by Italic-Us | Feb 2, 2026 | Companies
Made in Italy continues to be recognized worldwide for creativity and aesthetic ability, but to compete globally, it must face new challenges related to small business size, digitalization, and advanced technology. According to Serena Turrisi, Head of Client Business Development at Fideuram, the Italian entrepreneurial fabric consists of 99% small and medium-sized enterprises, often family-owned, with an average turnover of less than 50 million and owners who, in 84% of cases, are over 60 years old—elements that contribute to limiting international competitiveness.
The key point for strengthening Made in Italy is supply chain or district cooperation, which allows for the combination of craftsmanship and industrial innovation while maintaining creative value and creating economic weight. Before finance, a clear industrial vision, effective governance, and management of generational succession are needed, as demonstrated by the case of Kico-Del Tongo, a furniture company from Abruzzo that has successfully merged family tradition with a modern industrial project, ensuring continuity and innovation with the second generation.
Historic industrial districts—such as Santa Croce sull’Arno (tanning), Valenza (goldsmithing), and Como (silk)—represent a model to be valued and replicated, as they allow for competition with Asian giants that have capital and technology but lack Italian creativity. The challenge for Made in Italy today is to become technologically advanced industrial artisans, operating within a supply chain logic and offering tailor-made solutions without losing identity and quality.
In summary: innovation, collaboration, and industrial vision are the keys to a competitive and sustainable Made in Italy in a global world.
by Italic-Us | Feb 2, 2026 | Characters
According to Maria Elisa Altese, an Italian-American journalist and the face of The Boat Show on Sky, Italy remains the absolute point of reference in luxury yachting, even for the US market. Those purchasing superyachts in the USA continue to turn primarily to Italian shipyards, attracted by a style that embodies beauty, lifestyle, and design quality, in line with an Italian imagery ranging from Fellini to Riva.
After a background in political journalism, Altese entered the world of large-scale yachting, following the main international boat shows: in the United States (Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Palm Beach), in Europe (Genoa, Cannes, Düsseldorf), and in emerging hubs such as Dubai, Jeddah, and Shanghai.
When it comes to high-level yachting, Italy remains the preferred choice due to its design and lifestyle. For superyachts, speed and pure performance matter less than living, comfort, and identity: a typically Italian way of living, dining, and experiencing the sea. Italian shipyards excel in custom design, working side-by-side with owners to create unique solutions that integrate technology, design, and art, even when faced with extreme or symbolic requests.
Altese also emphasizes how the yachting industry is investing in sustainability, safety, and new technologies, as well as in workforce training and collaboration with universities. Despite international competition—such as South African catamarans or American shipyards focused on engines and speed—Italy maintains its leadership thanks to a tradition that is often family-run, a strong identity, and globally recognized quality. An emblematic case is Pershing, an Italian brand perceived as American due to its style, yet part of the Ferretti Group.
by Italic-Us | Feb 2, 2026 | Companies
Gobbetto is an Italian company that has transformed resin from a simple technical material into a creative language capable of uniting architecture, design, art, and fashion. It all began in the 1960s when an American engineer suggested to Giancarlo Gobbetto that resin could be used not only in naval or industrial contexts, but to pave and coat anything. Thus, thanks to an intuition, Giancarlo created a product that immediately took root in the residential sector, especially in fashion showrooms: Calvin Klein’s in New York was among the first to believe in this aesthetic solution.
Then came collaborations with Armani, Romeo Gigli, and Corso Como 10, artists such as Mimmo Paladino, and designers like Paola Navone; Gobbetto resin evolved into an extremely versatile material, capable of taking on the appearance of plaster, alabaster, micro-cement, or fabric, with advanced technical qualities: non-toxic, ecological, photosensitive, elastic, and removable.
The company’s strength lies in its nature as industrial craftsmanship, where technicians, artists, and designers work together to experiment with innovative solutions such as magnetic resins, removable panels, resin curtains and rugs, self-illuminating surfaces, and materials capable of absorbing and reflecting light. The Milan showroom and the headquarters in Trezzano sul Naviglio showcase this continuous research through artistic installations and new color palettes.
