Figures come in handy when discussing significant reforms and a socially sustainable future. The first figure we’re looking at is 400,000 – the number of job vacancies that companies fear might not be able to fill this autumn – a season that will be driven by fierce recovery, with an expected GDP growth of about 6% – due to the lack of specialised workers, especially in the high tech sectors, those that drive development (the data comes from an investigation undertaken by “Affari&Finanza”, supplement of la Repubblica, 13 September).

The second figure to consider consists of a series of numbers: 3.5 million people are in receipt of “citizenship income” (welfare allowance dependant on income and citizenship); out of these, 1.3 million people are employable, yet only 152,000 of them have succeeded in finding a job (though it’s not known how many found it through job centres), and only 400 people were hired by entrepreneurs who decided to take advantage of legal incentives (thought of by many as too restrictive and involving too much bureaucracy). Considering the big gap between 1.3 million and 400, this decision that claimed to “abolish poverty” through employment seems to have miserably failed.

A further significant figure is provided by the replacement rate of the “quota 100” pension scheme (taking retirement at 62 years old, after 38 years’ worth of contributions): 0.4 for each one of the three years the scheme has been in operation. This means that, on average, only 40 new workers have been hired to replace 100 retired ones. Another failure, considering that the plan was to replace an elderly workforce with a younger one.

Yet, it came at a significant cost to the public purse: 30 billion in three years for both measures – 11.6 for “quota 100” and almost 20 in “citizenship income”.

These two projects were waved about like propaganda flags, the former by the Lega Nord party led by Matteo Salvini and the latter by the Five Star Movement, in the days of Giuseppe Conte’s “yellow-green” government, when the two parties formed a coalition. Two populist plans useful for attracting votes, but that in reality lacked effectiveness and came at a very high cost. And that now have to be abolished or, at least, drastically reformed, as per the figures in hand.

The current government led by Mario Draghi rightly points towards reform (as also urged by recent well-documented analyses by the OECD). The Five Star exponents defend their choice, while Salvini, speaking for the Lega Nord, threatens to make a stand to safeguard “quota 100” and renew it for another two years, finding some support in Maurizio Landini’s CGIL (Italian General Confederation of Labour) party. Yet, just on the eve of the administrative election due at the beginning of October, both political parties have adopted propagandistic tactics. And faced with the noise made by identity politics, the government shows, once more, a clear willingness for reforms and for moving forward.

No one, of course, doubts that some measures are needed to tackle the actual poverty experienced by a few millions of Italian people (something that basic income does too little to address, and does so badly, in skewed fashion and with too many opportunities for “crafty” people to benefit from it eluding legal requirements). Hence, adequate welfare measures will need to be perfected.

Tackling the issues of those finding their first jobs, those who lost theirs and need help to find new ones, of young people and women who can’t find employment because they’re not sufficiently qualified, of middle-aged individuals who find themselves off the market due to a reorganisation aimed at spreading digital technologies, is a different matter.

The paths that could be chosen concern above all education and training, long-term programmes ending with a qualification; a deep transformation of the policies and workings of job centres; a greater and better welfare system, with the government fine-tuning strategies and tangible choices that are closely linked with those who represent our social forces.

The challenge lies in linking education, training and employment in order to deal with the economy’s deep transformation, in decreasing the tax wedge to improve workers’ income and ease companies’ costs, in stimulating investments to create new qualified professional roles. In fact, these are precisely the issues that the indications included in the PNRR (Piano nazionale di resilienza e ripresa), the Italian recovery and resilience plan, together with funding from the EU, aim to address. And, looking forward, and in relation to the knowledge economy, it’s worth remembering that “every euro invested in education is also invested in the whole country”, as Francesco Profumo – former rector at the Politecnico di Torino and former Italian Minister of Education, now president of the Compagnia di San Paolo foundation – loves to repeat.

