Banco Ambrosiano was an Italian bank that was established in 1896 and collapsed in 1982. The Vatican -based Institute for the Works of Religion , commonly known as the Vatican Bank , was Banco Ambrosiano's main shareholder. The Vatican Bank was accused of funnelling covert United States funds to the Polish trade union Solidarity and to the Nicaraguan Contras through Banco Ambrosiano.
56-685: The Nuovo Banco Ambrosiano was the bank replacing the Banco Ambrosiano after its collapse. In 1989 the bank merged with the Banca Cattolica del Veneto (Catholic Bank of Veneto) to form the Banco Ambrosiano Veneto . In 1998 the latter bank formed the Banca Intesa together with the Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde (Cariplo). This Italian bank or insurance-related article
112-623: A 10% stake valued at around $ 300 million , amidst a wave of investment in European companies by their US counterparts. Digital were already reselling Olivetti personal computer models in Europe, and the investment presented an opportunity for the adoption of Digital's Alpha processor in Olivetti's workstation products. The investment programme was to be conducted in two steps over an 18 month period, augmented by additional share purchases. The partnership between
168-563: A Milan court in connection with the bank's collapse. Benedetti was sentenced to six years and four months in prison. His sentence was overturned in April 1998 by the Court of Cassation . In 1994, former Socialist Prime Minister Bettino Craxi was indicted in the Banco Ambrosiano case, along with Licio Gelli , head of Propaganda Due , and former Justice minister Claudio Martelli . In April 1998,
224-760: A controlling stake in Olivetti, but sold it to a consortium including the Pirelli and Benetton groups two years later. Olivetti then launched a hostile bid for Telecom Italia in February 1999, despite being less than a seventh of the size of its target. In a take-over battle against Deutsche Telekom and other potential bidders that initially seem to have been settled in Deutsche Telecom's favour, with an $ 82 billion merger reportedly agreed in April 1999, Olivetti won out and controlled 52.12% of former monopoly Telecom Italia, Italy's #1 fixed-line and mobile phone operator. However,
280-503: A mainframe and used in the finance sector. It was followed in 1977 by the TC1800 . During the 1970s Olivetti also manufactured and sold two ranges of minicomputers. The 'A' series started with the typewriter-sized A4 through to the large A8, and the desk-sized DE500 and DE700 series. Olivetti's first modern personal computer, the M20 , featuring a Zilog Z8000 CPU , was released in 1982. The M20
336-595: A move that was publicly criticized by Simon Wiesenthal , due to Abs' role as top banker to Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945. There was much argument over who should take responsibility for losses incurred by the Old Ambrosiano's off-shore companies, and the Holy See (Vatican) eventually agreed to pay out a substantial sum without accepting liability. In April 1992, Carlo De Benedetti , former deputy chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, and 32 other people were convicted of fraud by
392-541: A nearly 60-year period starting in the late 1930s. An early example is the portable 1932 Olivetti MP1 (Modello Portatile in Italian). From the 1940s to the 1960s, Olivetti industrial design was led by Marcello Nizzoli , who was responsible for the Lexicon 80 and the portable Lettera 22 typewriters, which were released in 1948 and 1950 respectively. The architect and designer Ettore Sottsass began consulting for Olivetti in
448-407: A significant purchaser of laser printers and laptops from Olivetti, but had begun to manufacture its own personal computers and planned to produce its own laptop products. Meanwhile, Olivetti had been slow to introduce Alpha-based products, eventually shipping models based on Digital's own products. With Digital's finances under pressure, posting quarterly losses and incurring costs around redundancies,
504-740: A team of 500 engineers, and decided to include transistors in the Elea 9003. Mario Bellini joined Sottsass at Olivetti in 1963. He designed the Programma 101 (1965), the Divisumma 18 (1973), and the Logos 68 (1973) calculators, and in 1966 the TCV-250 video display terminal . Mario Bellini and Ettore Sottsass , who by then directed design for Olivetti, hired designers such as George Sowden and James Irvine . Sowden worked for Olivetti from 1970 until 1990 and designed
560-569: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Banco Ambrosiano The Banco Ambrosiano was founded in Milan in 1896 by Giuseppe Tovini , a Catholic lawyer and banker from Valle Camonica , and was named after Saint Ambrose , the fourth century archbishop of the city. Tovini's purpose was to create a Catholic bank as a counterbalance to Italy's "lay" banks, and its goals were "serving moral organisations, pious works, and religious bodies set up for charitable aims." The bank came to be known as
