Resumen de La compañía Meletti: entre un café histórico y propaganda
Since 1870, the Italian Company Meletti has been producing the AnisettaMeletti, a distilled liqueur based on anise, known all over the world. Startedas a craft activity in the city of Ascoli Piceno - located in the Marche region,Central Italy -, within a few decades, thanks to the entrepreneurial skills ofits founder, Silvio Meletti, it turned into a real industrial activity, succeeding in Italy and abroad. Its participation in numerous national and international events, starting from the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1878, whereit earned a Honorable Mention, passing through the Expositions of Ostend(1901), Turin (1902) and Athens (1903), winning three gold medals, untilthe Milan Exhibition of 1914, allowed the Anisetta Meletti to be known andsold nationally and internationally. Among the marketing strategies usedby Silvio Meletti and, later, by his successors, there were the opening, in1907, of a beautiful Art Nouveau coffee in the main square of Ascoli Picenoand the creation of marketing and advertising initiatives. Actually, the CaffèMeletti, where the Anisetta Meletti was served and sold, became, in a fewyears, one of the most famous coffees in Italy, attracting the presence ofillustrious figures, Italians and foreigners. On the other hand, Silvio Melettistudied and realized real advertising campaigns, in newspapers and onroad outdoors, starting with small insertions in local newspapers up to relyon illustrators and artists, more or less famous like Marcello Dudovich, forthe production of posters who entered in the history of Italian advertising.The objective of this article is to reconstruct the history of this Italian Company of excellence, through the images that have represented it and continue to represent it all over the world, discussing the importance of thedifferent kinds of the different "images of the industry" in the knowledge ofindustrial heritage.