While with regard to pensions, we need to take responsibility in acknowledging the disastrous effects of “quota 100”: it has deeply decreased the number of active workers, depriving companies and the public authorities of top-quality skills, without adequately creating new jobs and, for instance, forcing Luca Zaia, the governor of Veneto, to put a great number of recently retired doctors back on duty due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Goodbye, then, “quota 100”. The government is researching “balanced solutions” to avoid a transition from the current situation to a sharp increase of the retirement age to 67 years. The debate is open, and it needs to move forward with competence and a sense of responsibility, knowing full well that Italy, just now, is in need of development, employment, and welfare – and not of the old unproductive kind. And that public expenditure should be devolved to investments in the growth of quality and sustainability, not gimmicks designed to grab voters’ attention.

“This prize rewards those who write

living stories, and who, through writing

that is never demeaned by sermonising

entrusts to beauty all that has value,

responding to the vision of children,

to their exacting and timid curiosity,

to their silent,

at times cantankerous

need and desire for words.”

This previously unpublished poem by Roberto Piumini opens the events devoted to the first edition of the Premio Campiello Junior, which came about through the partnership between the Pirelli Libraries and the Premio Campiello.

The real protagonists will be young readers from all over Italy, who will be called upon to choose the winner: a popular jury consisting of 160 children aged 10 to 14, who will have the task of selecting the best book of fiction or poetry from the three finalists chosen by a technical jury.

Primary and lower-secondary school educators and teachers are invited to the presentation of the programme of events involving young people in the jury of readers. The event will take place online on Thursday 23 September 2021 at 5.30 p.m. During the meeting you will be able to see how to propose young people as candidates and learn about the educational initiatives – put on by the Pirelli Foundation in collaboration with the Campiello – that will accompany young readers on this adventure, also in the first months of 2022.

Speakers:

Antonio Calabrò, director of the Pirelli Foundation

Michela Possamai, IUSVE teacher and member of the Premio Campiello Junior Jury

Stefania Zuccolotto, member of the Management Committee of the Premio Campiello with responsibility for Campiello Junior

The booking system is available on this page. A link will be subsequently sent for connection on the Microsoft Teams platform.

To keep up to date on the initiatives of the Premio Campiello Junior, you can find more information on www.fondazionepirelli.org and www.premiocampiello.org.

We look forward to seeing you

On Sunday 12 September, Formula 1 drivers and teams will battle it out for the podium at Monza. The Brianza circuit has always been the scene of epic contests with great champions of the present, such as Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen, but also of the past, such as the unforgettable Juan Manuel Fangio, Gigi Villoresi, and Piero Taruffi. These are just some of the driving aces who have bound the history of Pirelli to that of the Italian Grand Prix, becoming the faces of a promotional project like no other.

The year was 1965. After studying the outcome of a market survey, Pirelli planned a new advertising campaign to capture and keep the multitude of new motorists, with cars registered between 1962 and 1963, who would inevitably need to change their tyres that year. This led to a new communication strategy – one that was destined to impose one of the company’s flagship products on the Italian market, after it had taken the world by storm: the Pirelli Cinturato. Patented in 1951, it immediately became synonymous with safety, durability, flexibility and comfort. Across the world, the judgment was unanimous: the Cinturato, in all its forms – from standard to summer to winter – was the most prestigious tyre on the market. It was produced under a Pirelli patent in 19 countries and each nation fell in love with it for a different reason: in Spain it was “the tyre your car was waiting for”, in Brazil they adored the beauty of the tread, and in Switzerland its safety, while in England it was chosen for its road handling.

From January to December 1965, all Italy was plastered with a promotional campaign with great ideas that came in the form of advertisements on paper, billboards, television and film. Pirelli was launching a campaign, now online on our website, with exceptional endorsers: Fangio, Maglioli, Villoresi, Bracco, Gonzales, Taruffi and Chiron. The return of these record-breakers and their sensational feats, as drivers in everyday attire, introduced a new style of highly emotional advertising that went on to affect sales in the following years.