616-462: Is known for innovative product design, ranging from the 1950s Lettera 22 portable typewriter, to some of the first commercial programmable desktop calculators , such as the 1964 Programma 101 , as well as the pop-art inspired Valentine typewriter of 1969. Between 1954 and 2001, Italy's Association of Industrial Design (ADI) awarded 16 Compasso d'Oro prizes to Olivetti products and designs – more than any other company or designer. The company
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#1733085392701672-498: The Elea 9003 . Although 40 large commercial 9003 and over 100 smaller 6001 scientific machines were completed and leased to customers to 1964, low sales, loss of two key managers and financial instability caused Olivetti to withdraw from the field in 1964. In 1965 Olivetti released the Programma 101 , considered one of the first commercial desktop programmable calculators. It was saved from
728-638: The Court of Cassation confirmed Licio Gelli's 12-year sentence for the Ambrosiano crash. Just before the media revealed the Ambrosiano scandal, Gérard Soisson , the manager of the transaction clearing company Clearstream , was found dead in Corsica , two months after Ernest Backes' dismissal from Clearstream in May 1983. Banco Ambrosiano was one of the many banks to have unpublished accounts in Clearstream. Backes, formerly
784-849: The Telecom Italia group, maintaining a separate identity as Olivetti Tecnost. In 2005, Telecom Italia relaunched the company in the information technology sector, investing €200 million, at first restoring the original Olivetti brand, then replacing it with Olivetti Tecnost in 2003. In 2007, Olivetti launched the "LINEA_OFFICE", designed by Jasper Morrison for Olivetti; a new line of PCs, notebooks, printers, fax machines and calculators. Olivetti today operates in Italy and Switzerland , and has sales associates in 83 countries. Research and development are located in Agliè , Carsoli and Scarmagno in Italy, and Yverdon , Switzerland. In March 2011 Olivetti began producing
840-558: The Underwood Typewriter Company that year. In 1964 the company sold its electronics division to the American company General Electric . In order to qualify for new loans, bankers made it a condition that the company's electronic division be sold to General Electric. It continued to develop new computing products on its own; one of these was Programma 101 , one of the first commercially produced programmable calculators . In
896-570: The netbooks introduced 20 years later. Olivetti did attempt to recover its position by introducing the Envision in 1995, a full multimedia PC , to be used in the living room ; this project was a failure. Gateway also introduced a similar product in the U.S., called the Destination 2000, around the same period, to a similarly mixed commercial reception. The company continued to develop personal computers until it sold its PC business in 1997. In
952-466: The "priests' bank"; one chairman was Franco Ratti, nephew to Pope Pius XI . In the 1960s, the bank began to expand its business, opening a holding company in Luxembourg in 1963 which came to be known as Banco Ambrosiano Holding. This was under the direction of Carlo Canesi, then a senior manager, and from 1965 chairman. His deputy was Roberto Calvi . In 1971, Calvi became general manager, and in 1975 he
1008-516: The 1970s and 1980s, they were the biggest manufacturer for office machines in Europe and 2nd biggest PC vendor behind IBM in Europe. Olivetti also inspired Thomas J. Watson Jr. to change IBM's approach to industrial design beginning in the 1950s. In 1980, Olivetti began distributing in Indonesia through Dragon Computer & Communication. In 1981, Olivetti installed the electronic voting systems for
1064-550: The 1980s and 1990s Olivetti continued to release PC compatible machines, facing mounting competition from other brands. It turned to laptops, introducing in 1991 the D33 , a laptop in a carry case, and continuing with the M111 , M211 , S20 , D33 , Philos and Echos series. A very interesting subnotebook was the Quaderno , about the same size as an A5 paper – it was the grandfather of
1120-569: The 1990s, Olivetti's computer businesses were in great difficulty, reportedly because of the competition from US vendors and new cheap manufacturers for PC components in Taiwan like ASUS , MSI , Gigabyte and others from which local system builders profited much to offer cheaper PCs than Olivetti did with their own designs. It was on the brink of collapse and had needed government support to stay afloat. In 1992, Digital Equipment Corporation announced its intention to invest in Olivetti, approximating to
1176-509: The ETV series video typewriters based on CP/M operating system, ETV 240, ETV 250, ETV 300, ETV 350 and later MS-DOS operating system based ETV 260, ETV 500, ETV 2700, ETV 2900, ETV 4000s word processing systems having floppy drives or hard disks . Some of them (ETV 300, 350, 500, 2900) were external boxes that could be connected through an optional serial interface to many of the ET series office typewriters,
