Villanova University was founded in 1842 by the Order of Saint Augustine. To this day, Villanova’s Augustinian Catholic intellectual tradition is the cornerstone of an academic community in which students learn to think critically, act compassionately and succeed while serving others. Villanova prepares students to become ethical leaders who create positive change everywhere life takes them.


The strength of the Villanova experience comes in part from the University’s welcoming community. All members are bonded together by a shared responsibility to uphold the ideals of Saint Augustine and let the principles of truth, unity and love guide their lives. The Villanova community helps students grow intellectually, professionally and spiritually, and challenges them to reach their full potential.


The University’s rigorous academic experience, rooted in the liberal arts, forms an environment in which students and professors are partners in learning. The Villanova community is dedicated to providing a personalized experience that fosters every student’s intellectual and spiritual well-being. As part of their education, students are encouraged to enrich their own lives by working for those in need. Through academic and service programs, students use their knowledge, skills and compassion to better the world around them.


There are more than 10,000 undergraduate, graduate and law students in the University’s six colleges—the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Villanova School of Business, the College of Engineering, the College of Nursing, the College of Professional Studies and the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. These colleges are the setting for an experience that develops both the heart and the mind, and creates the atmosphere where students are called to ignite change.


Villanova University is located in a suburban community 12 miles west of Philadelphia, Pa.

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AAIS 2018 Book Prize, American Association of Italian Studies

VERITAS Research Award, Villanova University

ISSNAF Award for the Humanities, Italian Scholars and Scientists in North America Foundation

The Art of Objects: The Birth of Italian Industrial Culture, 1878-1928 (Toronto Italian Studies)

Il fabbricante di cioccolato: Nel mondo di Michele Ferrero (Italian Edition)

I «Passaggi obbligati» di Italo Calvino. Autobiografia, memoria, identità

Luca Cottini is Professor of Italian Studies at Villanova University and the host and creator of the YouTube show "Italian Innovators." He holds a doctorate from Harvard University, a master's from the University of Notre Dame and a bachelor's from the University of Milan. 

He was trained as a classical philologist in Italy and a cultural historian in the U.S. His interests touch on Italian literature, visual arts and intellectual history throughout the 19th and 20th centuries—and on the birth of Italian industrial culture, adverting and design. 

His books include a monograph on Calvino ("I passaggi obbligati di Italo Calvino"), a cultural history of the origins of Italian design ("The Art of Objects. The Birth of Italian Industrial Culture, 1878-1928") and a biography of chocolate tycoon Michele Ferrero ("Il fabbricante di cioccolato. Nel mondo di Michele Ferrero"). His YouTube channel "Italian Innovators" explores the Italian model of entrepreneurship and innovation through cultural profiles, interviews and lessons across different disciplines (fashion, food, technology, sports, music, engineering, etc.).

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Italian Literature

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Luca Cottini (Creator of "Italian Innovators")

Luca Cottini: At the Origins of Made in Italy

success-is-sweet-ferreros-crown-jewel-nutella-turns-60

Professor of Italian Studies

Six decades ago, on April 20, 1964, the first jar of Nutella left Gruppo Ferrero's factory in the Italian town of Alba. In its gooey wake, the chocolate-hazelnut treat would spread across continental Europe, and then the world, like a healthy schmear on toast.

Today, Nutella is the crown jewel of Ferrero's confectionary empire, propping up a business that generates roughly 17 billion euros in revenue each year. Annually, a whopping 365,000-plus tons of the stuff are sold across 160 countries, and nearly one quarter of all hazelnuts harvested are devoted to its production.

Luca Cottini, PhD, is an associate professor of Italian in Villanova University's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and an expert on modern Italian culture, history and society. He also is the author of a book on Michele Ferrero, the mastermind behind Nutella and its meteoric rise: Il fabbricante di cioccolato. To mark the iconic Italian brand's 60th anniversary, Dr. Cottini shared some thoughts on its Willy Wonka-like creator, early (accidental) origins and recipe for international success. Here's a taste:

 
Q: According to Business Insider, a jar of Nutella is sold every 2.5 seconds—just about the time it takes to finish this sentence. How did we get so "nuts" for Nutella, anyway? Dr. Cottini: Well, much of the success of Nutella relates to its novelty, to the idea of spreadable chocolate. At one point, to think that spreading chocolate would be popular was as crazy as to predict that spreadable coffee would be a hit.

The idea developed because, in the mid-to-late 1940s, Michele Ferrero's father Pietro was to combine the scarcity of cocoa in his area with hazelnuts, which was the ingredient most available in Alba. It seemed like condemnation that they should have only hazelnuts. Well, he combined them with cocoa to produce this mix—it's called "gianduja" in Italian—and he sold it.

 
But when the Ferreros sold it in southern Italy, they had a problem: The chocolate was melting with the summer heat; and a lot of the workers in Naples, to not waste it, started to spread it on slices of bread. And it's interesting. The Ferreros have a completely non-moralistic approach to failure. You sell chocolate; it melts. This is somewhat embarrassing. But their approach was instead to see this situation as the beginning of a new idea, of a new concept.