“I used to race with your Stelvios. Now I have the Cinturato on my car. Extraordinario! It is a tyre that’s really different from the others. What is so amazing is the absolute precision if gives you”, crowed Manuel Fangio.

“Embroiders the road!”, screamed the poster of Gigi Villoresi.

“Ahora, velocidad y seguridad”, cheered José Froilan Gonzales with a wink.

“Sensationnel”, promised Chiron, who had been testing the tyre for years in the Monte Carlo Rally.

“Safer than ever!”, said Giovanni Bracco.

The end user was contacted all the time, every day: when he opened his newspaper and rode on public transport in the morning all the way until the evening, when he turned on the TV or spent a few hours at the cinema or reading a motoring magazine. All year long, these “travelling messages” flashed past the Italians. There was talk of the Cinturato everywhere. The smiling faces of driving champions appeared all over the place, telling of their experience of driving a Pirelli-fitted car. Thanks to their skills, their long lines of extraordinary victories and the key role they played in the history of motoring, these drivers were the perfect voice with which to talk of the power, innovation and safety of a tyre that not only changed the history of Pirelli, but the very way in which driving was viewed.

Ever since it was first opened in 1922, the Monza race track has been synonymous with speed. The first lap of honour was given to the heroes of the moment, Pietro Bordino and Felice Nazzaro, aboard a Fiat 750. The greatest drivers, such as Antonio Ascari, winner of the 1924 Italian Grand Prix, and Gastone Brilli-Peri, the first World Champion in 1925, have all fought it out on the Monza circuit since then. In 1933, Monza proved fatal for Giuseppe Campari, Ascari’s teammate, at the entrance to the famous banking that is one of the wonders of modern motor racing.

In 1950, the race track witnessed the victory of Nino Farina, the first Formula 1 World Champion, in his Alfa Romeo, and in 1955 it sealed the fate of Alberto Ascari, who went off the track during a test lap in a Ferrari. The history of the race track is closely intertwined with the long career of Juan Manuel Fangio, who also used it as a set for a film with Amedeo Nazzari and, many years later, to celebrate both himself and the Pirelli Cinturato in a series of Caroselli commercials for Italian television. Monza also starred in a splendid photo shoot by Federico Patellani in 1950, with the mechanics-tyre fitters wearing their Pirelli overalls and caps in the pits. The history of Monza is also one of broken records on two wheels: one photograph that remains in the annals shows Gianni Leoni in November 1948, down on his “Guzzino”, “after almost fifteen hours of racing in weather conditions that were by no means favourable”, and pointing at the Pirelli advertising billboard, as he strives to conquer another record.

When Pirelli abandoned racing in 1956, it did not sever its historical links with the Monza race track. The experimental return to Formula 1 in the 1980s and, especially, the great years in the various Touring championships often took Pirelli radials back to the “world’s most famous asphalt”. And racing continues to this day, with record-breaking tyres on a circuit that is the stuff of legend.

A recently published book provides a useful synthesis of organisational methods’ goals and tools

The ability to organise and get organised – a theme essential to all companies, as well as to their employees. A theme that might sound trite, and yet still leaves much room for exploration. Reading the recently published Sapersi organizzare. Piani, obiettivi, traguardi e altre sfide quotidiane (How to get organised. Plans, objectives, achievements and other daily challenges) really helps to understand when and how to introduce some level of organisation (to production or other areas).

Fraccaroli teaches Work and Organisational Psychology at the University of Trento and in his book he very adroitly explains that, above all, when “looking at the current world of production (…),” one can draw attention to “how ways of working are becoming increasingly virtual, mobile, self-managed. As a result of this trend, in future we’ll see fewer ‘people in organisations’ and more ‘organisation in people’. This means that the level of individual responsibility in managing one’s own work has dramatically increased and will keep on increasing.” Hence, organisation is a crucial skill for everyone.

