The Years of the Lion (1861-1870)

The Years of the Liondecades 1861-1910

22

1861

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Difficult years

ADifficult years

crucial phase in the nation-building process,

the 1860s proved to be very difficult for Gene-

rali. The economic climate had been affected

by the Italo-Austrian conflict. The war had se-

riously hampered economic growth in both

countries, especially in Austria, which had been

defeated. Trade in the port of Trieste stagnated

also due to the delay in the construction of the

railway line connecting it with the hinterland

and, as a consequence, business moved fur-

ther North. Assicurazioni Generali was left with

no option but to take note

of the new situation, as

stressed in the 1860 Board

report: “The political compli-

cations, paralysing industry

and trade, bringing up the

prices of primary goods be-

yond all control, naturally

stopped growth […] and ordinary operations in

the main insurance sectors.” But the worst was

still to come. While eight insurance companies

were forced to shut down in Trieste, Generali’s

results in 1865 were the worst

in the Company’s history, with

a loss of nearly 400,000 Florins.

The following year the gloom

did not lift due to several factors,

the main one being the cholera

outbreak in the city, the fourth in

The unification of Italy. On March 17, 1861, the Kingdom of Italy was solemnly established by the Parliament in Turin. The unification of the country, however, was still unachieved: only after the 1866 war, Venice – with the Veneto and Friuli regions – became part of Italy, whereas Rome was only conquered in 1870. In the pictures (from top to bottom): the first Italian Parliament meets in Turin; the battle of Bezzecca won by Garibaldi over the Austrians in 1866; the breach of Porta Pia on September 20, 1870, marking the fall of Papal Rome.

1861 - Serfdom is abolished in Russia.

1863 - The world’s first underground railway is in-augurated in London.

1864 - The International Red Cross is founded.

1865 - After the victory of the Unionists, the American civil war comes to an end.

Abraham Lincoln is assas-sinated.

Lewis Carroll writes Alice in Wonderland.

1867 - Maximilian of Hapsburg, Emperor of Mexi-co, is executed by the rebels led by Benito Juárez.

Reinforced concrete is used for the first time in the construction industry.

1869 - Dmitry Mendeleyev publishes the periodic table of the elements.

Looking out

231861-1870

the century. In 1866, the Company – which had

recorded continuous growth in the course of

its 35-year history – decided to move its head-

quarters from Palazzo Carciotti, where they had

been since its foundation, to Palazzo Stratti, a

prime property in Piazza Grande purchased in

the early 1850s. The new location was not to

last, though: barely four years later, faced with

increasingly disappointing results and tougher

competition, Generali decided to transfer its

Central Head Office to a more modest property

located behind the Town Hall in order to cut

costs and create new sources of revenue.

New headquarters. In 1866, Generali left its original offices at Palazzo Carciotti and moved to Palazzo Stratti. Built in 1839 by a Greek merchant and purchased by the Company in the 1850s, the building would house the Central Head Office for only four years.

The Suez Canal. Pasquale Revoltella, senior Board member of Assicurazioni Generali, was one of the men behind the Suez Canal initia-tive. Works for the construction of the canal, based on a project by Ferdinand de Lesseps, began in 1856. Over 74 million cubic metres of soil were dug and removed. The Canal was solemnly opened on November 17, 1869.

1862 - Generali resumes operations in the Papal States, after the interruption in 1837 due to the in-troduction of an insurance monopoly.

Generali takes over the portfolio of Società Ponti-ficia di Assicurazioni.

1866 - Generali moves its Central Head Office from Palazzo Carciotti to Palazzo Stratti, a build-ing that had been purchased in the 1850s.

1870 - The Central Head Office is once again transferred, this time to a building located in Via Procurerie.

Looking in

24

1871

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At the top of the Italian market

WAt the top of the Italian market

ith the fall of Papal Rome in 1870, the process

leading to full unification took a decisive step

forward. Despite regret – at an ideal level –

for not having succeeded in annexing the

eastern end of the Venezia Giulia region

and the northern part of Trentino,

from a geo-political point of view the

nation had in fact been forged. In

Rome, the magazine L’Assicurazione

published the first set of statistics

on the insurance business in Italy,

revealing that Assicurazioni Generali

of Venice was the country’s biggest

insurer, followed by another company from

Trieste, RAS, whose Italian head office was in

Milan. The outlook for the Italian insurance

industry in the 1970s appeared to be bright.

