Assicurazioni Generali S.p.A. - Ca' Corniani, steam threshing

This photo is part of a photo album with 53 black-and-white images pasted onto cardboard or loose. The photos depict liturgical events, the nursery and school at Ca’ Corniani, summer camps, rural landscapes, folklorist groups, buildings, farmhouses, artesian well excavations, water pumping plants, drainage, electrical transformers. From the embossed stamp along the bottom of the base, we can deduce that the photos were taken by the Venice-based Giacomelli e Ferruzzi studio. In 1851, Generali acquired Ca’ Corniani, a huge area of marshland in Veneto near Caorle, to the north-east of the Venetian Lagoon. The company carried out extensive pioneering reclamation works, from which a thriving agricultural community arose, equipped with infrastructure and services: a unique innovation for the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The seeds planted at Ca’ Corniani led to the establishment of Genagricola in 1974, an agricultural subsidiary of the Generali Group and the largest agricultural concern in Italy, with numerous holdings across Italy and Europe.