Two important new databases published by the Generali Archive and the INA-Assitalia Archive are now online.

The Generali database contains a sub-series of Financial Statements in Italian currency, described and reproduced in full, that the Venice Head Office – one of two, the other being the Central Head Office in Trieste – published for Italian shareholders between 1867 and 1914.

These documents present the same accounting information as those published in Trieste (since the two head offices belong to a single company). However, it is interesting to note that it was felt necessary to print special documents for Venice with various differences, including a list of agencies in Italy, Italian stock values displayed separately from foreign ones, and a list of properties owned in the peninsula. In addition, the covers displayed the St. Mark’s lion, a symbol used by Generali since at least 1860.

There is valuable material for scholars in the INA Archive, which records the minutes of the Board of Directors and the Standing Committee of the INA (Istituto nazionale delle Assicurazioni), the official documentation source for decisions made in the first decade of activity – from 1912, when the state monopoly of life insurance was instituted, to 1923, when the monopoly was replaced by compulsory cessions obliging private companies to transfer a portion of life insurance risk to the INA.

Careful transcription of the headings of the minutes, summarising the points raised in the various sessions, has made the databases searchable. The collection of documents is fully reproduced in digital form online. The minutes now published add detail to the picture of the INA’s first years, well represented in existing databases relating to the important figures of Bonaldo Stringher and Alberto Beneduce.

Browse the new Generali sub-series of Financial Statements and the INA Minutes fonds.