Bocconi Made Italy, Too

The idea is to provide a different way to narrate the century and a half since Italy was established as an independent state. This was the aim of the exhibit entitled "Of Italy which made the economy, and of the economy that made Italy", on display at Bocconi until February 4 (piazza Sraffa 13). It was organized by the University's Library to show the public the wide range of dissertations and publications written by Bocconians on the guiding role that institutions historically had in the construction of Italy's national identity. "With this exhibit, we meant to valorize the wealth of knowledge contained in the library, especially its most ancient core, which has been recently recatalogued", says Marisa Santarsiero, director of the Bocconi Library and co-organizer of the exhibit together with economic history professor Elisabetta Merlo. A series of texts and documents, starting with the second half of the 19^th century, which outline the country's social and economic growth led by an active political and intellectual class, which is well documented in the dissertations of Bocconi graduates, proving – Santarsiero explains – "that the University's contribution to Italian unification goes back to its roots. Works on display will include studies of the development of roads and networks, indispensable to unify the country, and the progress of women's and children's social conditions".

The exhibit was divided into three sections, each representing 50 years of Italian history, showcasing "books and reports released from 1861 to 2011", says Giuseppe Pantò, head of Bocconi Publications and Multimedia, , "complemented by power point slides displaying Istat and Bocconi data on the evolution of national income, education, and other macroeconomic and macrosocial variables over the last 150 years".