Maccarese Farm archives
The Maccarese farm, established in the late 1920s, is one of Italy’s largest agricultural enterprises.
The beginning of its activity is set in the context of the integral land reclamation policies promoted by the fascist regime on an area that until a few years earlier had belonged to the Rospigliosi family, dominated by the latifundium and already affected by the reclamations implemented at the end of the 19th century by the liberal state.
Its history is intimately connected, not only with the community of Maccarese that developed and articulated around the life of the company and thanks to its growth, but also with some of the great themes of Italian history of the last century: land reclamation and the scientific and political debate that developed around it, agricultural and livestock production techniques and policies, the post-World War II trade union struggles, all themes on which Maccarese constitutes a constant reference point on a national level.
The historical archive
Dedicated to Carlo Benetton, the Maccarese historical archive, measuring more than 500 linear metres, contains almost the entire company documentation for a chronological span from the late 1920s to the 1990s.
The materials tell the story of the company and its subsidiaries and controlled companies, production with the control of crops and the various production centres and the strategic choices related to it, the relationship with the staff, with the people of Maccarese and with the creation of infrastructures and services for the community, many biographical elements of the people who made the company’s history and are intertwined with Italian history, economy and politics.
The archive project
The project for the recovery and valorisation of the archive, which began in 2014, is the result of the collaboration between Maccarese SpA Società Agricola and Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche, with the aim of making this precious documentary heritage consultable and available to the company, to scholars and researchers, to the local community and to anyone else who may recognise elements of interest or even simple curiosity.
Given the enormous amount of documents, the work of scientific archiving will still require years and specific projects. To date, the “Maccarese papers” have found a suitable home for their preservation and consultation needs, they have undergone conservation work and a group of expert archivists from the Memoria srl company, which is collaborating on the project, has carried out an initial and thorough analysis of the materials. This resulted in their logical and physical reorganisation, the first fundamental step towards more extensive interventions that will still take years to complete.
An initial selection of materials that are, at first glance, of greater historical interest, has also been digitised with the collaboration of DigiLab Interdepartmental Research and Service Centre of Sapienza University of Rome. The archive is managed with the use of state-of-the-art software that, in addition to allowing even very refined searches and direct consultation of the documents that may be offered in digital format, is set up for dynamic reuse on the web of the archival descriptions and their relations with records of persons, organisations or events.
Events
Information and contact
Archivio Carlo Benetton
Castello di San Giorgio, Maccarese, Fiumicino (Roma)
T + 39 06 66579616
www.maccaresespa.com
archivio@maccaresespa.com
The project is curated by Maccarese SpA Società Agricola and Fondazione Benetton with the collaboration of Memoria Srl, DigiLab-Centro interdipartimentale di ricerca e servizi, Sapienza University of Rome.