Giuseppe Lupo Sinisgalli and the Pirelli magazine (1948

Giuseppe Lupo
Sinisgalli and the Pirelli magazine (1948-1952)
Leonardo Sinisgalli worked with Pirelli just after the end of the Second World
War for a very short period between 1948 and 1952, during which he set up and
directed the bi-monthly magazine of the same name in a partnership with
Giuseppe Eugenio Luraghi, manager of the tyres division and driving force
behind Edizioni della Meridiana. This experience in an industrial environment
which Sinisgalli himself was to call “the reign of the flexible”, is part of a
symbolic framework in Italian history, that lively fifteen-year period which, in a
mood of optimism, was to have ferried the entire country from postwar
reconstruction to the economic miracle of the Sixties.1 It is no accident that the
first edition of Pirelli is built around a flattering image of the product which left
the Bicocca plant, with contributions from Bruno Munari (Il piacere di riposare
- “The Pleasure of Rest”), Carlo Bernari (Un mondo silenzioso e senza scosse “A Smooth and Silent World”) and Carlo Linati (Gioia del camminare – “The
Joy of Walking”). The article by Sinisgalli, Elogio della gomma – “In Praise of
Rubber”, was companion to them and opened the second instalment with a
vaguely surreal atmosphere. “It’s true that humans are born with effort”, it is
written in the Leopardi-style introduction to the latter, “yet they are brought into
this world with gloves”. 2
The usefulness of rubber is the introductory theme of the periodical. The
reason for this can be seen even in a series of sharp and witty expressions which
Sinisgalli, a few years later, was to take from his own memoirs. Luraghi, he
wrote in 1966, reconstructing the early years at Pirelli, “explained to me [...] that
a cotton or rayon thread becomes elastic like a spring if it is wound into a spiral
to make twine. The Italians”, he told me, “lose umbrellas and hate rain. Write a
page or so on raincoats”. He also told me: “we’ve padded the seats at La Scala
with foam rubber – imagine Stendhal’s surprise!” “What lovely verses the poets
have written about the beautiful hands of their muses! Let’s do a poster with
rubber gloves!”. Staying with the theme of advertising tricks for rubber,
Sinisgalli recalls that very soon the city of Milan was plastered with “huge
billboards which urged pedestrians to walk the Pirelli way”, even providing the
inspiration for the poet Beniamino Dal Fabbro for his engaging refrain: “Se vi
fanno male i calli, camminate Sinisgalli” [“if your corns hurt, walk the Sinisgalli
way”], which also complemented an old epigram by Flaiano: “Sinisgalli wrote
sonnets in Olivetti font; the publishers gave him an adding machine in
exchange”. 3
1
L. SINISGALLI, 1948/1952, Pirelli, 1952, 6, p. 8; now in Pneumatica, written by and with introduction by F. Vitelli, Edizioni 10/17, Salerno 2003, p. 76.
2
L. SINISGALLI, Elogio della gomma, Pirelli, 1949, 1, p. 10, later in Pneumatica, pp. 101-103. The articles by
Munari, Bernari and Linati are in Pirelli, 1948, 1, respectively pp. 25, 28-31.
3
The quotes are from a manuscript of Sinisgalli, found in the Archivio Giuseppe Eugenio Luraghi, read on 20
December 1966 in Rome, on the occasion of the presentation of the book by G.E. LURAGHI, Due milanesi alle
The pages of Pirelli reveal not only an advertising operation assigned to
expert writers, but also the need to explore the horizon of modernity – and
everything related to it – through the eyes of poets and artists. Symbolic
examples are the caption, again by Leopardi “Il naufragar m’è dolce” [“And
sweet to me is shipwreck in this sea”], adopted as advertising slogan for the
Nautilus canoe produced with Pirelli rubber, or the comparison between a
metaphysical dummy, which dominates the scene in a painting by De Chirico,
and a photo of a Shell petrol pump. 4 This is also the context for the original
investigation by Antonio Baldini into mention of a ball in literary works (Di
rimbalzo – “Bouncing”) and the surreal poem by Alfonso Gatto Il bambino di
gomma - “The Rubber Child” 5; the architectural forays into rationalism and
rural culture by Libero De Libero, Alfonso Gatto, Salvatore Quasimodo,
Vittorio Sereni, Diego Valeri, Giorgio Soavi 6; the travel stories by Eugenio
Montale, Giovanni Russo, Carlo Bernari, Riccardo Bacchelli, Domenico
Cantatore, Dino Buzzati, Michele Prisco, Piero Chiara and Alessandro
Parronchi.7
The fact of having approached poets and artists sets Pirelli apart from
other company house organs, to which it acknowledged owing a great deal in
cultural terms both for the layout, which made it fairly similar to the model of
the glossy magazine (“our programmes were based on the idea of transferring to
a company magazine the journalistic formula of weeklies”, recalls Arturo
Tofanelli, co-editor of the periodical) and that atmosphere of reciprocal
exchange between technical and literary idioms rightfully underlined with a tone
of pride by Sinisgalli himself in the farewell article 1948/1952:
“There were excellent examples on the market: Ferrania, Edilizia Moderna, Rivista del Vetro
and various pharmaceutical periodicals. There had been, although very remote, the more than
twenty editions of Tecnica e Organizzazione, printed in Ivrea by Olivetti. I have to say that
the departure from that type of presentation of information was clear cut. Because the two
sides of the story, technology and culture, problems and ideas, investigations and literature,
practicality and information, were always kept balanced. And the names of Ungaretti,
Montale, Quasimodo, Baldini, Vergani, Carrieri, Calzini, Bernari, [...] stand side by side with
piramidi, Mondadori, Milano 1966.
