Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.
To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to upgrade your browser.
2019, The History of the Vespa. An Italian Miracle
Journal of Cultural Geography
Technology and geographical imaginations: representing aviation in 1930s Italy2008 •
Space and Culture
Overcoming Distance and Space Through Technology: Record Aviation Linking Fascist Italy With South America2011 •
WORLD HERITAGE and DEGRADATION Smart Design, Planning and Technologies
From Carlo to Ettore Bugatti: The language of Movement2016 •
Carlo Bugatti (Milan 1856 - Molsheim 1940) belonged to a family of artists and creative minds. He trained at the Brera Academy in Milan, before dedicating himself first to architecture and then to furniture design, characterised by exotic and original forms. Well-known in his lifetime, his contribution to Italian design is not properly recognised today; he reached the high point of his career in 1902 with his contribution to the International Exhibition in Turin. Of his sons, Rembrandt Bugatti chose sculpture, while Ettore Bugatti (Milan 1881 - Neuilly sur Seine 1947), who was equally creative, chose a path that was only apparently unrelated, by founding a car company, Bugatti, which remains synonymous with excellence and artisan uniqueness. In this paper, we will consider Carlo Bugatti's formal vocabulary, and his use of original materials such as leather, painted parchment, pewter and copper, which he combined to create compositions developed during the Art Nouveau period but removed from contemporary trends. The originality of Carlo Bugatti's pieces, of his work, does not represent an exotic exception, as his work presents surprising similarities with elements of Ettore's design, in a complex and intriguing burst of interaction and inspiration. And all of this against the backdrop of the avant-garde movements of the time, such as Futurism, which played a key role, and which help shed light on the Bugattis' artistic journey, something which deserves a closer look.
2021 •
Mobility scooters have evolved up to modern cabin versions and to application of still futuristic solutions in the automotive sector: they could even be a resource for individual mobility in the Covid-19 era, but in Italy they seem unable to establish, mainly because of lacking and approximate legislation. Article 46 of the Italian Highway Code generically delegates the definition of "machines for disabled persons" (not considered vehicles) to "current Community provisions", but the explanatory note of heading 8713 of EU Combined Nomenclature of goods and EU Regulations 718/2009 and 2021/1367 equate mobility scooters to motor vehicles: as such they are an unknown entity for the Highway Code, therefore they should be considered unregulated atypical vehicles, which are forbidden in public areas. We propose the classification of mobility scooters as "motor vehicles" for both able and disabled persons and a specific regulation of their characteristics and c...
The first of July 1952, the moped was legislatively excluded from existing restrictions for heavier two-wheeled motorized vehicles. A driver/owner of a “bicycle with auxiliary engine” – this was the original denomination of the vehicle – thus needed no registration, driver’s license or insurance, nor pay any vehicle tax. The legislators did, however, postulate some technical requirements. Besides regulation of the engine, the vehicle should be “bicycle-like” and have pedals. It should thus be driven primarily by means of human, not mechanical, power (i.e., it was not supposed to be a lighter version of a motorcycle). In terms of social and economic goals, the state assumed workers to be the primary users, and a utilitarian use rather than one connected to pleasure and spare time. Very quickly, however, the moped lost all resemblance with the ordinary bicycle (except for the pedals). In a new legislation in 1961, the state yielded to the technical development. The moped no longer needed to resemble a bicycle or have pedals. Meanwhile, the moped also became more of a toy for boys – a vehicle for freedom – rather than the useful tool the state had wished for. In fact, we argue that the demands from user groups not foreseen played a crucial role in changing the legal technical requirements of the moped.This paper deals with the co-evolution, technically and institutionally, of the moped during the period 1952–75. Using a method inspired by evolutionary theory, the moped models released in Sweden in these years are grouped in “families” with distinctive technical features and accompanying presumed uses. We analyze this development using concepts from the theoretical fields of innovation studies and the history of technology.
