A guest lecture by Ignazio Visco, Governor of the Bank of Italy, provides a better understanding of the current situation and its possible developments

An economy is based on measurements and planning, but also on visions that go beyond calculations. It must also take changes in society and history into account. Culture in the broadest sense, which blends with an economic and production culture that must increasingly combine good budgets with an important focus on the local area and people’s development. Hints of this can be found in the guest lecture given by the Governor of the Bank of Italy, Ignazio Visco, at the Gran Sasso Science Institute on 16th December. Reading it could be useful for many people.

“Economy, innovation, knowledge” is a good summary of the relationships between the movements and forces of production, the capacity for change, and consequently, the degree of education and knowledge present in social systems. With a particular focus on the situation in Italy, the Governor discusses the factors that put the country at a disadvantage even before the Covid-19 pandemic and which will therefore make the post-pandemic recovery more difficult. The reasons relate to Italian economic and political history, which in turn should be placed in the context of more general history.

After setting out a number of indicators relating to the current situation, Visco goes on to consider the main drivers of change, including research and innovation, digitalisation and “human capital” before outlining the “challenges for the future”.  It is here that the essential union between science and spirit, between calculation and vision becomes clearer and more urgent. “The rediscovery of study, both scientific and philosophical, is the true root of human and social progress, the condition for economic development”. Visco’s guest lecture is a must-read for everyone.

Economy, innovation, knowledge

Ignazio Visco

Guest lecture, Gran Sasso Science Institute, 16th December 2020

Sustainable development. Competitiveness. The new needs of the economy, in a context radically changed by the pandemic and recession. The opportunities open to Italy, a country with a wealth of businesses rooted in its regions, sophisticated but not huge cities and productive cities and provincial towns well suited in terms of size for the circular and civil economy. A painful and difficult 2020 has presented us with a transitional, economic and social challenge, in which the historical characteristics of Italian development and the relevance of our social capital provide us with extraordinary opportunities for restart and recovery. We have already discussed this several times in this blog. Now, contemporary public discourse is providing new and interesting insights.

To understand this better, it’s worth reflecting on an image. Seen from above, there is a wide strip of light, like a rectangle with frayed edges that stretches from west to east. To the north, the Alps form an almost completely dark border, except for bright ribbons of light in the valleys that creep between the mountains, before gradually fading into darkness. The lights fade as we descend southwards, before thickening out again into a wide shining patch, namely Rome. Even further south, light and shadows alternate along the coast, before the darkness of the Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas. This is the nocturnal photograph of the Po Valley, taken by Luca Parmitano, from the International Space Station a few years ago. It’s a striking image and one that gives an impressive overview of some essential features of our economic geography. Lights, or the energy of cities and towns. These are indicators of places and flows of social relations and economic activity, which are particularly intense here, as much as and possibly more than in other key areas of activity in Europe.

The bright rectangle starts in Piedmont and stretches towards the coast in Liguria, to the east it reaches the borders of Fruili Venezia Giulia, it includes the industrialised regions of Lombardy and Veneto and extends to Emilia Romagna with its factories and universities. A sort of A1 – A4 macro region, named after the motorways that cross it. It accounts for 53.7% of GDP (Italy’s gross domestic product) and 68.9% of the country’s exports. It also has a very unique feature. It is a vast and highly developed area, marked by cities (Milan and Turin), but also by a series of medium-sized and large towns, and an infinity of villages and hamlets that are all highly interconnected (connections that have shortcomings and limitations, due to the road and rail networks, especially those that run from the plains to the mountains). It is bustling with economic activity, where cutting-edge industry, agriculture, financial services, high-tech services, universities and research centres, environment and culture intersect in a very unique collaborative network. Despite the crisis, it has a level of social dynamism rarely seen in Europe. It has a robust set of values, from civil history to economic innovation. It has an extraordinary ability to compete, whether we look at competition on international markets or focus on the deeper meaning of the word itself, on its etymological root: cum and petere, moving together towards one shared goal. Development.