4
Cf. the article by V. ROVI, Album d’un distributore di benzina, Pirelli, 1950, 4, pp. 40-41; the advertisement for
the Nautilus canoe is in the same edition, p. 51.
5
A. BALDINI, Di rimbalzo, Pirelli, 1949, 2, pp. 14-15; A. GATTO, Il bambino di gomma, Pirelli, 1950, 2, p. 21.
6
Cf., on the subject, the following articles by Pirelli: L. DE LIBERO, Saper costruire, 1951, 4, pp. 8-10 e 12; S.
QUASIMODO, Muri siciliani, 1951, 5, p. 45; A. GATTO, Le case in fiore, 1952, 1, p. 19; V. SERENI, Case lombarde, 1952, 2, pp. 22-23; D. VALERI, Case a fior d’acqua, 1952, 5, p. 42; G. SOAVI, I rustici “tabià”
dell’Ampezzano, 1952, 6, p. 40.
7
Cf. on this subject, in Pirelli, the following articles: E. MONTALE, Vacanze in Versilia, 1949, 4, p. 18; G. RUSSO, Strade di Lucania, 1949, 4, p. 31; C. BERNARI, Camionisti si nasce, 1949, 5, p. 46, e Una retta dalle Alpi al
mare, 1950, 6, pp. 21-22; R. BACCHELLI, Tre divinità sull’Appennino, 1950, 2, p. 48; D. CANTATORE, Aumentato
d’una candela il fuoco dell’arte, 1950, 3, p. 48; D. BUZZATI, Stupidità della montagna, 1951, 5, pp. 52-53; M.
PRISCO, Domeniche per l’automobilista italiano, 1952, 1, pp. 43-45; P. CHIARA, La sponda magra: spedizione
tra due frontiere, 1952, 5, pp. 13-15 e 62; A. PARRONCHI, Firenze-Mare senza seguire l’autostrada, 1952, 6, pp.
53-55.
Canestrini, Ambrosini, Verrati, Cesura, Nutrizio, Minoletti, Dicorato”. 8
In this second season an image of a poet takes shape who strengthens the
geometry mission with the esprit de technique and transfers part of his struggles
as intellectual and scientist into the essential testimony of Furor mathematicus
(1950), an essay of considerable cultural substance, to which Francesco Severi,
the elderly teacher and professor from the university years, refers in an article
which appeared in the first edition of 1951 entitled Anche i russi sono dotati di
furor mathematicus [“The Russians too have a passion for mathematics]. 9
Mention has to be made of a Leonardo-type method therefore, with regard
to the numerous contributions to Pirelli which Sinisgalli wanted to collect in a
book entitled Pneumatica, taking his inspiration from the books by Philo and
Hero of Alexandria, which he discusses in a chapter of Furor mathematicus. Not
only because the magazine dedicates to the fifteenth-century scholar a series of
celebratory contributions in the fifth centenary of his birth, the last of which, La
mano mancina [“The Left-Handed Hand”], is by Sinisgalli himself, but also due
to the interdisciplinary nature of the themes tackled. 10 This method rises to the
surface and the line of the intersections is fully visible both when the poetengineer tackles the problem of advertising (Il demone dell’analogia, Le idee
pubblicitarie, Plastica pubblicitaria –“The Analogy Demon”, “Advertising
Ideas”, “Publicity Plastic”) and when, recalling the hypotheses of Gropius, Le
Corbusier and Wright, he retraces the paths of architectural utopia (La casa è
una vocazione – “The Home is a Vocation”). 11
All this is in addition to interest in cinema of a “technological” inspiration
(Soggetto per un documentario – “Subject for a Documentary”), which leads to
a second short, Un millesimo di millimetre (“A Thousandth of a Millimetre”),
presented at the Venice Film Festival two years after Lezione di geometria
(“Geometry Lesson”) and also the writing which called for a sort of “mechanical
aesthetic” (Geometria barocca, Natura calcolo fantasia, Ghirigori a tre
dimensioni e Bassorilievi sui pneumatici – “Baroque Geometry”, “Nature,
Calculation, Imagination”, “3D Squiggles” and “Bas-Relief on Tyres”). 12
8
An interesting summary of the corporate magazines mentioned in the article is contained in L. SINISGALLI,
Gratis et amore, «Esso Rivista», 1952, 1, pp. 7-10, later in Pneumatica, pp. 121-124; cf. also I tecnici pubblicitari italiani, Pirelli, 1954, 2, pp. 54-55, and Graphic Art in Italian House Organs. Graphik in italienischen
Hauszeitschriften. Revues d’entreprise italiennes, «Graphis», 1958, 80, pp. 482-499.