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#17330853927011232-680: The European Parliament in Strasburg and Luxembourg. In 1986, the company acquired Triumph-Adler , a major office equipment manufacturer based in Germany that also produced typewriters, from Litton Industries of the United States. With this acquisition, Olivetti grabbed 50 percent of the European typewriter market. In September 1994, the company launched Olivetti Telemedia chaired by Elserino Piol. Since 2003, Olivetti has been part of
1288-500: The Monaco branch in 1994. Calvi used his complex network of overseas banks and companies to move money out of Italy, to inflate share prices, and to secure massive unsecured loans. In 1978, the Banca d'Italia (Bank of Italy) produced a report on Ambrosiano that predicted future disaster and led to criminal investigations. Soon afterward the investigating Milanese magistrate, Alessandrini,
1344-515: The Praxis 35, Praxis 40 and 45D were some of the first portable electronic typewriters. Later, Olivetti added the Praxis 20, ET Compact 50, ET Compact 60, ET Compact 70, ET Compact 65/66, the ET Personal series and Linea 101. The top models were 8 lines LCD based portables like Top 100 and Studio 801, with the possibility to save the text to a 3.5-inch floppy disk . The professional line was upgraded with
1400-451: The TIM Group (Telecom Italia) through a merger. [A] preoccupation with design developed into a comprehensive corporate philosophy, which embraced everything from the shape of a space bar to the color scheme for an advertising poster. Olivetti became famous for the meticulous attention it paid to the design of its products, through collaborations with notable architects and designers, over
1456-452: The bank. Carlo de Benedetti of Olivetti bought into the bank and became deputy chairman, only to leave two months later after receiving Mafia threats and a lack of co-operation from Calvi. His replacement, longtime employee Roberto Rosone, was wounded in a Mafia shooting. The criminal organization responsible was the Banda della Magliana (Magliana Gang) which had taken over Rome's underworld in
1512-448: The companies, regarded as a way of supporting Olivetti whilst cementing a development relationship around Digital's Alpha platform, developed in the following two years, although the balance of revenue from selling products to each other was reported as being strongly in Olivetti's favour, it having generated 125.3 billion lire from Digital in 1993, but with Digital only selling products worth 9.9 billion lire to Olivetti. Digital remained
1568-454: The company sold its stake – noted as amounting to 7.8% – for $ 150 million . A company in transition, it had moved out of the typewriter business into personal computers before embracing telecoms between 1997 and 1999, spinning off its personal computer business in 1997 and divesting its computer services business in 1998. In the process it had lost around three-quarters of its staff. In 1999, The Luxembourg -based company Bell S.A. acquired
1624-901: The company's first desktop computer , the Olivetti L1, in 1978 (following ergonomic research lasting two years). In 1991, Sowden's design for the Olivetti fax OFX420 won the ADI Compasso d'Oro Award . In 1999 Michele De Lucchi designed the Art Jet 10 inkjet printer , which was also awarded the Compasso d'Oro, and in 2001, the Gioconda calculator. In 1952, the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) held an exhibit titled "Olivetti: Design in Industry" Another exhibit
1680-433: The death of Albino Luciani who, as Pope John Paul I , was planning a reform of Vatican finances. This is one of many conspiracy theories about Luciani, who died of a heart attack. Calvi's family maintains that he was an honest man manipulated by others. According to the magistrates who indicted Licio Gelli, P2's "Venerable Master", and Giuseppe Calò for Calvi's murder, Gelli would have ordered his death for embezzling his and
1736-500: The guarantee was a deposit of two hundred million dollars from the Banco Ambrosiano Andino, an owned subsidiary of the Banco Ambrosiano. An Italian investigation into Propaganda Due 's involvement in the arms trade uncovered a contract for 52 Exocets signed by Carlos Alberto Corti, an Argentinian naval officer and member of P2 . David Yallop believes that Calvi, with the assistance of P2 , may have been responsible for
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1792-464: The headmaster of P2 Masonic Lodge, and the mafioso Giuseppe "Pippo" Calò are being prosecuted for the assassination of Roberto Calvi. France prohibited deliveries of Exocet AM39 missiles purchased by Peru to avoid the possibility of Peru giving them to Argentina, because they knew that payment would be made with a credit card from the Central Bank of Peru , but British intelligence had detected that
1848-514: The history of 20th-century design. Those designers also created the Olivetti Synthesis office furniture series which mainly were used to be installed in the firm's own headquarters, worldwide branch offices and showrooms. Olivetti also produced some industrial production machinery, including metalworking machines of the Horizon series. Olivetti began with mechanical typewriters when the company