As a consequence, Generali – led by Marco

Besso since 1877 – focused its attention on

Italy, as Austria’s economy was in the throes of

a profound financial crisis, followed by massive

stock exchange speculation and uncontrolled

credit expansion. The bubble eventually burst

and 74 banks had to file for bankruptcy. Soon,

Generali’s supremacy in the Italian insurance

market annoyed its competitors, who did all

they could to hamper the Company’s

expansion, stressing the fact that it was

after all a foreign company. Nevertheless,

Marco Besso

Corporate communication makes its debut. In 1880, Generali published the first issue of Mittheilungen, a German-language in-formation bulletin for employees and agents operating in the terri-tories of the Austrian Empire. The publication provided data relating to the Company’s activity, market figures and in-depth technical ar-ticles. At the same time, client communication was intensified using posters and billboards, such as the one shown above, to advertise the services offered by Generali agencies.

1875 - The Company begins to pay dividends in gold Franc pieces: this measure will remain in force until 1914.

1877 - Masino Levi resigns the post of secretary general that he had held for forty years. He is suc-ceeded by Marco Besso, who will remain at the helm of the Company until 1920.

Generali begins to underwrite glass insurance.

1880 - The first issue of Mittheilungen – a news bulletin for Generali employees in the Austrian Empire – is published.

Looking in

251871-1880

this did not prevent Generali – known

everywhere in Italy as “La Venezia” – not only

from achieving constant growth, but also from

recording an increase in the number of Italian

shareholders. Besides the original shareholders

from Venice, Padua and Milan, investors now

also came from Turin, Rome and Naples. A note

issued by the Company announced that four-

fifths of its share capital were in “Italian hands”.

To safeguard the interests of shareholders,

Generali made the decision in 1875 to pay

dividends in 20 gold Franc pieces, regardless

of the shareholders’ country of residence.

This measure, aimed at avoiding dividend

depreciation, remained in force until the

outbreak of World War I.

Looking out

1871 - Giuseppe Verdi composes Aida.

“Dr Livingstone, I presume” are the words attributed to journalist Henry Morton Stanley when track-ing down the famous explorer dis-appeared in Africa.

Trade unions are legalised in Great Britain.

1872 - The world’s first ever national park is established at Yellowstone.

1873 - The repercussions of the slowdown in the economy are felt

throughout the world: the “great depression” begins.

1875 - The Opéra is inaugurated in Paris.

1879 - Thomas Edison invents the first incandes-cent lamp.

The extermination of the Indians. The end of the civil war in the US heralded the intensification of the fight against the native populations, who are determined to defend their rights over the land of their ancestors. In 1876, General Custer – who had commanded the Cheyenne massacre on the Was-hita River eight years earlier – was defeated and killed at the Little Bighorn River. The military success did not, however, halt the massive deportations of na-tive Americans into reservations.

Impressionism. The term comes from the title of a painting, Impression, sun-rise, by Claude Monet. Displayed for the first time in Paris in 1874, it became the building block of an artistic movement that involved artists of the calibre of Re-noir, Cézanne, Degas and Pissarro.

26

1881

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The establishment of the Group

F ifty years had passed since the foundation of As-

sicurazioni Generali – half a century of hard work

to achieve remarkable experience, financial so-

lidity and international presence. With a consoli-

dated position in Italy, under the supervision of

the Veneto Head Office, and in the Empire, the

time had come for Generali to seek new markets.

A major expansion drive was launched in the

second half of the 1870s and in the 1880s, when

as many as 15 new bases were added to the al-

ready significant network of foreign branches.

The expansion was focused on two main areas:

the Mediterranean – from Greece to the Middle

East and northern Africa – and the large overseas

ports that were becoming the maritime hubs of

international trade. These were San Francisco

and Valparaíso in the Americas and Bombay, Co-

lombo, Shanghai and Hong Kong in the Far East.