Led today by Clarissa and Gianluca Gobbetto, the company looks to the future with the opening of a Museum and an Academy, confirming a cultural as well as a productive vocation. With 60% of its turnover coming from abroad, Gobbetto continues to amaze with projects that blend memory, technology, and experimentation, making resin a ductile material at the service of contemporary artistic expression.
by Italic-Us | Feb 2, 2026 | Art
In a few days, specifically from February 12 to June 14, 2026, the Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica di Palazzo Barberini will present the exhibition “Bernini and the Barberini”, curated by Andrea Bacchi and Maurizia Cicconi, dedicated to the relationship between Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Maffeo Barberini, who became Pope Urban VIII, a great promoter of the Roman Baroque.
The exhibition traces Bernini’s career and Urban VIII’s fundamental role in the birth and rise of the Baroque, coinciding with the four-hundredth anniversary of the consecration of St. Peter’s Basilica (1626). The exhibition is supported by Intesa Sanpaolo and sponsored by the Fabbrica di San Pietro, with exceptional loans from major international museums, including the Louvre, the Albertina in Vienna, the Getty Museum, and the Thyssen-Bornemisza.
A central focus is dedicated to the debate on the birth of the Baroque and the patronage of the Barberini family, also evidenced by the return to Palazzo Barberini of three historic tapestries depicting the lives of Christ, Constantine, and Urban VIII. Maffeo Barberini emerges as a complex figure: a poet, intellectual, and refined patron, but also a protagonist of nepotistic practices, which he nevertheless balanced with an international cultural vision.
The exhibition presents sculptural and pictorial works by Bernini, including his only major public painting, on loan from the National Gallery in London, and famous busts rarely on display, such as Costanza Bonarelli and Thomas Baker. Alongside Bernini, key seventeenth-century artists such as Guido Reni, Borromini, Pietro da Cortona, Finelli, and Mochi engage in dialogue, highlighting the vibrant artistic scene of the era.
Ample space is dedicated to Bernini’s early training, his extraordinary talent even in adolescence, and the great masterpieces commissioned by Cardinal Scipione Borghese. The rivalry with Borromini also emerges in the construction of Palazzo Barberini, a symbol of the differing architectural visions that marked the Roman Baroque.
The exhibition is intended as a journey through Baroque Rome, telling the story of a dialogue between art, power, and creativity that shaped the image of the city and Western art.
An event that art enthusiasts cannot afford to miss.
by Italic-Us | Feb 2, 2026 | Art
From November 28, 2025, to February 1, 2026, Sassari hosted a major exhibition dedicated to Impressionism, designed to portray the movement in its entirety and place the city at the center of the national cultural landscape. The exhibition, titled “Light, Nature, Freedom. Landscape Pioneers from Barbizon to the Impressionists”, was held at the Tavolara Museum and featured 66 works by 31 artists, curated by art historian Alberto Bertuzzi.
The exhibition, conceived by the Aurea Natur Cultural Association with the support of the Municipality of Sassari, the Fondazione di Sardegna, and the patronage of local institutions, was divided into three sections: from the first anti-academic movements to the Barbizon School, and finally to the full maturity of Impressionism. The works came from Italian and French collectors, some never before exhibited to the public.
The exhibition path highlights landscape as the central subject and includes oil paintings, drawings, watercolors, lithographs, and mixed media. Among the precursors are Eugène Boudin, Monet’s mentor, and Eugène Isabey. Significant space was dedicated to the Barbizon School with artists such as Théodore Rousseau, Narcisse Diaz de la Peña, Jules Dupré, Daubigny, and other key figures of nineteenth-century landscape painting.
The Impressionist section included works by Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, and Berthe Morisot, as well as Giovanni Boldini and Emilio Donnini. Also featured were artists famous for their female portraits, such as Henri Gervex and Paul César Helleu.
The exhibition was enriched by previously unpublished insights into the artists’ lives, the result of research by Caterina Berlinguer and Alberto Bertuzzi, revealing interesting facts about the art market and Monet’s private life. An exhibition of great cultural and artistic value, capable of combining historical rigor with narrative charm.