But how to tackle it? Fraccaroli writes that solutions “to keep an acceptable balance between ourselves, what we do and our future” are achievable, and that “self-organisation means to make plans, implement them and try to shape the events of today and what might happen tomorrow in a manner that is acceptable to us.”

Hence, the book starts by analysing the concept of “managing the future”, which turns into a need to “set objectives for oneself” and thus adopt proper solutions in order to achieve them, thanks to expedients such as “learning from mistakes” or involving one’s community when planning, rather than doing it alone, as well as succeeding in managing one’s own time.

In his conclusion, Fraccaroli states that “The ability to get organised means knowing how to build strong mental foundations, using common sense, giving them a well-defined shape, and develop them according to certain priorities (how I would like to be; how I would like my future to be), from which secondary processes will then naturally ensue, such as empowering, collecting feedback, planning, evaluating, taking the initiative, adapting.” He adds, “To us, the ability to get organised is an articulated psychological process that cannot be traced back to a fragmented series of operational tasks.” Therefore, the path towards individual and collective organisation is a rather tortuous one. And a long one, too, along which good corporate culture also grows, and which is much easier to embark on after reading Franco Fraccaroli’s book.

Sapersi organizzare. Piani, obiettivi, traguardi e altre sfide quotidiane (How to get organised. Plans, objectives, achievements and other daily challenges)

Franco Fraccaroli

Il Mulino, 2021

Research undertaken by the University of Calabria provides a snapshot of this complex issue

 Innovation: always and without a question, though some caution and consideration is required. It’s an important, crucial issue for any business and it continues to be a priority.

We need, however, to understand what it means and how it can be implemented. We also need some outlines, in order to steer its execution, and here is the value of Emanuela Logozzo’s thesis Open Innovation. La globalizzazione dell’innovazione (Open Innovation. The globalisation of innovation), recently defended as part of the Business Economics and Management Master’s degree course, Department of Business and Legal Studies, University of Calabria.

Logozzo explains, “Innovation has been perceived as the central factor for the long-term survival of organisations. The most evolved international companies were able to put in place effective open innovation strategies. Open innovation is a matter of relationships and networking, within a company but also with all actors within an entire ecosystem, from suppliers to customers.” Open innovation is seen as the answer to the growing needs for competitive change in companies that have to contend with increasingly higher financial and organisational costs.

Hence, the author of this investigation looks at the crucial aspects of open innovation, starting from its definitions and characteristics, and going on to explore in depth its obstacles and key drivers in Europe. She reaches a number of conclusions but, above all, highlights the need to evaluate with care what should be adopted as part of an innovation path. “At times,” writes Logozzo, “open innovation represents a convenient, accurate tool for the externalisation of thoughts, even during difficult periods; at other times, however, it can become a sunk cost for organisations that have adopted this kind of business model. Indeed, one of the biggest mistakes one could make with OI is that of squandering resources when there is no need to do so – that is, try to achieve goals methodically while not really understanding the reason why. Closed and open innovations both exist for a reason, and knowing this reason can help organisations to balance them in a consistent manner, getting the best of both worlds.”

Emanuela Logozzo’s research provides an honest and useful overview of the current state of play of a topic still in evolution.

Open Innovation. La globalizzazione dell’innovazione (Open Innovation. The globalisation of innovation)

Emanuela Logozzo

Thesis, University of Calabria, Department of Business and Legal Studies, Master’s Degree Business Economics and Management course, 2020

“Why did air encroach upon space? What led us to the eternal? Where, where did the stars run to? When I entered the class and sat down, the questions pressed down on us, seized the air, flitted about the students’ heads. The professor came in, said hello, quickly counted us. He paused when he saw me and smiled. I was the only woman.”