1904-550: The late 1950s and designed a series of products including the Tekne 3 typewriter in 1958, the Elea 9003 computer in 1959, and later, the Praxis 48 typewriter in 1964 and the Valentine portable typewriter in 1969. In 1954, Mario Tchou joined Olivetti and was in put in charge of a team responsible for creating a commercial computer. In 1957, the team created the Elea 9001. Tchou went on to lead
1960-506: The late 1970s, and has been linked to political events of the anni di piombo (years of lead). In 1982 the bank was unable to account for $ 1.287 billion (equivalent to $ 4.06 billion in present-day terms). Calvi fled the country on a false passport, and Rosone arranged for the Bank of Italy to take over. Calvi's personal secretary, Graziella Corrocher, left a note denouncing Calvi before leaping to her death from her office window. Calvi's body
2016-523: The mafia's money, while the mafia wanted to prevent him revealing how Calvi helped its money laundering . Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines . Headquartered in Ivrea , in the Metropolitan City of Turin , the company has been part of TIM Group since 2003. The company
2072-469: The others were fully integrated with an external monitor which could be installed on a holder over the desk. Most of the ET/ETV/Praxis series electronic typewriters were designed by Marion Bellini. By the 1970s and 1980s, the typewriter market had matured under the market dominance of large companies from Europe and the United States. Before the advent of dailywheel and electronic machines (and subsequently
2128-416: The ownership structure of the merged Olivetti / Telecom Italia was complex and multi-layered with Olivetti took on around $ 16 billion of extra debt. It was then referred to as the "Olivetti/Telecom Italia affair" because of the unpleasant secret affairs behind. After a 2003 reorganization, Olivetti became the office equipment and systems services subsidiary of Telecom Italia. In 2003 Olivetti was absorbed into
2184-448: The personal computers and word processing software) — Olivetti and the other major manufacturers faced strong competition from typewriters from Asia, including Brother Industries and Silver Seiko Ltd. of Japan. By 1994, Olivetti stopped production of typewriters, as most users had transitioned to personal computers . Between 1955 and 1964 Olivetti developed some of the first transistorized mainframe computer systems, such as
2240-461: The sale of the computer division to GE thanks to an employee, Gastone Garziera, who spent successive nights changing the internal categorization of the product from "computer" to "calculator", so leaving the small team in Olivetti and creating some awkward situations in the office, since that space was now owned by GE. In 1974 the firm released the TC800 , an intelligent terminal designed to be attached to
2296-501: The scandal to Lima and other branches. Nobody even knew there was a Banco Ambrosiano branch in Lima and other South American countries." As of 2005, the Italian justice has opened up again the investigation concerning the murder of Roberto Calvi, Ambrosiano's chairman, but it asked the support of Ernest Backes and will investigate Gerard Soisson's death, according to Lucy Komisar . Licio Gelli,
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2352-407: The third-ranking officer of Clearstream and a primary source for Denis Robert 's book on Clearstream's scandal, Revelation$ , claims he "was fired because (he) knew too much about the Ambrosiano scandal. When Soisson died, the Ambrosiano affair wasn't yet known as a scandal. (After it was revealed) I realized that Soisson and I had been at the crossroads. We moved all those transactions known later in
2408-766: Was a friend of American Archbishop Paul Marcinkus , president of the Istituto per le Opere di Religione (the formal name of the Vatican Bank ), and involved both the IOR and Marcinkus in his dealings. Ambrosiano provided funds for political parties in Italy, and for both the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua and for its Sandinista opposition. There are rumours that it provided money for Solidarity in Poland . At Lugano , Banco del Gottardo , which
2464-447: Was also considered pivotal to the company, which engaged architects and designers such as Gae Aulenti , Walter Ballmer [ it ] , BBPR , Egon Eiermann , Figini e Pollini [ it ] , Ignazio Gardella , Louis Kahn , Le Corbusier , Carlo Scarpa , Giovanni Pintori , Bob Noorda , and Lella and Massimo Vignelli to design factories, office buildings, showrooms, and publicity materials. Giovanni Pintori
2520-605: Was appointed chairman. Calvi expanded Ambrosiano's interests, including the creation of off-shore companies in the Bahamas and South America; a controlling interest in the Banca Cattolica del Veneto ; and funds for the publishing house Rizzoli to finance the Corriere della Sera newspaper (giving Calvi control behind the scenes for the benefit of his associates in the P2 masonic lodge ). Calvi