It is precisely these geo-economic characteristics that give it an extraordinary topical competitive advantage today. The Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated the extreme fragility of large urban centres and has revealed the close relationship between the complexity of systems and their vulnerability. The widespread theory in the economic world of the inevitable success in the immediate future of large cities because they are more attractive and more suited to a dramatic increase in productivity (the strength of “economies of agglomeration”, which encourage the influx of talent, material and immaterial resources and innovative energy), is showing its limitations in this crisis, which simultaneously affects health, social factors and the economy.

In contrast, it is better to have more spread out areas, where productivity can be linked to quality of life, the cultural and social stimuli of the urban experience, with the beauty of the environment and strong social relations of local communities. There is no shortage of examples of this throughout the country. The strip of light in the photograph of Italy from space provides an excellent representation of this.

At a time when social and environmental sustainability is taking precedence over the race for personal success at any cost, the real economy is once again playing a primary role, prevailing over the speculative financial economy. Our productive North, with its great inclusive and collaborative social capital, can provide extremely interesting economic and social indications for the rest of Europe and the world. It could be an exemplary place to turn the values of the EU Recovery Plan into a reality: a green and digital economy, looking to the Next Generation.

Sustainable innovation. For this very reason, it is also a driving force for the development of the entire country. If we look at the long industrial supply chains that link the North and South (in the automotive, aeronautics and aerospace, agri-food, pharmaceutical and complex information technology sectors) and activities linked to research and training. Trying to bridge the North-South divide is a strategic choice and one which will be much more successful than policies of rebates and subsidies.

Of course there are limits, conflicts and contradictions. Cities, towns and villages need efficient material links and, more importantly, immaterial links (the European 5G network) and a better distribution of services, from schools to health and security, to productivity support activities.  It is however a possible development project, one in which we have many economic and social cards to play. It can be done provided we do so with the indispensable values of knowledge, skills and responsibility. A new reconstruction for Italy.

The Pirelli Foundation has decked itself out for the holidays to celebrate Christmas with the great names in literature and graphics who contributed to the historic Pirelli magazine.

In this publication, the designer Bruno Munari described the toy that every children hoped to find under the Christmas tree in 1949 – a little foam-rubber feline armed with a nylon moustache: “Little bigger than the palm of a hand, about the size of a new-born kitten, Meo is a black cat with yellow eyes, and he has some brothers: one white, one yellow, one grey, one brown, and one… green. They are all called Meo Romeo (first name Meo, surname Romeo) and the green Meo was born when the zucchini were ripening.” It was again Munari who brought together the toys in the 1954 Pigomma catalogue. These included the two clowns Tino and Toni, the giraffe Pasqualina created by the Pagot brothers, Disney’s dog Pluto, and Patrizia the doll, to launch a “very silent Christmas machine that makes snow shower down on the Christmas tree”.

The article written by Albe Steiner in 1955 is a journey through the Christmas shop windows of the world’s most luxurious stores: from Macy’s in New York to the great department stores in Paris, to Illum in Copenhagen and the windows of the Rinascente in the centre of Milan, arranged by the artist himself with giant posters of Father Christmas and decorations in the Nordic style.

In 1957 the painter Fulvio Bianconi entered the Pirelli factory of the Azienda Roma to illustrate in the greatest detail every stage in the production of silent Rempel toys: “thousands of balls, dolls and rubber animals come out” of the factory “every day, destined for a frenzied existence in the world of children”.

The cover of the December 1960 edition of the magazine was entrusted to Andrè François, who imagined a mechanical Father Christmas: “What comes out is a rather jumbled drawing, but there’s the great big tunic and the red cap, and also the good-natured expression. And yet, take a closer look and you’ll suddenly discover the trick, and the little Father Christmas turns out to be what it really is: a contraption made of pressure gauges, electric cables, and traces of tyre tread linked to the title of the magazine the drawing was made for.”

