‘L’Espresso’ began publication in 1955 thanks to the will of Arrigo Benedetti and Eugenio Scalfari, and the funding of Adriano Olivetti, an entrepreneur-intellectual who believed in the adventure of a new opinion newspaper proposed to him by the two journalists. Only two years later, in 1957, as the newspaper’s aggressive campaigns – in particular against Edison – created serious commercial difficulties for Olivetti, with the risk of a boycott by large industrial groups, the company, under pressure from its shareholders, forced Olivetti to sell the newspaper: he then donated the majority of the shares to Carlo Carlo Caracciolo, an eminent figure in Italian journalism and publishing who had always supported quality information and the right to opinions, becoming a symbol of press freedom in Italy.
In 1962-1963, the situation for the newspaper became critical: Publietas, the advertising concessionaire linked to the Olivetti group’s publications, was in financial difficulty. Carlo Carla Caracciolo risked having to sell part of his shares in ‘L’Espresso’.
It was at this point that Aldo Bassetti came into the picture:
“Certainly the most significant moment was that of the participation in the purchase of the ‘Espresso’ shares. (…). Eugenio Scalfari asked me for help to overcome that difficult moment. I accepted and thought of also involving Roberto Olivetti and Vittorio Olcese. Roberto, after a quick reflection, was in favour and only asked that the operation be carried out without involving the Olivetti company. (…) Roberto’s involvement with Olcese and myself was to remain secret. (…) A company was set up under the name of ‘Piccolo Naviglio’ where the shares appeared to be owned by myself and Vittorio Olcese: in reality the shares were in equal parts mine, Roberto’s and Vittorio Olcese’s.(…)’ (OLIVETTI, Roberto Olivetti, pp. 89-90).
With this discreet but decisive intervention, ‘Piccolo Naviglio’ guaranteed the shareholding stability of L’Espresso, allowing the paper to continue its course as one of the most influential opinion weeklies in Italy.
Bibliography:
D. OLIVETTI (ed.), Roberto Olivetti, Quaderni della Fondazione Adriano Olivetti, 48, 2003: Aldo Bassetti’s testimony, pp. 89-93(https://www.byterfly.eu/islandora/object/librib:18437/datastream/PDF/content/librib_18437.pdf ).
E. SCALFARI, L’Espresso, formidabili questi anni, in “L’Espresso”, 30 September 2015(https://lespresso.it/c/attualita/2015/9/30/lespresso-formidabili-questi-anni/8390 ).
L’Espresso, dal 1955 a oggi: le tappe di una grande storia di giornalismo che continua, 28 June 2022(https://lespresso.it/c/-/2022/6/28/lespresso-dal-1955-a-oggi-le-tappe-di-una-grande-storia-di-giornalismo-che-continua/12713 ).
G. CAPROTTI, Le Ossa dei Caprotti. Una storia italiana, Milan, 2024/3.
