Leonardo’s 75th anniversary: popular thread of technological evolution

Seventy-5 years of history of the Italian aerospace, defence and safety sector, and of its markets, technologies and men and women. Seventy-5 years of financial, social and cultural improvement in our nation and the communities served. Mainly because the history of Leonardo, established on 18 March 1948 beneath the name Finmeccanica, is the popular thread operating by way of the evolution of Italy’s manufacturing sector because the finish of the Second Planet War. An original important to interpretation of these 3 quarters of a century of history is presented in the volume “Leonardo. Motore industriale e frontiera tecnologica dell’Italia”, (“Leonardo: Italy’s industrial engine and technological frontier”), written by Il Sole 24 Ore correspondent Paolo Bricco and published by il Mulino.

As Bricco states in the new book, “Leonardo is an expression of its age, of the age of globalisation and hypertechnological capitalism, as effectively as of the age of Italy, producing an important contribution to the physiology of the country’s sector”. 5 important moments from the company’s 75-year history all share the exact same continuous: the presence of strategic technologies for the industrial improvement of Italy and its companion nations. The initially moment, in 1948, coincided with the country’s beginnings in the thermoelectric and mechanical sector and in shipbuilding, driven by Italy’s Institute for Industrial Reconstruction (IRI) and major the way in the country’s post-war reconstruction.

The launch of the transatlantic liner REX. Ansaldo Shipyards, Genoa, 1931

Then, among the sixties and the eighties, came a concentrate on the aerospace sector and the emerging electronics sector on the a single hand, and on the other, on the mass industry for automobiles following the separation of the shipbuilding sector. The late nineties and the early years of the new millennium saw the consolidation of the Aerospace, Defence and Safety industries in Italy, marked immediately after the year 2005 by international expansion, in the United Kingdom, the United States and Poland. Considering that the finish of 2013, this has been followed by rationalisation of assets and reorganisation into 1 Organization to meet the specifications of competitiveness and investment capacity – important aspects for concentrating on revolutionary lines of small business and technological cycles.