2576-735: Was followed in 1983 by the M24 , a clone of the IBM PC using DOS and the Intel 8086 processor (at 8 MHz ) instead of the Intel 8088 used by IBM (at 4.77 MHz). The M24 was sold in North America as the AT&;T 6300 . Olivetti also manufactured the AT&;T 6300 Plus , which could run both DOS and Unix . The M24 in the US also was sold as Xerox 6060. The Olivetti M28
2632-628: Was found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London on June 18. During July 1982, funds to the off-shore interests were cut off, leading to their collapse, and in August the bank was replaced by the Nuovo Banco Ambrosiano under Giovanni Bazoli. Pope John Paul II pledged full transparency regarding the bank's links to the Vatican and brought in lay bankers including German financial expert Hermann Abs ,
2688-419: Was founded as a typewriter manufacturer by Camillo Olivetti in 1908 in the Turin commune of Ivrea , Italy . The firm was mainly developed by his son Adriano Olivetti . Olivetti opened its first overseas manufacturing plant in 1930, and its Divisumma electric calculator was launched in 1948. Olivetti produced Italy's first electronic computer, the transistorised Elea 9003 , in 1959, and purchased
2744-399: Was founded in 1909, and produced them until the mid-1990s. Until the mid-1960s, they were fully mechanical, and models such as the portable Olivetti Valentine were designed by Ettore Sottsass. With the Tekne/Editor series and Praxis 48, some of the first electromechanical typewriters were introduced. The Editor series was used for speed typing championship competition. The Editor 5 from 1969
2800-459: Was founded in 1957 with Dr. August Gansser-Burckhardt as president, became Banco Ambrosiano's Swiss arm in 1963 with Swiss managers and a 45% stake indirectly through the Banco Ambrosiano Holding S. A., Luxembourg, which Banco Ambosiano held a 70% stake, and was the linchpin of Calvi's offshore system with branches established in Nassau (Bahamas) and Luxembourg in the 1970s and after its failure Sumitomo Bank obtained Gotthardt Bank in 1984 and added
2856-405: Was hired by Adriano Olivetti in 1936 to work in the publicity department. Pintori was the creator of the Olivetti logo and many promotional posters used to advertise the company and its products. During his activity as Art Director from 1950, Olivetti's graphic design obtained several international awards, and he designed works that created the Olivetti image and became emblematic Italian reference in
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#17330853927012912-439: Was killed by a left-wing terrorist group, while the Bank of Italy official who superintended the inspection, Mario Sarcinelli, was imprisoned on charges that were later dismissed. In 1981, police raided the office of Propaganda Due to apprehend the Worshipful Master Licio Gelli and uncover further evidence against Roberto Calvi. Calvi was sentenced to four years prison. He was released pending appeal and retained his position at
2968-585: Was mounted by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1969 and later toured five other cities. Many Olivetti products and archival material related to design are held in museum collections including the MoMA design collection, the Cooper Hewitt in New York, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Between 1954 and 2001, Olivetti won 16 Compasso d'Oro awards for design. In May 2022, ADI Design Museum in Milan paid tribute to this achievement with an exhibition titled Podium 16. Olivetti paid attention to more than product design. Graphic design and architectural design
3024-478: Was one of the first manufacturers to introduce electronic daisywheel printer-based word processing machines, called TES 401 and TES 501. Later the ET series typewriters without (or with) LCD and different levels of text editing capabilities were popular in offices. Models in that line were ET 121, ET 201, ET 221, ET 225, ET 231, ET 351, ET 109, ET 110, ET 111, ET 112, ET 115, ET 116, ET 2000, ET 2100, ET 2200, ET 2250, ET 2300, Et 2400 and ET 2500. For home users in 1982
3080-456: Was the firm's first PC to have the Intel 80286 processor. The same year Olivetti produced its M10 laptop computer, a 8085 -based workalike of the successful Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100 , which it marketed in Europe. These were the first laptops to sell in million-unit quantities, though the Olivetti M10 [ it ] itself only attained sales figures in the tens of thousands and went out of production within two years. During
3136-404: Was the top model of that series, with proportional spacing and the ability to support justified text borders. In 1972 the electromechanical typeball machines of the Lexicon 90 to 94C series were introduced, as competitors to the IBM Selectric typewriters , the top model 94c supported proportional spacing and justified text borders like the Editor 5, as well as lift-off correction. In 1978 Olivetti
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