And then came the festivities as seen by Umberto Eco: in “Protocol 00/03 Wrapping lights“, a satirical article published in 1962, the author imagines a correspondence between the devils of the Malebolge, who have been instructed to boycott Christmas “… thanks to a certain atmosphere of rejoicing and general goodwill that is created during the period, Christmas celebrations promote cordial relations, putting international conflicts on hold for a few days, leading people to carry out absurd gestures of good neighbourliness, such as giving presents, doubling employees’ salaries, and holding pleasant conversations. It was precisely in order to avoid these dangers that I asked your predecessor, as I now ask you, to draw up a plan for the area of Milan we’ve chosen as a sample.”

In 1963 Eco wrote a Christmas letter to his son Stefano: ”What will happen to childhood when an industrial Christmas brings American dolls that speak and sing and move on their own, Japanese automata that jump and dance without the batteries ever running out, and radio-controlled cars, whose mechanisms one will never see…?“

In the pages of Pirelli magazine, the Christmas holidays were also an opportunity for big-name authors to reflect on modern society, and a source of inspiration for the great names of art and design.

Piero Bassetti’s latest book carefully analyses current living conditions, setting out a new and stimulating idea on what we should do next.

Innovation as a force (including politically). The speed of senescence of other models of development, such as those related to decision-making algorithms, social media and life sciences. And then bewilderment at what is happening at present and the need to regain our capacity to plan “high”; The return of a culture of production that transforms into a culture of caring for others, for places and for society as a whole.  All this and more is contained within the latest book by Piero Bassetti, who has long been involved in the administration of public affairs, as well as being an economist and a key player in the overhaul of the chamber of commerce system.

In “Oltre lo specchio di Alice. Governare l’innovazione nel cambiamento d’epoca” (Through Alice’s looking glass – Managing innovation in an era of change), he takes the tale by Lewis Carroll as a starting point for his argument, explaining how in the wake of algorithms, the power of social media and the revolution in life sciences and quantum physics, we now hold in our hands a power that is devoid of potency. Like Alice, we have stepped through the looking glass, and now find ourselves in Wonderland. But here – of all places – the old tools for managing power, the worn-out reins, no longer work. Everything needs to be turned on its head and started anew, from the bottom to the top. But, the author argues, the question of who should be given the task of replacing these reins is one that cannot be avoided.

From Bassetti’s point of view, what has changed is innovation and so-called “glocalism”: two elements that institutions and all players aware of the change that is afoot must deal with, and which calls into question the ability to intervene.

Bassetti has written a book that is a delight to read, full of character and very up-to-date, although it is not always easy to understand it in depth. It is a book brimming with positive feelings towards the future, a future that we must grasp and develop. The title (and of course the content) of the last chapter, among others, is particularly wonderful: “Sfida all’horror vacui.  Armare la barca per il nuovo bordo”. (Challenging the horror of empty spaces – To love the boat for its new horizons).

Oltre lo specchio di Alice. Governare l’innovazione nel cambiamento d’epoca (Through Alice’s looking glass – Managing innovation in an era of change)

Piero Bassetti

Gerini e associati, 2020

A thesis presented at the University of Padua serves as a useful handbook on corporate governance

Corporate social responsibility remains the core theme of much of the debate over the changes that must be made to current models of industrial production, and of the policies that need to focus on this issue. The social responsibility of industrial firms is a complex subject that needs constant fine-tuning, as well as sharp summarisation to get a sense of where we stand on this issue. This is the purpose of Alessio Amadei’s thesis, which has been presented at the M. Fanno Department of Economics and Business Sciences at the University of Padua.

“Governance e responsabilità sociale nelle società italiane quotate: un’analisi empirica della disclosure aziendale” (Governance and social responsibility in Italian listed companies: an empirical analysis of corporate disclosure) is the title of his work, which serves as an accurate summary of the current state of the art of corporate governance. Amadei begins by examining the many changes that are taking place in the production system, to which proper corporate management can provide an effective response.