Faculty of Mathematics, Sapienza University of Rome. Autumn 1915. This woman was Anna Maria Ciccone – curious, enterprising, determined not to share the same fate of other girls from wealthy Sicilian families (she was born in Noto in 1891): a good marriage, children, housekeeping, the wealthy and tedious passing of time in an ancient province. She had a passion for science, the light, the stars. She wanted to study, understand, research, teach. So, against her parents’ will, she left Sicily, started studying mathematics in Rome and soon after won a public competition to gain admittance to the Scuola Normale Superiore university in Pisa. Fascinated by the then revolutionary ideas of Einstein, she caught the eye of a few supporters. And then, from Pisa to Germany, and back to Pisa, always in search of “a small glimpse of knowledge…”.

Simona Lo Iacono, a writer of indisputable and captivating talent, told her story in La tigre di Noto (The tiger of Noto), published by Neri Pozza. Ciccone had a strong inclination for scientific research, as well as a civic passion combining a mighty sense of responsibility, which led her to defy Nazi’s anti-Semitic raids and save 5,000 valuable Jewish books. She enjoyed the latest ideas on relativity and quantum physics that were changing the world, and showed an eager yet austere vocation for teaching. Indeed, she taught experimental physics in Pisa, did research in atomic and nuclear physics at the Collège de France, and qualified for two full professorship posts, to which “she was never appointed, because she was a woman.”

Re-reading her story, remained unknown for so long, is worthwhile, especially now that Italy, too, is increasingly becoming aware that more women are needed in science and, more in general, in STEM – which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Anna Maria Ciccone, Marianna to her friends and colleagues, was in fact a pioneering STEM woman, a leading figure who exemplified the significant role played by high-level women scholars in science and research, and how significant an original and inquisitive attitude, the ability to wonder and ask questions, the combination of emotional intelligence and rational investigation, can be.

“Role models. 50 successful women in tech and science: become one of us”, reads the title of an article in CorrierEconomia (6 September) on the results of a study undertaken by Inspiring Fifty, an initiative launched in 2015 by two Dutch digital entrepreneurs, Janneke Niessen and Joelle Frijters, aimed at enhancing the role of women in high tech companies and science, and at encouraging girls and young women to choose a career in science.

“Promoting the debate on the value of STEM education and the role of women in technological innovation is the duty of society,” states Marilù Capparelli, managing director of Google Legal Department, one of the Italian women included in the Inspiring Fifty. Other Italian role models include Anna Grassellino (director of the National Quantum Information Science Research Center of Chicago); Barbara Mazzolini (associate director at the Istituto italiano di Tecnologia of Genoa); Diana Bracco (president and CEO of the eponymous pharmaceutical group); Nunzia Ciardi (director of the Italian Postal Police); Luisa Lavagnini (director of Research and Development and Technological Innovation at Eni); Nicoletta Mastropietro (Chief Information Officer for the high-tech company Leonardo); and many more women from Italy, other European countries and the US. All keeping a watchful eye on the relationships between science, technology and environmental and social questions. “To address the environmental issues of our century we need engineers, chemists, physicists. But we also need more women, because the solution to a global problem requires diversity, in ideas and attitudes, as well as the experience of both women and men,” says Giovanna Laudisio, co-founder and CEO of Naturbeads, a start-up focused on trying to solve the problem of microplastic pollution.

A STEM future where women will be the protagonists, then.

A thought comes to mind, however: the acronym could be enhanced, from STEM to STEAM. By adding the “A” from Arts to these vital scientific skills, we’d also include that totality of humanistic knowledge necessary to conceive original concepts, a sign of a more heterogeneous “polytechnic culture” (a recurring term in our blog).

Indeed, new technological challenges, from sustainability to the recent types of Artificial Intelligence, always necessitate synergy between different sets of knowledge (an attitude that, by the by, is associated with Italy and – according to some – to women). And our efforts to “learn to learn” should include precisely that emotional intelligence we talked about.