9
In «Pirelli», 1951, 1, pp. 11-12.
10
L. SINISGALLI, La mano mancina, Pirelli, 1952, 2, pp. 30-31, later in Pneumatica, pp. 57-60. The previous
contributions to Pirelli are by: G. GALBIATI, Il Codice Atlantico, 1951, 2, pp. 13-15; F. FLORA, Il Codice Trivulziano, 1951), 3, pp. 12-13; C. ZAMMATTIO, Gli studi di Leonardo sul volo, 1951, 4, pp. 16-17; F. ARREDI, Leonardo e la meccanica dei solidi e dei liquidi, 1951, 6, pp. 18-19; G. CANESTRINI, Le macchine di Leonardo,
1952, 1, pp. 40-41.
11
Cf. in Pirelli , Il demone dell’analogia, 1949, 1, pp. 11-13; La casa è una vocazione, 1949, 6, p. 42; Le idee
pubblicitarie, 1950, 2, pp. 38-39; Plastica pubblicitaria, 1952, 3, pp. 42-43, later in Pneumatica, pp. 17-21, 3132. 33-35, 63-65.
12
Cf. in Pirelli: L. SINISGALLI, Soggetto per un documentario, 1949, 4, pp. 51-52 e 54, Geometria barocca,
1950, 3, pp. 44-45, Natura calcolo fantasia, 1951, 3, pp. 54-55, Ghirigori a tre dimensioni, 1951, 6, pp. 46-47,
Once again the scientific/technical contributions by Sinisgalli are a
response to the Leonardo-style course launched during the Thirties and which
continued during the second Milan period, spent between Bicocca and the room
at the Doria hotel in via Vittor Pisani, immortalised in a fragment of Due
campane a Milano [“Two Bells in Milan”]: “Life is peaceful / Good or bad /
Under the pelt of time / Horizontal, sisters / Of the exile in an empty room / At
the Doria».13 The questions underlined in the articles in Pirelli appear too urgent
to suggest that these are only occasional writings and, as such, intended for a
dimension of impermanence. They instead give the sensation of being fragments
of a vast corpus still scattered in company papers, of which possibly the Furor
mathematicus gives a specific sample, although still partial in terms of range and
size.
The second Milan period, short but intense, therefore represents the
keystone of Sinisgalli’s corporate experience and bears the signs of a typically
twentieth-century conflict between a traditional-type culture and an idea of
modernity which, although containing contradictions and imbalances, became
increasingly established as an example of ethics and model of civilisation. At the
watershed of the mid-twentieth century Sinisgalli chose the route of corporate
advertising to present his dissertations on the relationship between humans and
machines (L’operaio e la macchina – “The Worker and the Machine”), on the
risks of industrial alienation (Il lavoro e lo svago – “Work and Recreation”), on
the enigma between the laws of nature and intelligence (La ruota – “The
Wheel”), on the divide between standard and craft production (L’intelligenza è
la mano? – “Is Intelligence the Hand?”).14 This programme demonstrates the
reason for the vast success enjoyed by the magazines he founded, starting in fact
with Pirelli, which forms the prologue to the later Civiltà delle Macchine
[Machine Culture] set up in Rome in 1953.
Bassorilievi sui pneumatici, 1952, 4, pp. 18-19, later in Pneumatica, pp. 25-29, 37-39, 41-45, 51, 67-69.
13
L. SINISGALLI, Due campane a Milano, in Tu sarai poeta, Franco Riva, Verona 1957, p. 27, later in L’età della luna (1956-1962), Mondadori, Milano 1962, pp. 55-56 (the italics are in the work).
14
Cf. in Pirelli: L’operaio e la macchina, 1949, 2, p. 27; Il lavoro e lo svago, 1951, 1, p. 42; La ruota, 1952, 5,
pp. 32-33; L’intelligenza è la mano?, 1951, 6, pp. 22-23, later in Pneumatica, pp. 23-24, 53-55, 71-74, 47-49.