“Corporate governance,” he says “is a vehicle through which companies can implement their CSR policies.” He then sets himself the task of understanding whether the debate on CSR “translates into real, operational choices by companies.” The question, then, is whether – beyond the theory – there is genuinely adequate “practice”.

Another of Amadei’s goals in this work is to “identify the governance characteristics that facilitate the implementation of CSR policies, with a view to promoting the dissemination of socially virtuous models and behaviours.”

As such, the thesis begins by focusing on the situation as it stands, before taking a closer look at the effects of corporate governance on corporate social responsibility. Amadei then presents the results of an empirical survey on the corporate disclosures of 219 Italian listed companies. The research focuses on establishing whether or not companies seek out CSR experts as part of the process used in order to select their managers and directors.

Alessio Amadei’s work has the great merit of organising the key ideas and data on some of the most important aspects of modern business management: it serves as a sort of handbook that is extremely useful to read and keep close to hand.

Governance e responsabilità sociale nelle società italiane quotate: un’analisi empirica della disclosure aziendale (Governance and social responsibility in Italian listed companies: an empirical analysis of corporate disclosure)

Alessio Amadei

University of Padua, M. Fanno Department of Economics and Business Sciences, Batchelor’s Degree in Economics, 2020

The man walks with the slow and slightly weary step of someone who has made a long journey. He crosses the tram tracks next to Milan’s Central Station, right in front of the Pirelli Tower. On his shoulders, he carries a box tied with string. In his left hand, he has a brown and white cardboard suitcase, heavy enough to make his arm hang down. He has come from Olbia, in Sardinia. In his pocket, neatly folded like something precious, he has a piece of paper with an address in the Rho district, where his relatives are waiting for him, having sent for him with the message “come, there is still work here”. It is late September 1968. The air is grey, bitter, announcing the imminent arrival of the autumn. But on the man’s face, fatigue cannot hide the trace of a shy and somewhat introverted smile, as he looks into the photographer’s lens. Here we are, in Milan at last. Perhaps a new chapter of life can begin here. A hope.

The photographer is Uliano Lucas. And this image of the emigrant and the Pirelli Tower quickly became one of the most effective symbols of an era full of contradictions and conflict, but also of opportunities for change and for recovery.  The roots. And the future. The precarious symbols of a difficult departure (the cardboard box and suitcase) and the grandeur of the solid industrial building, serving to symbolise the economic and social boom. The walk, step after step, on the cold tarmac, strewn with fallen leaves. And the soaring ascent of the skyscraper. The abandoned island to the south, the pain of leaving. And the bustling metropolis that promises a better fate.

This photo by Lucas captures all the recent history of Italy. Our history, from the bright lights of development to the darkest shadows. A history to remember, right now, in these painful, hard times of crisis, with the pandemic and the recession, to which the latest data on “quality of life” – released just yesterday – bear testament: In the annual ranking created by the newspaper “Il Sole24Ore”, after two years in the top spot, Milan has now dropped down to twelfth place (first place goes to Bologna, followed by Bolzano and Trento; at the bottom of the list are Crotone, Caltanissetta and Siracusa), and other major Lombardy cities have also fallen: Brescia is at 39 (-27 places), Bergamo is at 52 (-24), Monza and Brianza at 61 (-55) and Varese at 66 (-37). The Covid effect has been and still is devastating.

And yet, despite the crisis, the fundamental pillars of Milan (business, culture, university, research, services related to quality and innovation) are still strong, and enable the city to look to the future with a reasonable degree of confidence.

And this brings us back to the Pirelli Tower, firmly anchored in the history of Italy, with its foundations designed by Pier Luigi Nervi and the light, elegant and dynamic structure dreamed up by Gio Ponti. And those who first desired it, constructed and inhabited it, from economic bodies to public institutions, have always had the characteristics of Milan and Lombardy in the forefront of their minds: an open and welcoming land.