It’s worth, then, reiterating a remark included in last week’s blog, made in reference to industrial humanism and – especially – digital humanism by Christian Greco, director of the Egyptian Museum of Turin: “It’s time to introduce what can only be defined as digital humanism, in which archaeologists, anthropologists, architects, historians, philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists work side by side with chemists, physicists, computer specialists, in order to attain the definition of new semantics that will allow us to understand and process the complexity of our reality.”

Culture as “the driving force for recovery and development. And, by promoting “ education and knowledge”, as a tool to make sustainable choices more effective, for the sake of a better future for the next generations. This is how, in the middle of the summer, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi opened the G20 Culture summit, held in the Colosseum amphitheatre in Rome, which provided an extraordinary backdrop for the discussion had by the Ministers of Culture of the biggest countries in the world. And the G20’s slogan, “People Planet Prosperity”, was interpreted to mean the value of beauty and environment, the rights against all forms of discrimination, and the beneficial relationships created between memory and future when safeguarding heritage and stimulating innovation. Indeed, prosperity in the post-Covid age.

The final document, unanimously approved, states that “cultural and creative sectors represent important economic drivers in their own right and are a significant source of jobs and income; and that they generate important spillovers to the wider economy, being drivers of innovation and sources of creative skills.” Recognising and enhancing their “social impact” in “supporting health and well-being, promoting social inclusion, gender equality and woman’s empowerment, local social capital, amplifying behavioural change and transformation towards more sustainable production and consumption practices” has therefore become key. Italy, according to Draghi and the Minister of Culture Dario Franceschini, is an exemplary “creative hub”. What we require now are “brave choices”, so that ideas can be put into practice, in order to conserve and develop “historical and cultural heritage” and turn it into a positive lever for economic and social growth. In fact, the guidance included in the Next Generation EU Recovery Plan runs along these same lines, and we are aligned with the political intentions of both the G20 and Europe in terms of public expenditure and the stimulation of private investments.

However, the talks of Draghi and Franceschini, as well as other contributions about culture we have heard and read about over the summer, draw the attention towards a particular point: the notion of a culture “for all” – accessible to all, understood by all. A real, genuine popular culture.

“Popular” as in open and communicative, far from being sloppy, vulgar or banal. “Popular” as in capable to blend “high” and “low”: symphonies and pop songs; great cinema – rife with narration and emotions (Billy Wilder, Sergio Leone…) – and the Italian comedy of Monicelli e Risi; highbrow literary prizes and readers’ awards – as with the Campiello literary prize –; sophisticated publishers and reckless writers; Picasso’s Dove of Peace and Banksy’s street art version of it; Quasimodo’s poem “Ed è subito sera” (“And suddenly it’s evening”) and Mina’s song “Città vuota” (“Empty city”); the performances and series broadcasted by Rai – true public service broadcasting from the 1950s and 1960s –; the interpretation of modernity according to sociologists and the philosophers adhering to Theodor W. Adorno’s Frankfurt School and Mariolino (Mario) Corso, Inter Milan’s left-footed footballer from the 1960s, commemorated in Il più mancino dei tiri (The greatest curve ball), a book by Edmondo Berselli, the extraordinary, sophisticated and ironic commentator of our troubled times (“Readers must sort themselves out, the public must gather information, make an effort, learn something…” he wrote in one of his best works, Venerati maestri (Venerable masters), to protest against the superficiality of slipshod opinions and the coarseness of commonplaces heightened by bad television and degraded social media).

Popular culture as in quality culture: incidentally, this is precisely one of the greatest legacies of the 20^th century, which becomes apparent when re-reading the works of Walter Benjamin and Elias Canetti, Isaiah Berlin and Antonio Gramsci, Karl Popper and Thomas Mann, George Orwell and Virginia Woolf, Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil, Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco (just to mention a few names). When, that is, we browse through the shelves of a large imaginary library, and apply good memory and abundant inquisitiveness in order to discover, rediscover and finally reach, as in Jorge Luis Borges’s “The Aleph”, an entire civilisation, the roots of learnings that are both embedded and yet in evolution.

