Details
- ERC sector
- SH6 - The Study of the Human Past
- ERC subsector
- SH6_9 - Early modern, modern, and contemporary history
- Project start date
- CUP
- D53D23000410006
- Financial support received
- €70.152,00
Description and purpose
The project investigates the evolution of trademarks in Italy, a still underexplored field. Using the Central State Archive database, which preserves all trademarks filed from Unification to 1960, it traces the long-term dynamics of trademarking as a proxy for Italy’s economic development, offering new evidence on the relationship between branding practices and broader economic change.
Purpose
The project uses trademarks to investigate how Italy’s market-oriented firms evolved across territories and sectors from national unification to 1960. Analysing this long-run evidence also opens the way for future comparisons with other European countries. Through the study of graphic signs, the project further examines how commercial communication and branding languages developed over time.
Expected results
The project will deliver a refined database of the roughly 160,000 trademarks, cleaned and standardised from the ACS records. It will also organise seminars and conferences to present and discuss findings. Finally, it will develop a Public History portal with a navigable Google Maps–based interface to visualise the evolution of Italian development and trademark diffusion.
Achieved results
The database cleaning phase proved complex, as heterogeneous and sometimes inconsistent ACS records had to be harmonised; with the support of two project researchers, the dataset is now fully refined and usable. The four partner universities have already held multiple seminars and conferences, and a collective volume on trademarks is about to go to press. The Public History website will be publicly released soon.
Scientific director
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