Milan, at the crossroads between Northern Europe and the Mediterranean, the west and east. Milan, expanding into the fertile space, with none of the natural defences provided by mountains and rivers. Milan, a round city with no sharp edges or corners. Milan, where the gates of the city walls were once used as toll houses, a clear sign of an economy of relationships. Milan, an inclusive city, shaped by the precepts of Bishop Ambrose, the founder of a special ‘Ambrosian rite’ designed to innovate and overlap with the edict of Bishop Ariberto d’Intimiano, who proclaimed in 1018: ‘Those who know what work is come to Milan. And those who come to Milan are free men.’

The emigrant from Olbia captured by Lucas knows nothing, of course, of the history of Ariberto’s edict. But he is fully aware of the possibilities of work; he has listened to relatives and friends telling him that “Milanesi are made”. And so have the tens of thousands of people who have fled the despair of the southern regions and the peasant poverty of Veneto and Friuli since the 1950s, heading to the factories of Milan and other industrial cities in Lombardy, that intersection between the uncertainty faced by economic migrants and the unknown represented by new jobs, responsibilities, opportunities, rights and duties – the conflict and freedom that characterise the working-class condition and carry the (albeit often sour) scent of possibility and growth.

As Walter Benjamin, a restless and far-sighted soul taught us, to write history means giving dates their physiognomy. And as such, here we see the intersection of years and events, history and histories.

It was 12 July 1956 when Alberto and Piero Pirelli laid the first stone of what would become the Pirelli Tower. The works lasted four years, until the building was inaugurated on 4 April 1960. A very short time-scale for the construction of such a building, serving as evidence of the dynamic drive of those years, and of the positive tensions in the country at the height of the economic boom. But this was also an era characterised by a focus on quality. In a lively, fertile Italy, of which Milan served as a linchpin, the expectation was for strong growth. “La città che sale”, finally fulfilling the aesthetic and ethical prophecies of the far-sighted Futurist painter Umberto Boccioni.

Today, sixty years after its inauguration, the Pirelli Tower is at the heart of a new exhibition, organised by the Pirelli Foundation and the Lombardy Region, which will open for a virtual preview on Wednesday 16. The story of this iconic structure is recounted in a book that has just been published by Marsilio, entitled “Storie del Grattacielo – I 60 anni del Pirellone tra cultura industriale e attività istituzionali della Regione” (Stories of the skyscraper – 60 years of the “Pirellone”, spanning industrial culture and the institutional activities of the region”). The tome features prefaces by Attilio Fontana, Alessandro Fermi and Marco Tronchetti Provera, articles by the curators of the exhibition (Laura Riboldi for the Pirelli Foundation and the architect Alessandro Colombo), plus accounts by Piero Bassetti (the first president of the Region), Eva Cantarella, Giuseppe Guzzetti, Uliano Lucas, Carlo Ratti, Gianfelice Rocca and Andrée Ruth Shammah, women and men of politics, culture and the economy. From memories to predictions for the future, their words reveal the perspective of a region that has traversed some intensely dark moments (including the dramatic events of recent months) yet which, despite everything, has always succeeded in leveraging its ability to dream, hope, plan and build. To work.

The Pirelli Tower, an extraordinary landmark brimming with history, is evocative of a host of current themes (beauty, lightness, functionality, aesthetic and design rigour which reflecting the ethics of doing, and doing well), and remains one of the symbols of Lombardy.

And tomorrow? What will Milan and Lombardy be like tomorrow? According to Ulrich Beck, a learned scholar of the most intense metropolitan transformations, “in order to be able to compete, a city must have both wings and roots”. The roots are represented by an awareness of one’s own history. And the wings are essential in order to be able to fly towards future horizons. An sophisticated ability to come to terms with the future of memory.