Popular culture as in the culture of beauty and research, paying attention to that “do, and do well” related to the best corporate culture, of which Italy is an excellent example; the synthesis of humanistic and scientific learning, the intersection of words and numbers, until we reach music, too, and recall Gustav Mahler’s words: “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire” – an open door ushering in innovation.

Nowadays, the evolution of digital technologies and artificial intelligence poses new cultural and civic challenges, leads to fresh knowledge development paths that are, however, also in danger to be muddled by “public debate” and stripped (through fake news, the drifting of misconceptions towards “magic thinking” and authoritarian shortcuts) of the wealth of ideas and values we hold as individuals and as a society.

Our commitment lies in knowing how to experience the new dimensions of knowledge as if they were opportunities for “digital humanism”, to use a term cherished by Luciano Floridi, professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford. A term also used by Christian Greco, director of the Egyptian Museum of Turin, at the G20 Culture summit: “It’s time to introduce what can only be defined as digital humanism, in which archaeologists, anthropologists, architects, historians, philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists work side by side with chemists, physicists, computer specialists, in order to attain the definition of new semantics that will allow us to understand and process the complexity of our reality.”

This is the key for the acceleration of the increasingly “popular” dimension of museums (corporate museums included, as the Museimpresa association has long been saying), whereby they have become sites of knowledge and dissemination combining in-person visits with digital viewings, the online and the on-site, the emotions felt in front of a painting by Caravaggio or Pollock and the background knowledge gained through digital tools.

The meeting of heritage and innovation is always on the horizon, as Greco timely reminds us: “At an international level, it’s now commonly understood that museums are theatres of memories where local and global identities are defined and different visions of the past and present meet the future.”

And here’s another key term, when talking about popular culture: theatre. Or, “the place where a community could freely gather and express itself, the place where a community can listen to words and either accept or reject them.” This is the definition of theatre according to Paolo Grassi, who, in 1947, with a then young Giorgio Strehler, founded the Piccolo Teatro di Milano following the model of “an art theatre for everyone” (as Salvatore Carrubba, its current president, recently reminded us in Il Sole24Ore). Its founders included cultural figures but also entrepreneurs (in the foundation deed we find the names of Piero and Giovanni Pirelli, Ferdinando Borletti, Giovanni Falck). And it all happened against the background of a city eager to rebuild itself after the devastation wreaked by the war and the dark years of fascism – a city able to boost its culture and use it as a lever for development, in line with the civic sensitivity of an educated and productive middle class that was open to, and mindful of, social values.

The experience gained from endeavours such as the Piccolo Teatro, but also the Teatro Franco Parenti or other art venues in Milan precisely exemplifies how great popular culture can be generated: by blending a tendency for innovation and a commitment to dissemination, experimentation with performing arts’ new forms and languages and care for the development of a widespread culture.

These are themes that are actually being pursued right now, as part of the initiatives launched – and supervised by the Piccolo Teatro’s new director, Claudio Longhi – to commemorate the centenary of Strehler’s birth (the Pirelli Foundation will also take active part, through a series of performances and debates on the themes of work, social transformation, scientific research and the relationship between freedom and innovation). Themes that also rekindle the issue of culture experienced not much as a succession of “events” but rather as a process of growth – the growth of knowledge and awareness of a community’s social and civic values. And, above all, the comprehension of the crucial importance inherent in narrating those values in an open, widespread, engaged and, indeed, popular manner.

Federculture’s 17^th report takes a snapshot of a segment that expresses the best Italian qualities.

Enterprises as cultural tools, and culture as a context within which corporate roles and methods can help to better enhance territorial heritage – hence, cultural enterprises. As in the title of Federculture’s 17th annual report: Impresa cultura. Progettare e ripartire. (Cultural enterprises. Planning and restarting.) A collaborative work that, for many years now, has been discussing the issues that surround the diverse assortment of policies, consumption trends and cultural enterprises; a kind of compass to navigate amongst analyses, data and indicators; a snapshot that reveals hidden issues and open questions, but also the extraordinary potential of what, in Italy, is generally encapsulated in the term “culture”.

