Le carte di Raffaele Mattioli

In the 1970s, Banca Commerciale Italiana’s executive papers were transferred by the Offices of the Board to the office of Senator Leo Valiani, becoming part of Comit’s Historical Archives on their foundation in 1984.

The Mattioli Papers are divided into alphabetical folders of personal correspondence (almost three thousand letters to bankers, business people, financial authorities, Comit personnel, scholars, friends and family members). The inventory – with analytical descriptions of the documents and cross-references – gives an insight into official matters and the problems of managing the bank between the two World Wars in Italy and beyond. A significant amount of information – possessed by few Italian and European banks – was flowing into Milan from the major international markets at the time.

In a wider sense, the Mattioli Papers give curious readers an authentic insight into Italy’s institutions and financial professions, as well as its political and civic context; they are worthy of comparison to famous letters and ‘celebrity papers’ such as those of Luigi Einaudi and Alberto Beneduce.

They also chart the ‘high culture’ which Mattioli nurtured after the Second World War, both with the publishing house Ricciardi and with the creation of outstanding research centres such as the Italian Institute of Historical Studies in Naples.