CULTURA POLITECNICA, ENERGIA, INDUSTRIALIZZAZIONE

The Milan National Exhibition in 1881, if compared with the previous one in Florence (1861) and with the intermediate international exhibitions, shows that also Italy had finally completed the First Industrial Revolution, characterized by the trinomial coal-iron-steam. Giuseppe Colombo of the Politecnico di Milano, who had presented Florence Exhibition in 1861 in the newspaper “La Perseveranza” and subsequently was one of the promoter of the Milan National Exhibition in 1881, knew very well that the second Industrial Revolution – in particular for electricity – was about starting. He was aware because he took part to the revolutionary international Exposition of Electricity in Paris (1881), where Edison showed his new continue corrent system for production, longdistance transmission and distribution of electricity for incandescent lighting. When he came back to Milan, Colombo founded the most important electric company in Italy, Edison, and in 1883 (after one journey to find Edison in America), he devised the first European electrical power plant - Santa Radegonda - for the enlightenment of the old town centre of Milan. In few years the hydroelectric production and the long way distance alternating current transmission were achieved with the power plant of Paderno d’Adda and the electrical transmission line from Paderno to Milan, not only for enlightenment use but also for motive power, industrial use and public transport. Hereinafter the electrification of the Country Italy accompanied its modernization: the foundation of the Istituzione Elettrotecnica Carlo Erba in the Politecnico di Milano strengthened the training of new technicians, such as high profile personalities like Giacinto Motta or Ettore Conti, while entrepreneurs like Giovanni Battista Pirelli or Alberto Riva had international successes with the production of cables or electrical machines.