Leonardo’s 75th anniversary: frequent 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. Since the history of Leonardo, established on 18 March 1948 beneath the name Finmeccanica, is the frequent thread operating via the evolution of Italy’s manufacturing sector due to the fact the finish of the Second Planet War. An original important to interpretation of these 3 quarters of a century of history is supplied 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, generating an important contribution to the physiology of the country’s sector”. 5 important moments from the company’s 75-year history all share the similar 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 top the way in the country’s post-war reconstruction.

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

Then, involving the sixties and the eighties, came a concentrate on the aerospace sector and the emerging electronics sector on the one particular hand, and on the other, on the mass market place 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 soon after the year 2005 by international expansion, in the United Kingdom, the United States and Poland. Considering the fact that the finish of 2013, this has been followed by rationalisation of assets and reorganisation into 1 Business to meet the needs of competitiveness and investment capacity – important variables for concentrating on revolutionary lines of small business and technological cycles.