No. 2 - The Bank of Italy and the Steel Consortium:Sources in the Bank of Italy’s archives for the history of the Italian steel industry in the Giolittian era

This essay provides a reconstruction, based on documents in the Bank of Italy’s archives, of the events in which the Steel Consortium, also known as the Ilva Consortium, was involved during its existence from 1907 to 1916. After briefly examining the state of the steel industry in the years preceding the crisis, the essay describes the long and complex negotiations, in which Bonaldo Stringher played a key role, that led to the conclusion of two agreements, one industrial and the other financial. The analysis highlights the important contribution that the Bank of Italy made in an operation that had far-reaching financial, industrial and political consequences. There are two appendices: a note on the archival sources consulted and a chronological list of the more important documents cited with their call numbers.