Social Studies of Science
Reviving a ghost in the history of technology: The social construction of the recumbent bicycle2014 •
Space and Culture
Overcoming distance and space through technology: connecting fascist Italy with South America2011 •
This article analyzes modern, discursive attempts to overcome distance and space through analyses of discourses focused on record aviation attempts in 1930s’ fascist Italy. Two particular flights are analyzed, both linking Italy with South America. The first analyzed flight is a 1937 seaplane distance record attempt; the second was a 1939 endeavor to establish regular, scheduled airmail services between Italy and Brazil. The flights are analyzed using institutional importance criteria, based on the preservation of archival documents concerning the record attempts by the Ministry of Aeronautics. The argument presented here is that the examined flights were of importance to the regime for immediate propaganda purposes, as well as for the use of aviation as a metaphor for Italian fascism. In particular, the article uses a framework that frames Italian fascism as a modern phenomenon, rooted in the ideological and political utility of the separation between natural and social spheres. Aviation, when identified with fascism, became a technosocial discursive realm juxtaposed to the natural limits and boundaries to be overcome through aeronautical technology. The article resultantly analyzes the discursive construction and representation of aviation, and nature, in the case of the two record flights.
“Based on prodigious archival research, Driving Modernity explores how the Italian autostrada project grew out of a somewhat fantastic idea by a coterie of Milan businessmen into an internationally recognized technological icon of Fascist Italy. This book speaks clearly and convincingly about the political values embedded in infrastructures.” · Thomas Zeller, University of Maryland, College Park “Moraglio’s work is a deep dive into a grandiose and distinctively modern project in interwar Italy. Never before has the complex ideological character of these motorways been so clearly analyzed, from the moment of their conception to the widespread adoption of the automobile.” · Mathieu Flonneau, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, LabEx EHNE On March 26th, 1923, in a formal ceremony, construction of the Milan–Alpine Lakes autostrada officially began, the preliminary step toward what would become the first European motorway. That Benito Mussolini himself participated in the festivities indicates just how important the project was to Italian Fascism. Driving Modernity recounts the twisting fortunes of the autostrada, which—alongside railways, aviation, and other forms of mobility—Italian authorities hoped would spread an ideology of technological nationalism. It explains how Italy ultimately failed to realize its mammoth infrastructural vision, addressing the political and social conditions that made a coherent plan of development impossible.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.
2010 •
Tecnoscienza. Italian Journal of Science and Technology Studies
“What can we learn from the history of STS in Italy? A few hints for the future”2020 •
International Journal of Sustainable Transportation
Free-floating electric scooters: representation in French mainstream media2020 •
La Lettre du Gerpisa
A Study of the Car in Italy. Notes for a Social and Environmental History2005 •
Revista 180. Arquitectura. Arte. Diseño
The Bolted Machine Book: Depero Futurista 1913-1927. A Project by Fedele Azari and Fortunato Depero/ El libro-máquina atornillado: Depero Futurista 1913-1927. Un proyecto de Fedele Azari y Fortunato Depero2023 •
2021 •
Maria Rentetzi (Hg.): The Gender of Things: How Epistemic and Technological Objects Become Gendered. Milton Park, New York 2023, S. 111-124
Gendered Mobility: Early motor scooting around 1920.2023 •
Athens Social Atlas
Athens - Electric scooters a critical approach - Athens Social Atlas2020 •
Book review in Annali d'Italianistica 40 (2022): 503-504.
Giovanni Capecchi and Maurizio Pistelli, eds. Treni letterari. Binari, ferrovie e stazioni in Italia tra ’800 e ’900 (Torino: Lindau, 2020).West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture
Bicycle Histories—They Have a Past, but Do They Have a Future? ExhibitionCycle RevolutionDesign Museum, LondonNovember 18, 2015–June 30, 2016Bicycle Design: An Illustrated HistoryTony Hadland and Hans-Erhard LessingCambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014.584 pp.; 306 ills.Cloth $36.95ISBN 9780262026758The...2016 •
Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions
On the verge of change: Maverick innovation with mobility scooters2018 •
Journal of Modern Italian Studies 22(3) 2017, 410-412
REVIEW OF: Fernando Esposito, Fascism, Aviation and Mythical Modernity (Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2015)Renaissance Quarterly
Review of Paolo Galluzzi, The Italian Renaissance of Machines (2020)2022 •
2019 •
Diferents. Revista de museus
Relics of Icarus dream. Gianni Caproni Aeronautical Museum/ Reliquias del sueño de Ícaro. El Museo Aeronáutico Gianni Caproni2023 •
Predella Journal of Visual Arts
High Tech Gondola. The Venice Biennale in an Advertisement [paper]2020 •
Technological evolution of aeronautics through war and peace: case study of the seaplanes
International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC) Annual meeting 2019, Katowice, University of Silesia, Poland. Program of the conference.2019 •