Q: Is Nutella's story unique in this respect? DC: Several Italian innovators have similar stories to the Ferreros', especially during the 1930s. [Salvatore] Ferragamo, for instance, developed the wedge shoe because there was a shortage of steel, with an embargo imposed on Italy. So, he used Sardinian cork as a replacement, and that generated the wedge shoe. [Guccio] Gucci, during a leather shortage, started using hemp and decorating the hemp with a double "G," and that became the trademark of the company. [Alfonso] Bialetti, who produced the modern coffeepot, used the only metal that was allowed during Fascism, which was aluminum, since the Partito Nazionale Fascista would not import iron or prime metals. But Bialetti took this poor, hybrid ore and made it something that could become valuable. And so, he invented the moka coffeepot in 1933, which is one of the symbols of Italian design. That’s one of the keys of the Italian model of entrepreneurship: producing objects that are not just trendy for one season, but eventually become evergreen or classic.

 Q: What inspired the name "Nutella?" DC: It was the product of 18 years of research. For all intents and purposes, "Nutella" first came out in 1946. It was called "SuperCrema" and, before that, "Cremalba." But in 1962, there was a law in Italy that prevented companies in the food industry from using prefixes like "super" or "extra." So, that led Ferrero—by then, under the leadership of Michele Ferrero—to figure out a new alternative to SuperCrema.

 
At the same time, the company was expanding into Germany and France, and they needed a brand name that could be pronounced easily. So, Ferrero joined the "ella" sound from mozzarella, stella, caramella—Italian words that people could recognize—with the word "nut," like the English "nut," which gave their product an international feel. It's really a "glocal" [global and local] name. It was conceived as a very rooted enterprise with a global horizon.

Q: In 1964, were Ferrero's global ambitions practical? DC: It was honestly a bit of a gamble. In 1957, the European Economic Community was established, which is the beginning of the European Union. And that same year, Michele Ferrero organized in Rome the first conference of his company, which was by then somewhat national, to plan exportation in Europe.

In the Italy of the 1950s and 1960s, this was very pioneering. Michele Ferrero was actually one of the first businesspeople to export products to Germany in the 1950s, at a time when there was a lot of resentment against Italians because of everything that happened during the Second World War. So, he entered this incredibly difficult market, and still today, Ferrero and Nutella are strong.

 Q: What do you think accounts for Nutella's continued popularity, 60 years after its introduction? DC: Michele Ferrero thought of his products as speaking products. It's something very common to the automobile industry in Italy. This is characteristic of Ferrari and Lamborghini; they produce cars that are appealing not just because they're "super cars," but because they say something.

Nutella is a food that says something. When someone puts it on the table, it compels people to jump in and share their own stories—of trying it with a friend, of having it on a hike or of taking part in "Nutella Day." Today, if you're in the market for a chocolate-hazelnut spread, you might find products that are even better than Nutella. Actually, surely better. But they will never replicate the appeal and the grasp that Nutella has. Because Nutella has that aura of storytelling and mythmaking other products simply don't have.



Success Is Sweet: Ferrero's Crown Jewel, Nutella, Turns 60

impact-of-recordbreaking-floods-in-venice

Over the last week, Venice, Italy, has been hit with historic flooding. On Sunday, November 17, water levels topped 1.5 meters for the third time since last Tuesday’s 1.87-meter flood, which marked the worst in more than half a century.
 
Venice’s mayor declared a state of emergency and has estimated the flooding damage at hundreds of millions of euros. The flooding is putting some of Venice’s most historic architecture at risk and threatening some of the city’s cultural marvels and priceless artwork.
 
The situation has also renewed the debates around the underwater barrier system—the MOSE flood defense project—that has been under construction for more than 16 years and is not yet operational despite five billion euros of public funding.
 
Luca Cottini, PhD, an associate professor at Villanova University, is a scholar of Italian culture. He recently discussed some of the issues currently facing Venice.
 
“The flooding in Venice makes visible once again not just the fragility of Italian beauty and the vulnerability of Italy’s geography, but also the inadequacy of Italian politics in the prevention and response to natural disasters,” said Dr. Cottini.
 
Dr. Cottini also addressed the city’s tourism and how tourists view the floods.
 
“The situation also illustrates the cynical nature of modern-day global tourism, observing high waters more as an attraction than a tragic event impacting invaluable monuments and the lives of many peoples,” he said.
 


Impact of Record-Breaking Floods in Venice

italys-successful-bid-to-host-2026-winter-olympics

On Monday, June 24, the International Olympic Committee voted in favor of Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, to host the 2026 Winter Games. Committee members voted 47-34 in favor of Italy, which won the bid over Sweden. This will be the country’s third Winter Olympics. (Cortina hosted the 1956 games, with Turin hosting in 2006.)
 
Italy was a scene of jubilation; and Luca Cottini, PhD, a Villanova University associate professor of Italian, was in the country to witness the excitement.
 
Dr. Cottini spoke about the reasons for the successful bid by Milan and Cortina.
 