The turning point, however, came with the deci-

sion to ensure increased stability and autonomy

in key markets by creating specialised operative

units with separate financial means and struc-

tures. Thus, it was with this in mind that Erste

Allgemeine Unfall und Schadensversicherung

was established on January 24, 1882. Headquar-

tered in Vienna, the new company became the

first subsidiary of that Group, which would

become one of the key players in the

European insurance industry over

the following decades. Erste

The establishment of the Group

Developing hail insurance. The technical features of the hail sector led Generali to establish two specialised companies in Italy and Hungary. The picture above gives an indication of the intensi-ty of hail fall in various parts of the Italian peninsula in 1881.

The first offshoot. In 1882, Generali set up Erste Allgemeine – its first insurance subsidiary – in Vienna. The company’s headquarters were located in the building depicted in the watercolour above.

271881-1890

Generali’s new headquarters. “It commands the most enchant-ing view of the gulf on the wa-terfront”, proudly wrote Eugenio Geiringer, the architect who de-signed the building that houses the Central Head Office in Trieste. The building, the first in the city to be supplied with electric power, offered a vast array of very mod-ern facilities, such as a conference hall, where three rooms, separat-ed by columns and mobile walls, could be easily transformed into a single large space to host the ever increasing number of shareholders. Pictures from top to bot-tom: The Allegory of Electricity by Eugenio Scomparini, a paint-ing owned by Generali and currently kept in one of the rooms of the building; the grand escalier, which was demolished in 1965 to make room for the new AGM hall; the Central Head Office building seen from the waterfront and from the sea in two pictures taken at the end of the 19th century.

1881 - The Com-pany celebrates its Jubilee year.

Generali begins to underwrite accident insurance.

1882 - In Vienna, Generali establishes Erste Allgemeine Unfall und Schadensversicherung, the Group’s first subsidi-ary, specialising in accident insurance. The com-pany will be later merged into Generali Vienna.

Azienda Assicuratrice, Trieste’s oldest insurance company, folds up and its portfolio is taken over by Generali.

1886 - Generali transfers its Central Head Office to a new building on the seafront – the same building that currently houses the Company’s headquarters.

1890 - Anonima Grandine in Milan and a com-pany based in Budapest, both operating in the hail insurance line, are established.

Looking in

28

1881

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The establishment of the Group

Looking out

1881 - In Russia, the first pogroms against Jews are organised.

1882 - Austria, Germany and Italy form the Triple Alliance.

1883 - A law enforcing compulsory health insurance is passed in Ger-many.

Gottlieb Daimler assembles the first internal combustion engine.

Carlo Collodi publishes The Adven-tures of Pinocchio.

1885 - Louis Pasteur discovers the rabies vaccine.

1886 - The Statue of Liberty is assem-bled in New York as a gift from the French people.

Chemist John Pemberton perfects the formula of Coca Cola.

1890 - The massacre of the Sioux Lakota at Wounded Knee brings an

end to the Indian wars.

The International Labour Day is set on May 1.

Allgemeine initially operated in the accident sector – a

sector that Generali had also begun to tap in relation to

the new demand for security that was emerging in the

market. At the end of the 1880s, two other companies

were established in Italy and Hungary: after a string of

unfavourable years, Generali had decided to pull out

of the hail insurance sector, entrusting the business

to newly-established companies. Having set for itself

ambitious goals, Generali felt that the time had come

to move into more suitable headquarters. In 1886, the

Trieste Central Head Office was transferred to a build-

ing at Riva del Sale, on the seafront, which had been

designed to accommodate its expanding business.

Setting sights elsewhere. Generali’s expansion guidelines were tightly linked to the maritime routes opened by the Lloyd Austriaco shipping company, which, following the opening of the Suez Canal, reached the distant ports of the Far East.

Symbol of modernity. On the occasion of the International Ex-position of 1889, the Eiffel Tower was inaugurated in Paris.

Italy’s imperial quest. In 1885, from the bridgehead of Massawa on the Red Sea, Italian troops be-gan the conquest of Eritrea, Ita-ly’s first colony. The expedition met the bitter hostility of the lo-cal population, which led, two years later, to the Dogali massa-cre, when 500 Italian troops were annihilated.

