This year’s “La Notte degli Archivi” initiative, the theme of which is #change, sees the Generali Historical Archive participating for the first time, with a video available on this webpage, as well as on the Archivissima website and Generali’s social media channels.

The video is a kind of road movie, in Italian and English, that introduces the innovative digital project which the Generali Historical Archive carried out to recount 190 years of history over the course of 2021 through its Generali Life Stories: Extraordinary Tales of Ordinary Lives.

Not just the story of Generali, a company with a history stretching back almost two centuries, but also and primarily the life stories of the people Generali met and continues to meet along the way: a chorus of voices from around the world partaking in a journey that brings together people from everywhere and every period of time, starting with 1831 Trieste, the cosmopolitan free port of the Habsburg Empire.

This project was designed to expand access to 19 stories taken from the Generali Historical Archive that are tied to values of innovation, ability to overcome challenges, connection, internationality and corporate responsibility. The project takes documents, objects and photos from the Archive and transforms them into various new media forms, shaped by several creative voices: these include the audio recordings by the radio scriptwriter Matteo Caccia, the narrator of the personal lives of those highlighted who gives voice to so many protagonists and faithfully recreates the stories of real people, elegant graphics, opportunities for further reading, artistic photographs from Generali’s heritage, and all the way to the twenty video series People and Stories and the Generali Adventures comic book.

We wish to remind visitors that the Generali Historical Archive hosts guided tours to familiarise with its trove of historical artefacts at the new headquarters in Palazzo Berlam in Trieste. To sign up, email archiviostoricogenerali@generali.com.