Assicurazioni Generali S.p.A. - Hail chart

The international trade expos have always been a shop window to the world: opportunities for sharing and comparing experience and technology and precious indications of the degree of development of the countries exhibiting, with their wealth of marvellous inventions. Welfare institutions also had a spot reserved in these national and international events, recognition of their vital role in economic life. It was in this lens that insurance providers were naturally interested in publicising their wares in the most engaging way possible. Generali participated in various expos, either directly or through Group subsidiaries. The company participated for the first time at the 1881 Italian Industrial Exposition of Milan and then returned for the later editions in Turin in 1884 and 1898. Then there were the 1900 Paris Exposition (known as the Exposition Universelle) and the 1906 Milan International world’s fair. Various memorabilia from these events, which established Generali as the leading insurance company in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and in Italy, are preserved in the Generali Historical Archive. These include important publications that feature statistics, technical data and detailed studies of actuarial science, arranged in beautiful and colourful charts. This chart is a noteworthy example. It can be found among the items displayed at the Milan International fair and provides a synthesis of 16 years of work by Anonima Grandine, the subsidiary founded in Milan in 1890.