29From the eagle to the lion

From the eagle to the lion

1833A year after its foundation, Assi-

curazioni Generali Austro-Italiche

is allowed to use the qualification

of imperiali regie privilegiate (i.e.

operating under imperial privileges)

and to include the image of the two-headed

eagle, the symbol of the House of Hapsburg, in its

documents.

1848Following the insurrection that led

to the establishment of the Vene-

tian Republic, Generali has the

appellation “austro-italiche” re-

moved from its company name

and chooses the lion of St Mark as

its symbol for operations in the Ital-

ian territories. On early hail insurance policies,

the lion is depicted brandishing an unsheathed

sword; this representation will co-exist for nu-

merous years with the traditional swordless lion

printed on fire insurance policies.

1881In its Jubilee year, the Company

decides to unify its trademark,

adopting the lion facing

right, which will be

the symbol of Ge-

nerali up to the early

20th century, when the classic representation

– with the lion facing left – will be re-instated.

1971With the changes under

way in Generali’s market-

ing strategy, the tradi-

tional image of the lion

of St Mark is deemed no longer responding to the

tastes of the time and to modern forms of expres-

sion. As a consequence, the trademark undergoes

a profound restyling and the Generali logotype is

added. The new corporate identity is accompa-

nied by an advertising campaign that hinges on

the message: “From now on, call us Generali”.

1978The need for strategic

co-ordination of the

entities operating in

various markets leads

to the design of a Group

trademark, whose introduction is combined

with the updating of the consolidated financial

statements: a fundamental instrument repre-

senting the variety of interests that refer to the

Parent Company.

1990In coincidence with the first ever international

advertising campaign, sustained by the claim

“Generali: the insurer without frontiers”, the

Group’s trademark is fur-

ther fine-tuned in order to

enhance its visibility and

identity.

30

1891

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The golden age

he international economic outlook in the last dec-

ade of the 19th century appeared to be improving,

although the depression that had characterised

the 1880s was yet to be entirely overcome. The

situation in Trieste was particularly ebullient: the

resident population in the last twenty years had

risen from 70,000 to 120,000, while the number

of houses as well as the volume of trade had al-

most doubled. Generali, in

the meantime, continued

to strengthen its organi-

sational structures. In Ita-

ly, a specialised company

– Anonima Infortuni – was

set up in 1896 to boost the

accident sector. The Parent

Company transferred to the

newly-established compa-

ny its entire portfolio in the

accident line of business

that had taken fifteen years

to develop. The following year, Generala was set up

in Brăila, Romania. It had the necessary financial

means to operate in marine insurance and soon

widened its business to include – after its head-

quarters were moved to Bucharest – fire, accident,

hail and life insurance. By this time, Assicurazioni

Generali had become the parent company of a

TThe golden age

Looking in

1893 - The first number of Il Bollettino is issued. The monthly magazine, in Italian, is distributed to Generali employees in Italy.

1896 - Anonima Infortuni is set up in Milan.

1897 - Generala is set up in Romania.

1898 - At the Italian Expo of Turin, an impor-tant trade fair, Anonima

Grandine is awarded the Grand Prix gold medal.

In Romania. The Bucharest headquarters of Generala, set up in 1897.

Boosting communication. The 1892 calen-dar poster reproduced the gold medals re-ceived by the Company in international exhi-bitions and trade fairs: it is a proof of the prom-inence Generali had already gained in the Ital-ian insurance market.

Picasso’s sketches. In 1900, a young artist by the name of Pablo Picasso submitted to a Spanish insurance company (which was part of the Generali Group for many years) a drawing in which maternity was represented as a metaphor of insurance.

311891-1900

Looking out

1891 - Work begins on the Trans-Siberian railway, which will be fin-ished in 1917.

1895 - The Lumière brothers held the world’s first public motion pic-ture screening in Paris using their Cinématographe.

The inventor of the dynamite, Alfred Nobel, establishes the Nobel prize institute.

1896 - With the defeat of its troops at Adwa, Italy is forced to acknowledge Ethiopian sovereignty.

The gold rush starts in the Klondike.

1897 - Bayer researcher Felix Hoff-mann synthesizes aspirin.

