Female workers, sports champions, writers, journalists, designers. And many more. The history of Pirelli is closely intertwined with a whole feminine world to be read, interpreted, and imagined. Company registers, features, personnel files, photographs, articles: the archive tells the story of a company that is also a story of women. Rosa Navoni was the first woman to be taken on at Pirelli, in the factory in Via Ponte Seveso in Milan. In 1873, aged just 15, she became a worker in the “playground balls” department. Her name appears in the company register, and her face appears in the volume that celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Group in 1922. There is also a First Lady in the typically male-dominated world of motor racing: Maria Teresa de Filippis, a countess born in Naples in 1926, became a champion racing driver. In a photo in our archive, we see her preparing for the 1949 Stella Alpina race in a Taraschi Urania Sport, powered by BMW and fitted with Pirelli Stella Bianca tyres. Women and words: the writers whose contributions appeared in Pirelli magazine between the 1950s and the 1970s, included Fernanda Pivano, who in 1953 helped many readers discover the world of American literature, from Francis Scott Fitzgerald to John Steinbeck. Gianna Manzini, who explicitly describes “Donne al mare“ – women by the sea “who feel their power in an absolute manner, who are free, and heedless of their daily fights, as well as of their daily victories”. Then there is Camilla Cederna, who invented puns for “Un viaggio ma“ – “A journey but…” to be driven on Cinturato tyres, and Lietta Tornabuoni, who interviewed Pasolini at his home in Rome: “Even if he hadn’t be driven by curiosity, and by the joy of playing and showing off, he could still have been an actor: playing the part of a poet or possibly a symbolic apparition (Destiny, Death, or something like that) in a French film of 1937.”

During those same years, internationally renowned designers such as Lora Lamm, Jeanne Michot Grignani, Christiane Beylier and Christa Tschopp all helped create a graphic style like no other in the history of visual communication. They created advertising campaigns for trend-setting raincoats, drawing women riding bicycles, Vespa scooters and Lambrettas with Pirelli tyres, and they reinvented the logo by experimenting with new shapes for the Long P. A logo that, for a century and a half, has brought together stories of work and talent, resourcefulness and creativity. Stories in the feminine, too.

What’s the mood like in Milan, nowadays? Changeable but nonetheless intense, compelling, troubling.

A supportive mood, inspired by Ukraine, invaded by the Russian army – blue and yellow patches appearing in the squares and on monuments, political and cultural declarations, an air-raid siren to signal the show is about to begin at Andrée Rush Shammah’s Teatro Parenti theatre to emphasise the sympathy we, here in front of a stage, feel for the Ukrainian people who are holding out despite the bombings.

A scientific mood, thanks to the inauguration of the first experimental laboratories at the Human Technopole, boasting five incredibly sophisticated microscopes that allow for the sequencing of a hundred DNA strands simultaneously in 48 hours: science and research, health as a key public good and awareness of what’s needed to improve the quality of life.

A reminiscing mood, due to the 30^th anniversary of the “mani pulite” (“clean hands”) operation and its criminal investigations of bribery, giving rise to a profusion of books and conferences, as well as critical and self-deprecating stories, although widespread corruption continues to shame decent administrators, companies and citizens.

A violent mood, with children’s gangs that, coming from the outskirts and outlying neighbourhoods, rampage through “a Milan that sparkles”, causing brawls, robberies, stabbings. Marginalisation, unrest, social recrimination, a frenzied desire for quick cash to be spent on disposable goods. “Nightlife under police watch to stop complaints” proclaim the headlines of Milan’s major newspapers, acknowledging the exasperation of those who live on the besieged streets and squares of the city centre.

A fashionable mood, with catwalks, models, stylish window displays in the Quadrilatero upscale shopping area, black Mercedes cars and chauffeurs, not a chance to find a place to eat or sleep if you haven’t booked it weeks ago. All it’s glamour, with some recognition here and there of the difficult times we’re experiencing (no music at the Armani fashion show).

