Ravenna and the World between Entrepreneurship and Environmental Sustainability 1979–1992

The Gardini Globale project was born from the collaboration between the Department of Cultural Heritage of the University of Bologna and the Raul Gardini Foundation.
The digital atlas was previewed on Friday, September 26, at 8:30 p.m. at the Department of Cultural Heritage, Via degli Ariani 1, Ravenna, during the European Researchers’ Night 2025.

The initiative allows visitors to explore, through an interactive digital globe, letters, speeches, articles, and geolocated interviews from Raul Gardini’s personal archive. The mapping traces Gardini’s path between Ravenna, Italy, Europe, and the world, highlighting his vocation as a global economic leader and his vision on highly topical issues such as the role of the European integration process and the safeguarding of environmental heritage.

Presented in its first version, the atlas is intended as a long-term tool, designed to grow and expand until it constitutes a rich and dynamic biographical profile, capable of bringing to an increasingly broad audience the entrepreneurial, cultural, and sporting dimensions of Gardini. It will thus allow for a historical and in-depth study of his life, through the private historical archive made available to the Foundation.

At present, the atlas brings together 33 key places in Raul Gardini’s life — from Ravenna to New Orleans, via Brussels and Moscow.
Its structure is organized into five thematic sections: Gardini in the World, Business and Finance, Energy Transition, Europe, and Sport.
It aims to be a tool accessible to all, offering a clear and straightforward way to deepen understanding of the story of an enlightened entrepreneur, whose insights — from agriculture to the environment, from Europe to the wider world — continue to resonate today.

During the presentation evening, following the institutional greetings from Anna Chiara Fariselli (Director of the Department), the Councilor for Culture and University Fabio Sbaraglia, and Ivan Gardini for the Foundation, Professor Michele Marchi and the researchers from FrameLab, Alessandro Iannucci and Arianna Mecozzi, illustrated the launch of the digital reconstruction of the entrepreneur’s journey — a central figure in recent history, with particular attention to the themes that made him a forerunner: environment and sustainable development, European integration, Euro-Atlantic relations.

The evening then continued with a conversation featuring writer and journalist Elena Stancanelli (author of Il Tuffatore) and journalist and biographer Cesare Peruzzi (author of the interview A modo mio), who shared their perspectives on Gardini.

Rassegna Stampa