The Piaggio Foundation
The Piaggio Foundation was set up in 1994 as part of a project to reconstitute Piaggio's history and revive the historical memory of the company and society. The Foundation was the idea of the company's late Chairman, the young Giovanni Alberto Agnelli, seconded by the then Pontedera mayor Enrico Rossi and the Chairman of the Pisa province Gino Nunes. Piaggio, Pontedera city hall and the Pisa province are the Foundation's three shareholders. The Foundation's objective is to enhance the value of the company's relationship with culture and with the territory in which it operates.
To this end, the Foundation organises an annual programme of activity that has marked it out it from the very start as a significant reference point in local and national debates on various issues. These issues range from research linked to technological innovation, to the rebuilding of industrial relations from the late 1800s to our day; from complex and specific problems related to European unification and the Euro to theatre, energy and transport safety and ethics in sport, communication and biotechnology. Other fields of activity include training, debating the role of foundations, and design, as well as meetings with writers such as Antonio Tabucchi and Abraham Yehoshua or sportsmen such as Felice Gimondi and Marcello Lippi and seminars on various aspects of social and civil life.
The Foundation is also a centre for the promotion of art exhibitions and debates on the ideas and the work of men and women who explore themes, issues and ideas through a fascinating gallery of artistic expression. The Foundation has hosted painters, sculptors and photographers who are all players in an intense cultural existence. Besides its multiple activities, the Foundation is also responsible for the running and administration of the "Giovanni Alberto Agnelli" Piaggio Museum and the "Antonella Bechi Piaggio" Historical Archive. The Foundation's cultural aims are a significant and coherent way to express the company's social function in the territory as well as the ongoing debate on the civil and economic society of our time. Today, the Foundation project has been renewed and sustained by a new ownership that manages a mechanical engineering company while sharing the intangible values of culture and implementing the social and cultural values of the company and its territory.