How did Industrial Italy enter the American market? How was the “Italian appeal” formed in the years after WWII? In this presentation Luca Cottini investigates the cultural and commercial strategy of Italian companies in the United States and explores the relationship between Italian product and American imagination. A public presentation sponsored by the Consulate General of Italy in Philadelphia (March 23, 2022)

@italyinphilly lecture by Luca Cottini, PhD (October 6, 2021) * The unexpected birth of sound recording. From Edison's phonograph to Berliner's Gramophone * Caruso's 1902 recording in Milan. The launch of the record industry * The global reach of Italian opera and the crisis of operatic performance * The development of lithography and chromolithography in the promotion of operas * Giulio Ricordi. From score publisher to a graphic designer, from opera patron to pioneering advertiser * The evolution of opera post ads into a melodramatic advertising language * The legitimizing of recorded performance through Ricordi's gramophone ads Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, I invite you to subscribe to this YouTube channel to receive notification of new episodes and visit the official webpage of the show at www.italianinnovators.com for more information about this project.

@italyinphilly lecture by Luca Cottini, PhD (September 9, 2021) * The Seicento (17th century) as an experimental laboratory negotiating momentous changes in cultural, political, and social history * The Baroque as a multi-media platform and an overarching aesthetics * The common concepts behind the works of Galileo, Caravaggio, Bernini, and Monteverdi * The Baroque as space. The reconfiguration of Rome as a universal capital (Bernini and Borromini) Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, I invite you to subscribe to this YouTube channel to receive notification of new episodes and visit the official webpage of the show at www.italianinnovators.com for more information about this project.

@italyinphilly lecture by Luca Cottini, PhD (June 8, 2021) * The decorated surface. Objects and matter as narrative supports from Roman antiquity to modern pre-industrial aesthetics (eg. wood, glass, tapestries, plates) * The object is the story. The industrial construction of the object’s interior personality * Storytelling techniques in scriptwriting and object design * From the icons of Italian design to Italy’s industrial aesthetics. A philosophy of style Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, I invite you to subscribe to this YouTube channel to receive notification of new episodes and visit the official webpage of the show at www.italianinnovators.com for more information about this project.

@italyinphilly lecture by Luca Cottini, PhD (May 6, 2021). Introductory remarks by Pier Forlano (Consul General of Italy in Philaldephia) Outline of the lecture * Calvino’s short story “Autobiography of a spectator”: an exercise of memory and a critical mirror * The common adolescence of Calvino and Fellini: the riviera, Fascist repression, and cinema * From the cinema of “distance” to meta-cinema in the post-war years * A parallel aesthetics: the present indicative gaze and the reversed vision. From cinema to literature Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, I invite you to subscribe to this YouTube channel to receive notification of new episodes and visit the official webpage of the show at www.italianinnovators.com for more information about this project.

@italyinphilly lecture by Luca Cottini, PhD (April 14, 2021). Introductory remarks by Pier Forlano (Consul General of Italy in Philadelphia) announcing the patronage of the Italian Consulate of Philadelphia to the Italian Innovators project. Outline of the lecture * the development of telegraphy and the early wiring of the world * the invention of telephony (Meucci) * phonographs, gramophones, and the birth of the record industry (Caruso, Toscanini) * Marconi’s wireless telegraphy (radio) and the creation of a simultaneous world * the evolution of broadcasting and television (Pasolini) * the computing age (Calvino) and the digital age (Faggin, Chariglione) Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, I invite you to subscribe to this YouTube channel to receive notification of new episodes and visit the official webpage of the show at www.italianinnovators.com for more information about this project.

@italyinphilly lecture by Luca Cottini, PhD (March 10, 2021). Introductory remarks by Pier Forlano, Consul General of Italy in Philadelphia. How is originality born in #literature? How is innovation achieved in #design? How the literary and entrepreneurial modes of creation interact in the Italian milieu? * Petrarch’s monolingualism and the “solo ingredient” model (Casadei, Brugola, Brembo) * Dante’s multilingualism and the “orchestra” model (Campari, Olivetti) * Ariosto vs Tasso. Originality through variations or through heightening of emotions * Leopardi vs Manzoni. The meaningful and useful object. Aesthetics and functionality * D’Annunzio, Depero, Ponti. How literary culture impacted Italian industry in the 20th century * Italian innovation as an a-systematic philosophy of gesture * Brunello Cucinelli (the value of pensare) and Walter Bonatti (entrepreneurship as impresa) Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, make sure to leave a comment here below and subscribe to this YouTube channel as a way to enrich this conversation and receive notification of new episodes. Also, don’t forget to visit the official webpage of the show at www.italianinnovators.com for more information about this project.

@Italyinphilly lecture by Luca Cottini (PhD), February 10, 2021 * The perfecting of bicycle. Bianchi's safety bicycle (1885), the invention of the pneumatic (1888) and the Bianchi-Pirelli deal at the base of the evolution of Italy's mechanic industry * The 19th century debate on the body and physical education * The project to turn bicycles into symbols of the Northern Italian industrial modernity * The birth of the Italian cycling Touring club * The foundation of Gazzetta dello sport, the culture of sports, and Giro d'Italia * Bicycles in 20th century Italian literature, painting, and cinema Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, make sure to leave a comment here below and subscribe to this YouTube channel as a way to enrich this conversation and receive notification of new episodes. Also, don’t forget to visit the official webpage of the show at www.italianinnovators.com for more information about this project.