Economy – Ecological and digital transition is among the themes taking centre stage this week in the articles that the foreign press has dedicated to Italy. Bloomberg interviews the Minister of Sustainable Infrastructure and Mobility Enrico Giovannini, who speaks about how the Recovery Plan must be an accelerator of foreign investment and how Italy is seeking to create “a favourable environment” for outside backers (May 4 – Italy Minister Says Recovery Plan Hinges on Private Sector Boost*).
Investments are already on their way from Euronext, the leading European stock exchange group that has just been joined by Borsa Italiana: the servers that handle one fourth of all continental trades are to be relocated by the middle of next year from England to Bergamo. (Financial Times, April 29 – Euronext to pull trading servers out of UK after Borsa Italiana deal*). A technological challenge also faces Poste Italiane which, as Financial Times again explains, is capitalizing on its frontline experience in the vaccine campaign to modernize and broaden its range of services (May 3 – Poste Italiane uses frontline role in Covid battle to modernise services). Elsewhere, Italbus, “Luca Cordero di Montezemolo’s new adventure” in the mobility sector, is focusing on emissions reduction in addition to luxury, as recounted by the financial daily Boersen Zeitung (May 4 – Luca Cordero di Montezemolo steigt in den Bus um*)
And while it is again Boersen Zeitung to emphasize the favourable accounts trend of Intesa Sanpaolo, which achieved “better than expected” results in the first quarter (May 5 – Intesa Sanpaolo übwrtrifft die Prognosen*), Reuters covers the acquisition of the Italian diagnostics lab Lifebrain, which provides Covid tests and might be valued at over € 1 billion by the Investindustrial fund (April 29 – Investindustrial gears up for possible $1.2 billion Lifebrain sale – sources).
Culture – This week, Rome takes centre stage in cultural reporting by the international media. Raising particular interest is the new hi-tech refit of the Colosseum which, by reconstructing a retractable floor for the arena, will allow visitors to see the “majesty of the monument” (The Guardian, May 2 – Rome’s Colosseum to gain hi-tech arena floor; Sueddeutsche Zeitung, May 3 – Kolosseum oder Klamaukbude), offering a “gladiators’ view” (The New York Times, May 2 – $18 Million Refit of Colosseum Will Give Visitors a Gladiator’s View) and allowing events to be held inside the amphitheatre (El Mundo, May 2 – El Coliseo de Roma volverá a tener suelo en 2023).
Ancient Rome also figures prominently in the news of the discovery, in the Louvre’s collections, of the finger of a bronze statue of Emperor Constantine displayed at the Capitoline Museusms (The Guardian, April 29 – Giant statue of Roman emperor reunited with long-lost finger; New York Times, April 30 – After 500 Years, an Ancient Bronze Hand Is Rejoined to a Finger*).
The Spanish dailies devote coverage to art, with the show “Picasso, de Chirico, Dalí – A dialogue with Raphael,” which will bring to works by the two Spanish artists to the Mart, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto (El País, May 2 – Pintures de Dalí viatgen a Itàlia per trobar-se amb Rafael), and to literature with the Catalan translation of Andrea Camilleri’s last book The Safety Net (El País, April 28 – Un nou festí de Montalbano). Lastly, culture and nature come together in UNESCO’s eight new Geoparks, which include the Majella park, where visitors can “understand how our planet formed while admiring spectacular landscapes” (El País, May 3 – Ocho nuevos geoparques mundiales de la Unesco).
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