A history spanning almost 160 years. Poste Italiane, founded in 1862 as Regie Poste, linked the entire country before the advent of Internet, the network that now instantly connects us through email, social media and instant messaging apps. During the two world wars, the Poste Italiane kept soldiers and families in touch by delivering packages, letters and postcards. Then came money orders for transactions and payments, savings accounts and savings bonds that actively contributed to the growth of the country
Historical Archive and artistic heritage
The Post Office Historical Archive, located in Piazza Bologna in Rome, preserves and promotes the historical memory of the company through photos, films, historical documents and publications. But that is not all. Poste Italiane’s heritage also includes buildings that, since the beginning, have represented places where love and business, personal and financial relationships, friendships and deals, money matters and matters of the heart took shape and developed.
These buildings of immense architectural value were designed by engineers and architects such as Angiolo Mazzoni, Adalberto Libera, Marcello Piacentini, Roberto Narducci, Cesare Bazzani, Franco Petrucci, and Giuseppe Vaccaro.
Often specifically commissioned, these monumental buildings feature elements of design and works of art. Examples include Gino Severini’s mosaics in Alessandria and those of Fillìa and Prampolini in La Spezia, the paintings of Benedetta Cappa Marinetti in Palermo, the works of art of Guglielmo Sansoni (Tato) in Gorizia and Palermo, Gino Severini in Alessandria, Mario Sironi in Bergamo and Guido Cadorin and Matilde Festa Piacentini in Gorizia, as well as the sculptures of Domenico Ponzi in Palermo and Grosseto, Arturo Martini in Naples and Napoleone Martinuzzi in Bergamo.
Poste Italiane promotes its important artistic heritage through meetings, photo exhibitions, film projections and open days. It does so from the Archive’s headquarters in the Palazzo delle Poste in Piazza Bologna in Rome, designed by the architects, Mario Ridolfi and Mario Fagiolo, and inaugurated in 1935. The building is a milestone in modern architecture: its plain facade and futuristic lines conceal an avantgarde design and construction solutions. It is one of the best examples of Rationalism, a design movement that eliminated decorative elements, simplified shapes to pure volumes and used basic colors and innovative materials, such as reinforced concrete, glass and steel.