An innovative mood yearning for long-term changes, such as old neighbourhoods being revived (like the NoLo – North of Loreto – one, in the north-east area between Viale Monza, Via Padova and Via Greco, which we discussed in our blog post from two weeks ago) and new trendy settlements in the south-west area surrounding the Fondazione Prada, nicknamed Pradate, with its contemporary art and luxurious feel.

Then again, metropolises are just like that: changeable, multifaceted, their complex nature embodying their beauty, their wealth, their perdition.

“Milan is the only place that comprises all of Italy’s merits and faults”, pronounces Gianni Biondillo, urban architect by profession, author of crime novels by passion, leafing through the pages of his latest book, recently published by Guanda, entitled I cani del barrio (The neighbourhood dogs). The story sees our beloved hero, inspector Ferraro, investigating the attempted murder of an entrepreneur described as “ethical, much courted by politicians, who built his fortune fighting the mafia and organised crime”. The inquiry begins in the Quarto Oggiaro area, where the author grew up, and then meanders towards Viale Padova (NoLo, once again…), Corvetto, Rogoredo. Neighbourhoods whose roots are steeped into difficult social settings and that are still undergoing anthropological and social transformation. Actually, “inspector Ferraro is not the protagonist of my books – Milan is. Everyone thinks I write crime fiction, but it’s just my way to do some city planning, I write essays that interpret the city.”

What it all boils down to is that one of the best ways to try and understand and narrate Milan is to rely on its literature, such as its crime, or noir, fiction. According to Alessandro Robecchi, the creator (for Sellerio publishing) of Carlo Monterossi, author of trash TV programmes and detective by accident, “Milan is small, locations and sections of society lie side by side. For instance, in the San Siro neighbourhood, within an area 200 metre wide, you will find both a footballer’s mansion and the destitute casbah that’s arisen in Piazza Selinunte. Pockets of hardship emerge in the so-called residential areas: it’s such discrepancies, existing so close to each other, that make narrating Milan a pleasure.”

Thus, the choice made by the Corriere della Sera for the cover story of the latest edition of its culture supplement “La Lettura” (“Reading”), appears particularly shrewd and appropriate. It’s about “Milan’s crime fiction”, its roots going back to the books of Giorgio Scerbanenco (it’s worth noting, considered recent events, that he was of Ukrainian origin and changed his name, Vladimir Scerbanenko, so as not to feel alienated in his adopted city), and it looks at stories, settings and literary styles by authors such as Biondillo and Robecchi, mentioned above, as well as Luca Crovi, Gian Andrea Cerone, Enrico Vanzina, Hans Tuzzi, Andrea G. Pinketts, Rosa Teruzzi and many others.

Tuzzi explains that “Milan has always been an experimental lab where decisions affecting the whole of Italy can be tried out first. This trait, as well as its abrupt accelerations, makes it an emblematic city and the most modern and European among Italian cities, also in terms of crime. Its hoard of wealth and money causes shadows and social conflict, and these are all contradictions that suit the crime genre as conceived by André Gide and Carlo Emilio Gadda – stories that represent our times precisely because they revolve around very specific crimes.”

Milan as a paradigm, then, in these restless, tense, controversial times – yet, this could well be the reason why it makes for interesting living, as well as writing.

A recently published essay explores the technical and legal aspects of Made in Italy goods

