In January 1998, on the initiative of Diana Bracco President and CEO of the Group, the company set about building a historical archive, a project that entailed the identification, recovery, cataloguing, preservation, and optimization of all documents useful for reconstructing the past scientific research activities and history of Bracco Company, which began in 1927. Since then, the Bracco Historical Archive has enriched its holdings, including through the digitization of many documents.
In 2007, the Lombardy Archival Superintendence recognized the “noteworthy historical interest” of the Archive, as it reconstructs the path “of the Italian and most notably Milanese pharmaceutical industry” through the Company’s 90 years of history.
In 2022, on the occasion of its 95th anniversary the Bracco Historical Archive is opening its records to the whole world in the form of a bilingual website. An incredible time travel, which depict the strong values that represent Bracco’s genetic heritage, divided into 5 sections – Family, Company, Innovation, Sustainability, and Culture – full of documents, unpublished photos, stories and podcasts now available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, IHeartRadio, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music.
The archive contains documents of great historical importance that showcase the development of the industry and the Country’s scientific and cultural life of Italy, from the first medicines produced to the innovative means of contrast, the Company’s core business.
Over ten thousand documents consisting of deed of incorporation of the Company, press releases, patents, laboratory journals, documentation relating to Bracco research. But the archive also contains: Bracco packaging for products marketed in Italy and abroad since the 1970s, including of the first headquarters in Via Fucini in Milan; documents relating to Bracco’s expansion into international markets; and, finally, the archives of Centro Diagnostico Italiano (CDI: the Italian Diagnostics Centre). As well as advertising materials like brochure and dèpliant, beginning with the commercials for Cebion, which was launched on the Italian market in 1934. The Bracco Digital Historical Archive also contains hundreds of video and audio recordings and more than five thousand photographs chronicling almost a century of the history of the Bracco family, of the Company Group and the Bracco Foundation, which have always been committed to corporate social responsibility.
Three libraries contribute to the Company’s goal of disseminating culture. In addition to the technical-scientific library, created in the 1950s as a training tool for employees, chemistry and pharmaceuticals, Bracco enshrines a corporate library and the extraordinary Salata Library, specialised in the history of the Italian Risorgimento and Irredentism and belonging to Senator Francesco Salata.
