ABSTRACT
The concept of Italy as a territorial and cultural unity can be traced back to as early as the Roman Empire, but it only became a tangible political objective in the 19th century, during the turbulent, and continually debated, period known as the Risorgimento. Beside and beyond the prominence that cinema had from an economic and a socio-cultural perspective, the phrase “golden age” also refers to the high quality displayed by the Italian film production of that time. Moplen, produced by the Italian quasi-monopolistic chemical company Montecatini, was the trademark of a polypropylene plastic material that earned its inventor, Italian chemist Giulio Natta, the Nobel Prize in 1963. The arrival of American-style supermarkets disrupted the traditionally fragmented local retailing system and brought profound changes to the Italian consumer culture, as well as industrial strategies. In the post-war years, Italian advertising began to develop as a modern industry.
