A published inventory of mining archives narrates a century of hard work<\/p>\n
Documents recording toil and entrepreneurial ingenuity. Papers, drawings, maps, work plans, photographs, individual stories \u2013 this and much more can be found in the Montecatini – Montedison – Solmine mining archives, recently opened to the public. The result of this long and delicate reorganisation and cataloguing work carried out by Simonetta Soldatini has just been published: yet another significant element in a widespread corporate culture that makes Italy pretty much unique.<\/p>\n
Gli archivi minerari Montecatini – Montedison – Solmine a Massa Marittima (1898-1989) inventario <\/em>(The Montecatini – Montediso – Solmine mining archives at Massa Marittima, 1898-1989 inventory<\/em>) \u2013 this is the title of the recently published research work that collects the inventory of the mining archive preserved in the Documentation Centre of Niccioleta, in Tuscany, which consists of over 20,000 binders full of documents of all kinds: from personnel files to pay slips, tags, correspondence and over 7,000 maps, mine plans, photographs and drawings of machinery. An enormously valuable heritage resource that helps piecing together the history of the mineral exploitation of Tuscany’s Colline Metallifere (Metal-bearing hills) between the end of the 19th<\/sup> century and the beginning of the 20th<\/sup> century. Soldatini spent ten years reorganising the mass of documentation retrieved from the mines: a painstaking cataloguing work that was undertaken thanks to the support and collaboration of local bodies and institutions and that is now collected in a research work that is also an inventory and a work tool.<\/p>\n And what does it all amount to? Well, to an almost century-long profound testimony to mining work, as well as the record of the technological skills of an industry that has been too quickly forgotten.<\/p>\n Yet, the region succeeded in keeping its memory alive through some significant volunteering initiatives (which, in fact, also led to this inventory of documents).<\/p>\n But there\u2019s more: Simonetta Soldatini’s research has now become a work tool for the investigation and narration of further entrepreneurial stories, thus contributing to cultural growth in the broader sense \u2013 that is, available not only to scholars but also, for example, to young people and schools. This is a book to be browsed and read, and \u2013 especially \u2013 to be used as a means to understand part of our past history.<\/p> Gli archivi minerari Montecatini – Montedison – Solmine a Massa Marittima (1898-1989): inventario <\/em><\/strong>(The Montecatini – Montediso – Solmine mining archives at Massa Marittima, 1898-1989 inventory<\/em>)<\/strong><\/p>\n Simonetta Soldatini (curated by), Polistampa, 2022<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A published inventory of mining archives narrates a century of hard work Documents recording toil and entrepreneurial ingenuity. Papers, drawings, maps, work plans, photographs, individual stories \u2013 this and much more can be found in the Montecatini – Montedison – Solmine mining archives, recently opened to the public. The result of this long and delicate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corporate-culture","category-insights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n