“There are two elements that stand out. One is the ability of two iconic cities—Milan and Cortina—to construct and present a well-planned proposal from a political and economic standpoint, vis-à-vis the inability of the city of Rome to present a serious candidacy for the 2024 Summer Olympics. The topic of Rome’s candidacy immediately became political, because the Five Star Movement mayor was in opposition to it as a waste of public money.”
 
“The second element of interest in this event is the continuity between the universal exposition of 2015 [Expo 2015], which Milan organized, and the Winter Olympics—confirming the ability of Milan to emerge as an exciting and appealing city in the international scene,” continued Dr. Cottini. “The energy generated by Expo 2015 certainly created and enforced the momentum that led Milan to be at the center of the world stage again in 2026.”


Italy's Successful Bid to Host 2026 Winter Olympics

A presentation by Luca Cottini (PhD). Delivered on June 24, 2022 at the Superyacht Design Festival, organized in Milan by Boat International Media Company.

* Industria (industriousness) and cultura (cultivation): the 2 concomitant faces of value creation
* Italian #design is not "Made in Italy". What makes on object Italian? What does "Italian" add to it? 
* The origin of Italy's distinction. From an incomplete industrialization to a unique industrial model
* The Italian vs the anglo-salon approach to #innovation 
* Objects as #storytelling devices: from decoration to personification. The object as a living actor
* How can an #object (or a story) achieve eternal freshness? The parallel path to creativity of the writer and the #designer (the models of originality of Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso, and Collodi)
* Design as a #philosophy of gesture: the empowerment of objects from use to lasting meaning
* The boat as a complex #architecture of meaning and a synthesis of functionality and storytelling
* Three assembling sites of Italian #yachting: the fabbrica, the court, and theatre
* Yachts as #opera houses, combining different "works" in a unique synthesis of industry & culture

Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, make sure to leave a comment here below and subscribe to this YouTube channel as a way to enrich this conversation and receive notification of new episodes. Also, don’t forget to visit the official webpage of the show at www.italianinnovators.com for more information about this project.

All rights reserved | © Italian Innovators 2022

The Italian Way. What Makes Italian Design Unique? | #lecture

Presentazione e invito alla lettura del nuovo libro di Luca Cottini "Il fabbricante di cioccolato. Nel mondo di Michele Ferrero" (Piemme, 2023)

Il libro - una "vita" dell'imprenditore e artista dolciario Michele Ferrero - presenta le radici culturali e imprenditoriali dell'azienda, e ricostruisce le origini e il processo innovativo dietro ai suoi prodotti più iconici (Nutella, Ferrero Rocher, Mon Cheri). Questa biografia connette immaginazione letteraria e d'impresa, pensiero creativo e strategico, il viaggio personale di Ferrero e il suo cammino verso la realizzazione di un'intrapresa sociale (la cui filosofia trova espressione nei motti "condividere valori per creare valore" e "lavorare, creare, donare").

The book – a biography of chocolate entrepreneur and artist Michele Ferrero – presents the cultural and entrepreneurial roots of the company’s success, and reconstructs the origins of and innovation process behind its most iconic products (e.g., Nutella, Ferrero Rocher, Mon Cheri). This “life” connects literary and business imagination, creative and strategic thinking, as well as Ferrero’s individual journey and his path toward the creation of a social enterprise (whose philosophy is summed up by the mottos “share values to create value” and “work, create, give”). 

Pagina informazioni e acquisto del libro: bit.ly/ilfabbricantedicioccolato
Playlist #ilfabbricantedicioccolato

Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, make sure to leave a comment here below and subscribe to this YouTube channel as a way to enrich this conversation and receive notification of new episodes. Also, don’t forget to visit the official webpage of the show at www.italianinnovators.com for more information about this project.

All rights reserved | © Italian Innovators 2023

Il fabbricante di cioccolato. Nel mondo di Michele Ferrero | Presentazione libro L. Cottini (Piemme)

A presentation by Luca Cottini (PhD) based on an academic lecture delivered at Princeton University on November 15, 2023

* Calvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millennium as a prophetic reading of the #internet civilization
* The characters of content #marketing. Rapidity, Multiplicity, Exactitude, Visibility, Quickness
* The myths of #literary language (Perseus, Mercury, Vulcan) as models for digital communication
* Calvino's models (Ovid, Lucretius, Leopardi) and the idea of #literature as an open encyclopedia. 
* Literature as a woven text, a magnetic field, and a powerful antibody against the plague of language
* Calvino's Six Memos as a guide to meaningful #content creation
* Reading as a two-way platform. Storytelling as a hidden force endowing objects with value
* The #storyteller, the #designer, the #entrepreneur. Calvino's vision of the 21st century intellectual

Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, make sure to leave a comment here below and subscribe to this YouTube channel as a way to enrich this conversation and receive notification of new episodes. Also, don’t forget to visit the official webpage of the show at www.italianinnovators.com for more information about this project.

All rights reserved | © Italian Innovators 2023

What's the Value of Literature in the Internet Age? Italo Calvino &amp; Digital Communication | #lecture

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