Corporate culture in good quality manufacturing needs to be defended, as well as appreciated. It is a matter of rights and creativity, and, indeed, designers should become well acquainted with this topic. This is the theme around which Valentina Barella’s essay revolves, published on the journal Osservatorio del diritto civile e commerciale (Civil and corporate law watchdog).
Entitled “La creatività della moda in Italia e negli Stati Uniti: necessità di un nuovo approccio di tutela” (“Fashion creativity in Italy and in the United States: the need for a new safeguarding approach”), the essay tackles the legal rights related to fashion, describing the many instances of counterfeit goods, copies, imitations and other threats to creative outputs. The goal is to compare the legal protection offered in Italy (under European laws) – looking at diverse and at times overlapping disciplines such as trademark law, patent law, copyright law and design rights – with the protection offered in the United States, where no design rights have been laid down.
Indeed, at the heart of the matter lies the sharp difference between the two types of protection available in Europe, which depend on whether a design has been registered or not. In other words, if Europe offers two forms of protection, contingent on design registration or lack thereof, in the United States protection derives from the trademark’s developed identity and the feasibility of a physical and conceptual separation of creative from functional aspects – a challenging condition to prove in order to benefit from copyright protection. Due to the difficulties involved in this rather uncertain and unclear requirement, the goal is, ultimately, to identify alternative forms of protection and to consider the crucial role of social media, which have become the new battlefields on which these rights are fought out. Valentina Barella emphasises how important it is to be able to rely on a global system that can affect complex digital platforms and as such can overcome territorial issues without undermining the critical role undertaken by Antitrust Authorities. Thus, when defending creativity, the focus lies on the vital link between creativity itself and the places where it is explicitly expressed.
Barella’s essay certainly embodies some technical and legal aspects that are not easy to handle, but has the merit of shining a bright light on a too often neglected facet of corporate culture that daily contributes to the promotion of the best Italian manufacturing worldwide.

“La creatività della moda in Italia e negli Stati Uniti: necessità di un nuovo approccio di tutela” (“Fashion creativity in Italy and in the United States: the need for a new safeguarding approach”)
Valentina Barella
Osservatorio del diritto civile e commerciale, 2/2021, pp. 321-346

https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.4478/103098

The key aspects of ethics, enterprise and finance summarised in a collaboratively written book

Economy and finance confronted with ethics and concern for others – an encounter that needs to be constructive in nature and that must be guided with great attention. Attention that can be heightened by reading Etica ed educazione finanziaria (Ethics and financial education), an excellent collection curated by Paolo Moro and Mario Pomini, who have assembled contributions by economists and legal experts which apply an interdisciplinary approach and linear presentation to some recent perspectives developed within the spheres of scientific research and teaching practice. Indeed, the work’s emphasis – significant and not to be neglected – is precisely on those links between ethics and financial education, and, in fact, the entire book is based on the argument surrounding the central role that financial education, also understood as civic education, has nowadays.

Thus, some major themes of the day are explored in detail: consumer ethics and the “merit” of debt, ethical and legal aspects in the provision of investment services, the financial culture of small and medium businesses and of banks – also in terms of sustainability – and how speculative investment is structured within the financial system. This work also includes a timely and up-to-date view on fintech education, with a legal and economic analysis on algorithmic market trading and the thorny issue of investing in crypto assets.

Hence, the book outlines the necessity for a “financial culture” that is still struggling to make its way in Italy and that could actually and legitimately accompany precisely that good corporate culture now seen as an essential part of economy and society, though still in need of constant attention.

In just under 200 pages, Moro and Pomini (full professor of Philosophy of Law the former and associate professor of Political Economy the latter, both at the University of Padua), provide a kind of clever handbook useful to find one’s way along the circuitous paths connecting ethics to finance, and among the proper relationships that constitute a major part of society and financial structures.

Etica ed educazione finanziaria (Ethics and financial education)

Paolo Moro, Mario Pomini (curated by)

Francio Angeli, 2022

“Our idea was to travel together through history, with our eyes firmly on the future. For the past 150 years, Pirelli has been able to anticipate change thanks to the robustness of its corporate culture and its ability always to be a protagonist in the present. This means we can now move forward with a brand that is well established the world over. We believe it is important for us to share this story with our city, with our country and with all those people and communities around the world that we deal with every day. Our thanks go to all the 30,000 people at Pirelli who piece together our story every day”. This was how Marco Tronchetti Provera commented on the show that on 28 January launched the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the company of which he is Executive Vice President & CEO. The event, anchored by Ilaria D’Amico on the stage of the Piccolo Teatro, brought testimonies, voices and images from the company archive, presenting a history of industry, culture, lifestyle, technology and passion, all of which began on 28 January 1872. Ferruccio De Bortoli, Stefano Domenicali, Paolo Mieli, Renzo Piano, Alberto Pirelli, Ferruccio Resta, and Annamaria Testa, as well as Tronchetti Provera himself, retraced the most significant moments of the story. A century and a half that has been lived by Pirelli in the way that has become its distinguishing feature: in its international dimension and in its factories, in its bond with culture and artists, the creativity of its communication, its presence in sport and motorsport, and its constant striving for innovation and technological advances.