This metropolis, and this region as a whole, have what it takes to confidently face yet another era marked by the fragility and uncertainties of crisis and by an unprecedented series of opportunities for change and development. Lombardy produces 22% of Italian GDP, and accounts for nearly 27% of all national exports. And indeed, Milan itself is the centre of gravity of the great European manufacturing north; this is where the headquarters of 4,600 of the 14,000 multinationals in Italy are located, and it is home to 200,000 students of universities that routinely take the top spots in the international rankings. Furthermore, Milan holds 32% of Italian patents and is responsible for 27% of the most cited scientific research at global level. A sort of “infinite city”, as the sociologists that are most attuned to development processes call it: a metropolis that is dedicated to coming to terms with an approach to sustainable development that is both global and local – or “glocal“, to borrow the brilliant term used by Piero Bassetti, who remains the voice of responsible public discourse.

For the future, therefore, the conversation centres around smart lands and sensible cities, technological humanism and a sustainable economy, both from an environmental and a social perspective; the focus is on interconnection and better governance of an approach to globalisation that prioritises fair trade, respecting people and their rights. A new type of metropolis living is on the horizon, in which Milan and Lombardy, solidly anchored in the heart of Europe and with their gaze resting on the Mediterranean, can create original syntheses between an industry that has its roots solidly in manufacturing and an expansion into international markets, spanning the values and needs of the various flows (of people, capital, ideas and resources), from genius loci and artificial intelligence, hi tech services and a focus on qualified training for the new generations, encompassing competitiveness, solidarity and social commitment. All of these elements are strong signs – brought to light by the conversations regarding the Pirelli Tower – of an original polytechnic culture, with the capacity to unite humanistic wisdom and scientific knowledge, cutting-edge research and popular awareness.

The economy of knowledge and a focus on quality of life, on widespread social well-being, are solid values that this area is capable of expressing, through its institutions and businesses, its social and cultural organisations. It is a region with a particular aptitude for metamorphosis, and even in the most controversial moments, it knows how to mark the passing time well.

credits:  Sardinian migrant in front of the Pirelli Tower, 1968, photo by Uliano Lucas

On Wednesday 16 December 2020 at 10.30 a.m. there will be an online presentation of the exhibition “Skyscraper Stories. The Pirellone and a Sixty-year Celebration of Corporate and the Regional Government of Lombardy”, promoted by the Pirelli Foundation and the Lombardy Region, with the support of Pirelli and FNM.

The event will take us back over the 60-year history of the building, with a digital preview of the exhibition and a presentation of the book Skyscraper Stories, published by Marsilio.

The event, which will be live-streamed from this link –https://mediaportal.regione.lombardia.it/embed/live/23 – will be moderated by the journalist Ilaria Iacoviello, with speeches by Marco Tronchetti Provera, President of the Pirelli Foundation, Attilio Fontana, President of the Lombardy Region, and Alessandro Fermi, President of the Regional Council. Antonio Calabrò, Director of the Pirelli Foundation, and the architect Alessandro Colombo will also take part, talking about the curatorship of the project.

The Pirelli Tower opened in Milan on 4 April 1960. Advocated by Alberto and Piero Pirelli, envisioned by the creative and innovative minds of Gio Ponti, Antonio Fornaroli, Alberto Rosselli, Pier Luigi Nervi, Arturo Danusso, Giuseppe Valtolina and Egidio Dell’Orto, the building turns 60 this year. To celebrate this important event, an exhibition entitled “Skyscraper Stories. The Pirellone and a Sixty-year Celebration of Corporate and the Regional Government of Lombardy” will open in the spring of 2021. The show is promoted by the Lombardy Region and the Pirelli Foundation, curated by the Pirelli Foundation and the architect Alessandro Colombo, and made possible with the contribution of FNM. While awaiting the opening of the exhibition, an outline of the project can already be seen in the catalogue published by Marsilio, in bookstores from 16 December 2020, and in the launch of the dedicated platform 60grattacielopirelli.org, which contains a preview of the exhibition.

The story is told in five stages with photographs, illustrations, and archive footage, mainly from the Pirelli Historical Archive, and exclusive testimony from those who thought up, designed, built, and who have lived in it over the past sixty years. There is also a timeline that, from 1956 to the present day, retraces the broader history of Italy and the world and the most significant events that have made their mark on the popular imagination.