1898 - French writer Émile Zola defends Alfred Dreyfus and accuses the military establishment.

Following the Hispano-American war, Cuba gains independence. Hawaii is annexed to the United States.

Mr and Mrs Curie (Nobel prize for Physics in 1903) discover radium and polonium.

1900 - King Umberto I of Italy is assassinated.

Sigmund Freud publishes The Interpretation of Dreams.

China is swept by the Boxer rebellion against for-eign legations. The rebellion is quelled by an international force comprising the major European powers, Japan and the United States. Italy sends its Bersaglieri.

The belle époque. The last decade of the cen-tury was a prolonged period of peace that brought about a beneficial phase of prosper-ity and great discoveries: electricity, the inter-nal combustion engine and chemical prod-ucts. It was at this very time that the automo-tive industry began to develop, which over the next century would act as the powerhouse of economic growth (on the left: a vintage car, looking more like a cart with no horse). This period saw two other particularly significant inventions: the cinema, which would ultimate-ly transform entertainment into an industry, and the radio, thanks to Guglielmo Marco-ni’s experiments (second photo from top). The peace that prevailed in most of the world was conducive to the reintroduction, thanks to the initiative of Pierre de Coubertin, of the Olym-pic Games, whose first modern edition in 1896 was aptly held in Athens (top picture, the 100 metres dash). Trieste, too, was undergoing a period of great prosperity, as witnessed by the number of ships in the port at the end of the century (picture on the left).

32 The golden age

complex organisational structure that was grad-

ually taking the form – very unusual in those

days – of a Group and started to feel the need to

establish a periodical communication channel

to spread information while developing skills

and forging corporate identity. To this end, Il

Bollettino, a monthly magazine distributed to

all Italian employees, was published in 1893.

Written in Italian, it flanked the news bulletin in

German targeted at employees in the Empire

and central Europe. The house organ soon be-

came a professional training and marketing

tool, especially in the life sector, where the

Company held a 22% share of the Italian

market in terms of premium income and

insured capital, and 31% in terms of new

business – a clear indication that the Com-

pany portfolio was booming.

Prestigious headquarters in Milan. The positive develop-ment of the accident and hail businesses, handled by Anoni-ma Infortuni and Anonima Grandine, respectively, led the Parent Company to design suitable headquarters in Milan for its two spe-cialised companies. Works on the building, located in central Piaz-za Cordusio, started in March 1898 and were completed in Septem-ber 1899. The building was the first in Milan and the second in the country to be made of reinforced concrete. Photos, from above: view of the façade as seen from a snapshot taken at the beginning of the 20th century; detail of the mosaic in the niche above the main entrance; the offices. At the centre, an automatic travel insurance vending machine placed by Anonima Infortuni at Termini rail-way station in Rome in 1898.

1891

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33The house organs

The house organsStarting in the 19th centuryThe first publications distributed to Generali employees date back to the 19th

century: Mittheilungen has been published in German since 1880 for Company

offices in the Hapsburg Empire, whereas Il Bollettino has been published since

1893 for Italian employees.

International impetusIl Bollettino, with its editorial office based in Trieste since 1940, widens

its horizons in the postwar period. After an interruption during the war

years, the publication is resumed in 1950 with a cover symbolising the

Company’s renewed international impetus. In the Nineties photographic

covers start to be used,

sometimes dedicated to

foreign Group compa-

nies (in the picture: an

event sponsored by Vi-

talicio Seguros in a 2006

cover).

Group News, a magazine

focusing on Genera-

li’s worldwide organisa-

tion, has been published

in English since 1991.

Online magazinesIn 2007, Il Bollettino under-

takes a new project: the pa-

per version is dedicated to

specials only and a new online

periodical magazine is creat-

ed to inform readers in a fast-

er and more interactive way.

Group News has also been

published in an electronic

format since 2008.

34

1901

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New impulse for real estate investments

Expectations were high with the new century:

world economy was booming in the era that his-

tory would come to know as the belle époque, a

period of peace and prosperity that was highly

beneficial for all countries.