A journey through the past, present and future of the Italian company that pioneered the rubber industry, closely entwined with the story of a family, a city and a nation.

Event

Our site gets a makeover to celebrate the company’s 150th anniversary

Making Pirelli’s corporate culture known to the world means always using the latest digital tools, starting with our site, which now has great new content as well as new ways to make it even more user-friendly and intuitive.

There are digital hubs to support editorial projects, ranging from cantodellafabbrica.org to rivistapirelli.org, through to the celebrations for the Pirelli Tower on 60grattacielo.org and the new platform devoted to the company’s 150th anniversary, at www.pirellibuildsthefuture.org. There are new features such as “Stories from the World of Pirelli”, new podcasts, and a new, constantly updated section devoted to the intense training activities put on by our Foundation.

If, by any chance, you’ve landed on the fondazionepirelli.org site in the past few days, you will surely have noticed that something has changed, But what exactly is it? Let’s find out together.

There’s a new “style”, with a new font for the titles of the articles and for the various sections. A new “focus on” menu, giving you direct access to all the digital platforms available. A section devoted entirely to podcasts. The section devoted to the Historical Archive has been expanded with a new way of accessing documents: browsing by theme. A new page will also give you access to the virtual tours offered by the Foundation. A new virtual tour of the Bicocca degli Arcimboldi will soon be online, showing the extraordinary Renaissance building at the heart of our Headquarters. The latest features also include an updated chatbot and a restyling of the rivistapirelli.org website.

Now we’ll let you enjoy your browse… See you for the next new features!

www.pirellibuildsthefuture.org, the new Pirelli Foundation website devoted to the company’s 150th anniversary is online. This digital platform is divided into five sections, where you will find content and detailed information about this important milestone.

“Through Time” is a timeline that, as the title suggests, takes us through the history of Pirelli from 1872 to the present day. The journey is divided into twenty-year periods, focusing in particular on the technological innovations and on the challenges that the company has faced in the first 150 years of its existence. Next to this timeline is a brief history of the world, with the most important events that have taken place in a century and a half of global history.

“The Exhibition”: the new exhibition at the Pirelli Foundation retraces the company’s progress in research and experimentation, from past memories to future scenarios. From the technical know-how that has its roots in the challenging world of racing (“From Track to Road”) to the activities and projects to promote the company’s heritage (“Industrial Humanism and Corporate Culture”), by way of the new materials on display in the spaces devoted to the Historical Archive (“Let’s Look Inside”). And the exhibition could not be without multimedia installations that examine the theme of the virtual tyre and its evolution over time, with a look at what the future will bring.

“The Book”: here we have a preview of the publishing project Thinking Ahead (due for release in spring 2022), which highlights the leading role played by the company in the scientific and technical advances made in terms of processes and products. The book contains contributions from representatives of the institutions, including Maria Cristina Messa, Minister of University and Research, Ferruccio Resta and Guido Saracco, the rectors of the Politecnico Universities of Milan and Turin, and great Italian and international authors, such as Ian McEwan, Geoff Mulgan and David Weinberger, as well as leading lights from the world of art and culture, such as Renzo Piano and Salvatore Accardo.

“Visions”: the photographer Carlo Furgeri Gilbert goes into the heart of Pirelli’s Research & Development laboratories to record the transformation affecting raw materials and prototype tests for the creation of increasingly safe, sustainable tyres. The end result is a photo shoot and a video.

But more is on its way, so stay in touch with us to find out what’s next.

