Camillo Olivetti: story of an italian pioneer

Having lost his father at the age of one, Camillo was a solitary child with an impetuous temperament, capable of sudden outbursts that he never grew out of.

It was the tender care of his mother Elvira that helped Camillo and his sister Emma to grow up; they were brought up to be open-minded, with a cultural and political education that was ahead of its time.

Camillo attended secondary school at the former Calchi-Taeggi College in Milan, which specialised in the humanities, before continuing on to the Royal Industrial Museum, now the Polytechnic University of Turin.

We cannot rule out the possibility that Camillo chose to study science partly because of the prevailing mood of the times, in which technical and scientific knowledge was seen as a driving force behind social progress.

Camillo si laurea nel 1891 con il Professor Galileo Ferraris, ideatore del motore elettrico in corrente alternata, di cui trascrive le lezioni che conserva nella sua biblioteca personale.

After graduating, Camillo immediately left for London, where he worked for two years in a precision mechanics plant, thus becoming familiar with factory work.

Industrialisation was also transforming the urban structure of cities during this period, with waves of rural folk pouring into cities in search of work.

The pupil who showed the most promise was a young man named Domenico Burzio. The son of a forge worker, he formed a strong partnership with Camillo both personally and professionally.

When Burzio died in 1933, Camillo dedicated a fund to him to set up one of the first examples of a welfare service for factory workers: the Internal Solidarity Fund.

In 1896, he founded the company "Ing. C. Olivetti & C.", which he then transferred to Milan, changing the name to "C.G.S." (an acronym for "Centimetre, Gram, Second", a reference to the company's electrical measuring instruments).

Camillo designed the Ivrea site himself on land owned by the family. The factory was made of red brick topped with Guelph merlons just as Olivetti liked them: squared off and with no ornamentation.

Camillo and Luisa's marriage (1899) was a loving one, producing six children: Elena (1900), Adriano (1901), Massimo (1902), Silvia (1904), Lalla (1907), and Dino (1912).

Camillo entrusted Luisa with bringing up the children who, until they were eight, grew up "in the air, in the sun and in the meadows, so that their minds are not troubled ahead of time".

The Olivetti children would go on to complete their primary schooling in just two years instead of five, with their progress followed at all times by their mother Luisa and their exclusively Waldensian tutors.

On 29th October 1908, the company "Ing. C. Olivetti & C." was officially registered by the Notary. Its initial capital was 350,000 lire: the majority was owned by Camillo Olivetti, while the rest was divided among 13 partners.

Camillo moved with his family to a convent near the factory, an annex of the Church of S. Bernardino where the sixteenth-century frescoes by Gian Martino Spanzotti can still be seen today.

Following six months of study, Camillo devised the most demanding and original part of the machine, the typebar system.

The first letter written with the new machine was to his wife Luisa. It was 12th August 1908, but it would be many more months before the M1 (Macchina 1) could be considered finished.

And it was his trusted collaborator Domenico Burzio, the first seated figure on the right, who finished setting up the first M1 typewriter in person at the Universal Exposition in Turin.

Camillo himself designed the brand. When the thousandth machine was produced, he forged a pin for his employees. The first one, made of gold, was for his wife Luisa.

To publicise the M1, Camillo called on the painter Teodoro W. Ferrari, whose poster depicted the emblem of classicism and the symbol of modernity: literary and technological supremacy together in one image.

In 1913, Olivetti had around 110 staff on its books. An average of 23 machines were being produced each week.
Everything seemed to be going well, but then the Great War came along.

In 1920, the M1 was replaced by a new model, the M20. With a fixed carriage and smaller dimensions than the M1, the M20 was presented at the Universal Exposition in Brussels.

The company began a period of exporting its products and opening up to the international market. Brussels became the centre of a distribution network with dealers and retailers all over the world.

But Olivetti's most significant move on the international scene during the interwar period came in Spain. On 22nd January 1929, the Hispano Olivetti Company was established.

In the 1930s, Olivetti extended its commercial and production network in Europe and its sales network (through licensed representatives) in South America (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay).

In 1938, Camillo, who was exempt from some of Italy's racial laws due to his services to the country, decided to step down as president of Olivetti in favour of his son Adriano (the first figure standing on the right).

Having taken this decision, he did not step away from the factory completely but continued to run his beloved machine tools department and to watch over the large workshop from a distance

Following the armistice of 8th September 1943, he was forced to leave his home in Ivrea. He sought refuge in the Biella area, where he died on 4th December.