This, however, came to a

bloody end with the Great

War. In 1906 Generali cel-

ebrated its 75th

anniversary. The

Company was at

the peak of a peri-

od of growth: over

the previous 25

years, premium in-

come in the non-life sector

more than doubled (from

13.5 to 31 million Crowns),

whereas production in the

life line of business liter-

ally exploded (from 5 to 39

million Crowns). In Italy, Generali confirmed its

position as the country’s top player in life insur-

ance – which recorded in this period a major

upsurge – as well as in the fire insurance sector.

Generali’s two subsidiaries, on the other hand,

ranked first in the hail and second in the acci-

dent sector, respectively. The size of its guaran-

tee funds increased at an even faster pace: up

from 56 to 293 million Crowns.

As its finances grew ever more solid, Genera-

li announced a major real estate investment

drive, whose ultimate goal was to create a Ge-

nerali office in the centre of major cities and to

give adequate visibility to its financial standing.

Thus, between 1900 and 1906, Generali went

ahead with the construction of some of its

most prestigious properties, such as the build-

ings located in Florence (Piazza della Signoria),

New impulse for real estateinvestments

Looking in

1903 - Generali begins construction of its build-ing in Piazza Venezia in Rome.

1904 - Through Anonima Infortuni, the Group acquires Caja de Previsión y Socorro of Barce-lona.

1905 - La Concorde (later merged into Generali France), a company providing accident and theft insur-ance, is set up in Paris.

1906 - Generali celebrates its 75th anniversary.

The share capital, previously in Flor-ins, is converted into Crowns. A capital increase operation is carried out through a one-for-five rights issue.

1909 - Marco Besso is appointed chairman, thus re-establishing a post that had remained vacant after Ritter de Zahony’s resignation in 1835.

The Company’s articles of association are radi-cally revised: the number of Board members as well as executive directors is increased.

Generali’s buildings. It was Marco Besso who, between the two cen-turies, initiated a policy of real estate investments to give Generali a “home” in the most prestigious spots of Italy’s main cities. In the pho-tos, the buildings in Turin (Piazza Solferino), Rome (Piazza Venezia) and

Florence (Piazza della Signoria). On the right, Marco Besso visits the construction site in Rome.

351901-1910

1901 - Guglielmo Marconi (Nobel prize in Phys-ics in 1909) relays the first trans-Atlantic radio signal.

King Camp Gillette and William Nickerson reg-ister the patent for the safety razor and blade.

1902 - Boers from the Orange Free State and the Transvaal are forced to accept British domina-tion: the Union of South Africa is born.

1903 - The feminist movement is founded in England by Emmeline Pankhurst; suffragettes will often clash with the police.

1905 - Albert Einstein (Nobel prize in Physics in 1921) publishes The Special Theory of Relativity.

1907 - Pablo Picasso paints Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, a work that marks the birth of cubism.

1908 - Old-age pensions are introduced in Eng-land and the working day for miners is reduced to eight hours.

1909 - The first Manifesto of Futurism is pub-lished in Paris by Filippo Tom-maso Marinetti.

Robert Peary and Frederick Cook both claim the honour of being the first man to have reached the North Pole.

1910 - Rudyard Kipling (Nobel prize in Literature in 1907) publishes the poem If.

Looking out

Turin (Piazza Solferino) and Rome (Piazza Venezia).

However, storm clouds were looming. In 1907, a seri-

ous economic crisis spread from the United States to

Europe, followed shortly afterwards by the diplomatic

crisis and the Balkan wars triggered by Austria’s annex-

ation of Bosnia. Generali – as can be read in corporate

reports – was seriously affected by the interruption

of insurance activities in the countries at war, by the

sharp decline in government bonds and fixed income

securities and by the uncertainties that were seriously

straining international relations.

Franz Kafka. The Bohemian writer worked at Generali’s branch in Prague from October 1, 1907, to July 15, 1908.

A new style of expression. In the figurative arts, Europe saw the emergence of Art Nouveau, the ex-pression of the will to break with tradition and to create a new aesthetics that, in painting, was above all personified in the figure of Gustav Klimt (founder of the Vienna Sezession school of painting).

The era of flight. On December 17, 1903, Orville Wright made man’s first ever flight aboard a powered aircraft as-sembled with his brother Wilbur.