An investigation by the University of Catania highlights both their complexities and potential

Making a profit, but not just that – striking the best possible balance, also in terms of social and territorial responsibilities. These are the goals that hybrid organisations, characterised by a higher number of functional domains and the coexistence of different value systems, set for themselves. These are enterprises to be studied with care, just as Rosaria Ferlito and Rosario Faraci (post-doc researcher the former, professor of Business Economic and Management the latter, both at the University of Catania) do in their research paper “Sostenibilità e sistemi di Corporate Governance delle società benefit: il caso Illycaffè” (“Sustainability and corporate governance systems in benefit companies: the case study of Illycaffè”): a kind of exploration of this theme, first looking at the theory and then how it works in practice, through an concrete example of governance.

Hybrid companies, so the argument begins, represent a model of wider corporate governance that requires assuming responsibility not only in terms of ownership but also of stakeholders. Three aspects (real ones, of course) are investigated: balancing different principles, monitoring actions and results, and external communication, that is, how information is presented to public and stakeholders.

To achieve an accurate analysis, Ferlito and Faraci begin by looking at the theory, with an overall examination of benefit companies that, as well as pursuing profit, also focus on one or more common good goals, and then explore the case study of company Illycaffè.

The main point arising from this investigation is that human aspects as related to production management and organisation are crucial. This not only entail choosing the “right” people, but also their proper organisation into work teams, as well as clear operational guidelines, awareness of the goals to be achieved, and the notion of working for the sake of a group of people, not just for one’s own.

Ferlito and Faraci’s paper is an important one, because it strives to rationalise a difficult and constantly evolving theme.

Sostenibilità e sistemi di Corporate Governance delle società benefit: il caso Illycaffè (“Sustainability and corporate governance systems in benefit companies: the case study of Illycaffè”)

Rosaria Ferlito, Rosario Faraci

Corporate Governance and Research & Development Studies – Open Access, (2, 2021)

A recently published book analyses our current situation and its possible outlooks

Much more connected yet extremely divided – a critical condition that diminishes the chances for growth (and not only in economic terms) and social cohesion, as well as positive feelings towards the future. Here is where the tangle of issues and difficulties faced by Western social and economic systems lies. It needs to be taken seriously and to be fully understood. This is why Un mondo diviso. Come l’Occidente ha perso crescita e coesione sociale (A world divided. How growth and social cohesion have declined in the West) makes for useful reading – it is a superlative and informative work by Eugenio Occorsio and Stefano Scarpetta (the former is a journalist, the latter is the Director of the Employment, Labour and Social Affairs Directorate at OECD).

This book provides a clear analysis of what has happened in the Western world due to the growing gap in income and assets, very limited social mobility and a strained middle class. A situation highly exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has ravaged and disrupted the world as we know it. The two authors examine the past and explore what has changed after these last two years. Above all, they wonder whether the measures adopted by governments worldwide have succeeded in containing the impact on the most vulnerable areas of society and look at which opportunities and challenges we now face in order to rebuild a fairer economy.

The work is structured over nine sections: a snapshot of rising inequalities, the analysis of how the so-called “social mobility elevator” broke down, an exploration of “growth”, the depiction of a distraught middle class, an outline of opportunities, a piece on the theme of redistribution and one on training and education, and finally an investigation on the condition of younger people followed by a close examination of gender gap issues. The conclusion drawn suggests that we can expect some positive prospects in the future, but that these will only be seized by those who “have the tools” to do so.

This is not just due to the events occurred in the past two years, the authors emphasise, although the pandemic has caused the worst health crisis of the century, as well as a vicious economic and social crisis that has raged against the most vulnerable areas of society, such as low-skilled and temporary workers, migrants, women and young people. Discrepancies have become starker and the consequences threaten to be long-term.

Of course, Occorsio and Scarpetta also ask themselves how a supportive social fabric and a fairer economic system can be rebuilt. The answer lies in being able to imagine a better world that even surpasses the one we just left behind, and attempt to fix the framework itself, not merely solve temporary issues.

Occorsio and Scarpetta’s work features a great quality: it narrates and explains complex and serious problems using a clear and comprehensible language, which is no small matter.

