Fifty years – those ranging from 1954 to 2001 – are the time span in which Italy went from an agricultural economy to the first personal computers. A transition in which Olivetti had the role of the protagonist, shaping and leading the technological future of the country with an unprecedented and ambitious vision.

In this half-century, during which – to paraphrase Pier Paolo Pasolini – the fireflies disappeared and the monitors lit up, Italy, like the Ivrea-based company, witnessed the ecstasy of the economic ‘boom’ alternate with the trade union tensions of the Years of Lead, the roaring hedonistic years of the Milano da Bere with the decline of its once glorious firms.