“I dream of a Milan made by my fellow architects. I certainly don’t want a Milan made up of low houses and one skyscraper here, one there, another there, and yet another there. It would be like a mouth with some teeth that are long and others that are short. Skyscrapers are beautiful if they are placed one next to the other, like islands. […] What I’m saying is not a dream. I’m saying what it will be in the future” (Gio Ponti on the city of Milan in 1961)

Christmas is the most “global” of all holidays, for it brings together different cultures and societies and is celebrated in every corner of the world, even though with different traditions and symbols. Who are Hoteiosho and Dun Che Lao Ren? How was the “panettone”, the traditional Milanese cake, first invented? Tales and trivia starred in a special Advent Calendar installed in the spaces of our Foundation in 2015: each window of the Calendar revealed the Christmas traditions of the countries around the world where Pirelli operates. Viewers thus found that Christmas in England is celebrated with the traditional Christmas pudding, which has 13 ingredients that need to be mixed anticlockwise by all members of the family.

It was in Great Britain that the tradition of Christmas cards started, in 1843, the same year as when Charles Dickens published his famous A Christmas Carol. In the United States, also the Christmas tree has its place next to Santa Claus: the 25,000 light bulbs of the majestic Christmas tree at the Rockefeller Center in New York were lit up for the first time in 1933. In Germany, 24 December is the day of Frau Holle – Old Mother Frost – and 6 January comes on the night of Berchta, a pre-Christian divinity who flies over the city and countryside surrounded by elves and pixies that cling to her cloak of fog and snow. But rather than Frau Holle or Berchta, Santa Klaus is undoubtedly the true symbol of Christmas. Star-shaped zimsternen biscuits, flavoured with ginger, anise or cinnamon, are eaten under the Tree, the origins of which are claimed by the Germans, as is the Stollen cake, which is made with candied fruit, nuts and marzipan. Towards the middle of November, the Christmas Pageant, a sort of Christmas carnival, is held in Australia. On Christmas Eve, people gather to sing by candlelight: the tradition started in the city of Melbourne in the late 1930s. Boxing Day brings the start of the Sydney-Hobart race, a must-see yachting race from Sydney to the port of Hobart, 630 miles away in Tasmania. At Christmastime in France, the first to arrive is Saint Martin, on the night of 10 November. Then it’s the turn of Saint Nicholas, who comes on 5 December: if a glass of milk and some straw is left by the door on the evening before, he will reward the families with a chocolate and gingerbread cake. The last to come is Père Noël, on Christmas Eve. The festivities end on 6 January and pastry chefs in the north bake Galettes des Rois for those with the sweetest tooth. This sweet bread garnished with almond frangipane cream is dedicated to the Three Kings.

Until 1917, Christmas in Russia was celebrated as one of the most important days of the year: complete fasting was required on the eve until the first evening star appeared in the sky, when the feast of the Svyata Vecherya began: twelve courses, starting with kutia, a sweet porridge to propitiate health and prosperity. After the Revolution, Saint Nicholas became Ded Moroz, the secular Father Frost who leaves gifts under the tree on New Year’s Eve. Christmas Eve is now celebrated on 7 January. In Romania, Moș Crăciun brings gifts on 25 December, but already on the eve of 5 December children leave their little shoes outside the door, hoping that Moș Nicolae, Saint Nicholas, will bring sweets and candies. In Spain, the traditional El Gordo de la Navidad, the oldest lottery in the world, is held on 23 December. Christmas Eve is known as the Noche Buena, and 25 December is the Navidad, to be sanctified at the feet of the Belèn, the Nativity scene with saints and shepherds. Gifts are unwrapped on 6 January and the Rosca de Reyes, a ring-shaped cake with a bean and a porcelain figurine of the Child hidden in it: whoever finds the bean will have to buy the cake the following year, and the one who finds the Baby Jesus will have to perform an act of courage.