Un mondo diviso. Come l’Occidente ha perso crescita e coesione sociale (A world divided. How growth and social cohesion have declined in the West)

Eugenio Occorsio, Stefano Scarpetta

Laterza, 2022

To achieve a more balanced and stable culture, better quality of life and a future we can look forward to with hope, we need science – and scientific research and the development of technologies on a human scale need more women scientists. “Too few young women choose to pursue scientific studies, we need to do more” asserted Prime Minister Mario Draghi last week, while visiting the laboratories of the Istituto nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, situated below the Gran Sasso massif in Italy, one of the most renowned research centres for nuclear physics worldwide.

“Doing more” can be translated into an actual figure: a billion euro, an investment aimed at strengthening the teaching of STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths) and overcome gender stereotypes, still perpetuated by the fact that even today only one young woman out of five chooses to study one of these disciplines at university level.

This billion is part of a large investment package for education and research totalling €30 billion, a portion of PNRR (the Italian recovery and resilience plan) funds. Thanks to the EU’s Recovery Plan, €6.9 billion will be devolved to basic research activities, with the clear aim of trying to rapidly bridge the gap that, historically, has always set Italy apart from other major European countries. A gap that, unfortunately, is widening. Indeed, according to data presented in Parliament by territorial entrepreneurial institution Confindustria on 15 February, in Italy only €158 per person are invested to fund public research (universities and the National Research Council of Italy) as compared to the EU average of €263 and Germany’s €415. This figure amounts to 0.56% of the Italian GDP (which has remained stable for the past 20 years) as opposed to the EU average of 0.8% and Germany’s 1%. Basically, it’s just not enough.

This investment is boosted by private contributions, which increased from 0.5% in 2000 to 0.94% in 2020. Yet, while Italian companies are attempting to become more competitive on international markets that are increasingly more technological and selective, Italy actually lacks appropriate support to conduct basic research, let alone applied research.

Confindustria suggests that greater public funding is needed – and that it should amount to at least the EU average – as well as a long-term fiscal stimulus to encourage private investments. This could then generate synergy between the public and private spheres, as the finest instances of collaboration between the academic and the corporate sectors show (the positive experiences by the two polytechnic universities in Milan and Turin are extremely indicative).

More research and more science, then – and more women involved, following the examples of Fabiola Gianotti, Director-General at CERN; Lucia Votano, the first woman appointed as director of the Gran Sasso laboratory; Maria Chiara Carrozza, president of the CNR; Maria Cristina Messa, Minister of University and Research (and a medical doctor engaged in research work); and all the other women who are increasingly gaining success in prestigious universities and international research centres.

More women scientists. More women researchers with prominent leadership roles, as it happens with men. More women in STEM.

And speaking of STEM university degrees, a point could be made. A point contained by one letter, the “A” of arts – that is, the range of humanities subjects that should be interwoven with scientific knowledge. A move from STEM to STEAM, taking into consideration a deep-rooted feature of Italian culture that characterised the best eras of Humanism and the Renaissance, as well as 20^th-century industrial progress: that of a multidisciplinary “polytechnic culture”, where multifaceted knowledge is a strength, where maths and philosophy, engineering and literature, neurological sciences and sociology, history, economy and chemistry, aesthetics and information technology, interlink. Some people even see interdisciplinarity as a trait of women’s intelligence and cognizance.

STEAM and not just STEM, then – this was the outcome of the long and detailed process that Assolombarda carried out in past years. A conclusion confirmed by the evolution of the so-called “knowledge economy”, whereby different yet complementary viewpoints and sets of knowledge intersect, while the development of Artificial Intelligence further adds new technical challenges and philosophical issues related to the nature of sentience and possible directions to follow.

Science and beauty, in essence, and the beauty of science, just as Primo Levi taught us in his intriguing Il sistema periodico (The periodic table) and Leonardo Sinisgalli in his Furor mathematicus (Mathematical madness). Levi was a chemist and an author while Sinisgalli was a poet and an engineer, and the works of both should be studied, read and reread by everyone, and possibly inspiring future women scientists.