 1913, while the Second Balkan War was raging in Europe, a 12-year-old Louis Armstrong was already playing his first notes on a trumpet in New Orleans. The tragic sinking of the Titanic – which marked the end of an era in 1912 – is almost magically linked to the sombre introduction of Mann’s The Magic Mountain, “the great poem of death”, which he began writing that year. The cannon shots that started the First World War are echoed in Kafka’s reflections, because he began writing The Trial in August 1914.

In his conclusions, the author explains that he wanted to write a history “linked to relationships with other sciences and all forms of intellectual expression, with equal status: cultural synchrony. In other words, one that includes the history of art, science, literature and psychoanalysis”. In hindsight, history should be told in this way, given that human actions are always the results of many different elements.

Fabbri’s book is easy to read but would have been difficult to write because producing a synchronised account of what happened is the result of a great deal of work. It helps you understand why our world is the way it is today, and not any other way.

L’alba del Novecento. Alle radici della nostra cultura (The Dawn of the 20th Century: The roots of our culture)

Fabio Fabbri

Laterza, 2022