Ever since 1520, Las Posadas has started up in Mexico nine days before Christmas: the event recalls Joseph and Mary’s wanderings around Bethlehem in search of an inn for the night of the Nativity. Every evening the people form a procession, going from house to house while singing traditional carols. The chief attraction of the festivity is the piñata, a clay or papier-mâché pitcher in the shape of a Star of Bethlehem containing the colaciòn: sweets, fruit, toys, and coins, which blindfolded children try to break by hitting it with a stick. Gifts arrive on 6 January, the day of Los Reyes, the Three Kings. In Brazil, Papai Noel does not travel in a sleigh drawn by reindeers but comes in a helicopter, flying over the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro and throwing a shower of sweets down to the thousands of children packed together in the stands. On 31 December, the goddess of the sea, Yemanja, is also celebrated, with votive offerings of fruit and bracelets made of wool and flowers, which are placed on small rafts that drift out into the ocean with lighted candles illuminating terracotta statues of the goddess. Christmas in Egypt comes on the twenty-ninth day of the holy month of Kiahk – our 7 January. This is the day that ends a forty-three-day fast, with no food from midnight to the ninth hour. At Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, the faithful receive Qurban bread cut with the sign of the Cross surrounded by twelve dots that represent the Apostles. Among the skyscrapers of Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong, Dun Che Lao Ren, or Old Man Christmas, appears in the windows of shopping malls and the Tree of Light shines with lanterns, paper flowers and colourful garlands.

The Spring Festival – known in the West as the Chinese New Year, is held from 21 January to 19 February: fifteen days of candle-lit banquets and visits to friends and relatives, strictly in auspicious red attire. In Japan, Hoteiosho brings gifts to children on New Year’s Eve, which has been celebrated on 1 January since 1873. At Christmas people enjoy Kurisumasu keki, a light sponge cake with a layer of cream and strawberries. In Italy, panettone is possibly the quintessential Christmas treat: it is said to have been invented by a kitchen assistant named Toni, at the service of Ludovico Sforza, to replace the sumptuous dessert that the cook had burnt. Toni’s bread – or Pan-di-Toni – was acclaimed by all the diners. On 6 January, the smiling hag Befana comes with the Three Kings, and the Nativity scene, which is said to have been invented by Francis of Assisi, has its moment of triumph.

So many traditions that all say: “Happy Christmas!”. In all the languages of the world.

A newly-published research project looks at the complex issue of remote working

Working from home, in all the various declinations that this form of work can take; an expression of a culture of production that is quite different to the one that came before, a new approach that was previously often snubbed, but which now – all of a sudden – has been embraced as a useful prospect for many companies. Remote working or smart working, then, must be properly understood before it is celebrated and applied across a wider gamut of company situations, although they certainly represent important alternatives for a different approach to the organisation of production. Reading “Telelavoro. La nuova onda” (Remote working. The new wave) written by Vittorio Di Martino, and recently published in the journal Economia & Lavoro, is therefore useful, in order to gain an idea based on reliable indications of what this change of perspective means for tens of thousands of employees and companies.

The author was one of the first to study remote working, and he now returns to this subject to draw attention to how this different approach to business activity (where possible) is at the centre of a real surge in attention, accompanied by some very high expectations. Di Martino, therefore, analyses this activity, exploring the various aspects thereof and highlighting the factors that are still preventing it from becoming more widespread, with a particular focus on Italy. What is necessary, he explains, are strategies and policies designed to develop remote working, the future of which is still difficult to predict.

A number of elements are involved in this professional practice, often rather distant from one another. Working from home calls for a new means of organising relations between the different areas of the business, and necessitates new rules for control and performance monitoring systems, along with a more flexible mindset, with management and decision-making strategies that differ enormously from traditional methods. In other words, a more mature and aware business culture is needed on all counts.

Di Martino explains, therefore, that it will only be possible to “hazard” forecasts as to the possibilities of extending remote working in a manner that fully meets the needs of all the parties involved when companies have access to a real set of practical tools that can be easily used.

Telelavoro. La nuova onda (Remote working. The new wave)

Vittorio Di Martino

Economia & Lavoro, 2/2020, May-August