The 2021 edition of the Report, just like the 2020 edition, could not but focus its thoughts and analyses on the situation currently experienced by cultural institutions that are still grappling – just like other areas of Italy’s economic and social life – with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, though also casting a glance towards the future and the challenges that await them. The book, therefore, offers a broad overview that illustrates the new cultural, social and economic scenarios introduced by COVID-19 in this past year and, through essays and in-depth investigations, tackles aspects related to our present circumstances and issues that have fiercely arisen in recent times. To learn and analyse more thoroughly the state of the sector, Federculture has undertaken a field study and interviewed, by means of a survey, a wide array of cultural organisations and enterprises. The results are collected in the report and prompt valuable observations on how the sector reacted to the crisis, on its current situation, and on its expectations for the recovery.

What matters most, however, is reflecting on the strategies that will steer the new, challenging season of recovery that awaits the cultural sector – and the whole country.

One of the important messages readers can take away from this book is that, in the restarting phase that is approaching us, the ability to enhance and innovate both our cultural heritage and the whole economic structure related to creativity and beauty will be of the utmost importance.

“Impresa cultura”, then, is a good tool to better and more deeply understand one of the most significant aspects of Italian society and economy – its overall culture, which is the best expression of the Italian character.

Impresa cultura. Progettare e ripartire. (Cultural enterprise. Planning and restarting.) Federculture 2021 17^th annual report 

AA.VV., Federculture, Cangemi Editore, 2021

A contribution published in the magazine Percorsi di Secondo Welfare discusses the many connections between different locations of culture

Libraries as focal points within a knowledge network that becomes welfare, in the fullest meaning of the word. Essential elements in a “cultural well-being” system that is turning social, a web truly interconnected with other entities throughout the territory: social and economic institutions, enterprises and meeting places. A system within which the best corporate culture, not solely focused on economic profit, can find new expression and applications. These are some of the messages put forward in Il ruolo delle biblioteche nello sviluppo del welfare socio-culturale” (“The role of libraries in the development of social and cultural welfare”), contribution by Alessandro Agustoni and Marco Cau. Messages that revolve around the role that libraries, and the systems that link them up, could play as part of territories’ cultural and social policies.

The analysis undertaken by Agustoni and Cau, published in Percorsi di Secondo Welfare some time ago, examines the significance of libraries, starting from the experience gained through CUBI, the new interlibrary system. “Social and technological changes affect the identity of libraries, and are themes that should be discussed and reflected upon in terms of the operating models deployed on an international, and local, scale,” explain the two authors, before adding that “Cultural transformations, technological evolutions, social tensions can lead to a standstill, to throwing in the towel, to the closure of services – or, on the contrary, they can become drivers for change and innovation.” These are the transformations this research work analyses and that generate a number of considerations concerning the many roles that libraries could play, besides the ones associated with books and reading.” Amongst these roles, libraries could in fact be seen as “spaces in evolution, also in relation to work. On the one hand (…) they are places that can accommodate smart working, facilitate forms of agile working, contribute to a better life-work balance, providing accessible spaces and equipment suitable to agile working. On the other hand, the instances of corporate welfare in the public sphere are growing, generating models that can be assessed and employed as a source of information and potential applications.” Corporate welfare, then, that blends in with cultural and social welfare to create new forms of activities that can benefit society, as well as the general economy.

Agustoni and Cau’s work not only is clear and concise, but has the additional quality of bringing into focus what the concept of innovative and significant cultural territories should actually look like.

Il ruolo delle biblioteche nello sviluppo del welfare socio-culturale (“The role of libraries in the development of social and cultural welfare”)

Alessandro Agustoni, Marco Cau

Percorsi di Secondo Welfare, 2019