Community Relations
Tanneries’ relationships with local communities and support for the development of cultural projects by companies and representatives add value to both companies and the community, in part thanks to the many initiatives funded by individual companies and employer associations.
Caring for your neighbour is a key element in keeping the bond with the community alive and actively contributing to its welfare.
Initiatives in the Territories
To ensure sector competitiveness over time, it is crucial to invest in young people, their training and employability.
In order to attract young people, a key step is to make them aware of the role and importance of tanning companies in building the economic and social development of territories that, while starting from tradition, looks toward a comprehensively sustainable future.
With this perspective in mind, it is important to target schools of all levels, with projects and initiatives of cultural value that involve public and private entities, such as ’Open Companies,’ lectures and testimonies at school, as well as competitions that stimulate children’s curiosity about leather, its world and the many professional opportunities.
Initiatives aimed at introducing young people to the richness of the area’s productive reality are complemented by real training moments created to increase employment opportunities and ensure that everyone has the opportunity to professionalise learning.
’Nella mia città’ [In my city] is one such example. The goal of the annual contest promoted by institutions, associations and companies is to involve students from local secondary schools, stimulating their literary vein in the expression of the theme ’Leather Things’ to tell the story of the places where they live, exploring the world of leather and tannery with freedom and without preconceptions.
Another is ’Amici per la Pelle’, an educational project that, with the support of local associations, institutions and schools, and their school leaders and teachers, targets students in the last two years of middle schools in Italy’s four main tanning districts (Tuscany, Veneto, Campania, Lombardy). Organised in the form of an annual competition, in which participating classes are invited to create leather artwork and objects following a different theme in each edition, the project has gradually managed to involve more and more students from all districts. It aims to promote knowledge of leather and the tanning production of the young students’ territories and to orient them on future educational choices, bringing them closer to the world of work in a concrete manner. The contest awards ceremony takes place every year during the February edition of Lineapelle in Milan.
In 2024, the 13th edition of the competition, titled ’Archeo Tan’ counted the participation of 1,100 students from 11 educational institutions, who were invited to create works inspired by archaeological studies that have contributed to the discovery, since prehistoric times, of the versatility and multiple uses of leather in the evolution of humankind.
Historical-Cultural Projects.
When people talk about leather production, especially in Italy, they often refer to the ’art of tanning.’ This is because leather, and its production process, has accompanied man since time immemorial and has always complemented cultural development. The history of man is also the history of how man has produced and used hides, even to create works of art. UNIC has always been strongly committed to supporting the culture of leather and the art of tanning, including through funding many projects and activities that emphasise its very important historical significance. Below are some of the most important ones developed in recent years.
The Tannery of Pompeii
The project was launched in January 2008 with the signing of an agreement between UNIC and the Superintendence of Naples and Pompeii. The project objective was to restore one of the oldest tanning complexes (discovered around 1873) in the world, located within the Pompeii Excavations near Porta Stabia, in the theatre district (Region I, Insula 5). The building included the manager’s dwelling and rooms used for work, such as the portico divided into six compartments, separated by five partitions, in three of which the pipe that carried water to the jars is bricked up. The area behind has 15 circular masonry tanks lined with earthenware, with loading and unloading holes. Twelve of them were used for vegetable tanning large hides and three for rock alum tanning small hides. The first work phase was carried out under the central portico, which included flaying the raw hides, followed by immersion in vats. Here the raw hides were treated with tannin. The upper level of the first room is thought to have been a drying room where the hides were spread out to dry. At the back of the courtyard there is a triclinium with a central table formerly decorated with a famous mosaic, now preserved at the Archaeological Museum of Naples along with a large number of tanning tools of the time. The second phase of the restoration project began in February 2018, which includes securing the pathway leading to the tannery, its structural enhancement, and setting up a sort of open-air museum available for public visit.
The restoration was completed in the spring of 2023, and at the end of June of the same year, the ancient tannery finally opened its doors to the public. The site is supported by an exhibition and educational layout that illustrates how the leather processing was carried out in ancient times. Original tanning tools are also on display following the diffuse museum model, and a 3D tactile model for the visually impaired, accompanied by a braille legend.
UNIC’s restoration of the Pompeii tannery, which in November 2018 also won a special prize at the Corporate Art Awards (an initiative sponsored by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and LUISS Business School, with the support of Confindustria, Museimpresa, ALES and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). This participation earned Italian tanneries a special award, thanks to ’Having built a model of collaboration between the world of business and the world of art at international level,’ expressing a virtuous synthesis of dialogue and collaboration between the world of business and enterprise and that of art and culture.
Judith (1650/1660) by Nicola Régnier
In 2018, UNIC joined the new patronage project ’Revelations’ promoted by Finance for Fine Arts and supported by Borsa Italiana. It did so by adopting the restoration of Judith, an oil on canvas dated 1650/1660 and attributed to Nicola Régnier (Maubeuge, 1591 – Venice 1667) and part of the collection of the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice. Having come to the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice with the Contarini bequest in 1838, Judith has always been attributed to the Flemish artist and dated to his late years, around the mid-17th century. In the work, the biblical heroine Judith is caught in the instant after she beheads Holofernes, general of the Assyrians who had besieged the city of Bethulia. The UNIC-funded restoration included removing the covering canvas and making perimeter bands to tension it. After removing deposits such as dust and atmospheric particulates from the pictorial surface, the usual operations of cleaning the pictorial surface filling in the gaps and reintegrating them with a recognisable technique were carried out. Finally, a varnish was applied in order to protect the painting and restore its correct light refraction index.
The Dragon Skin Cloak and the Magic of Leather in Fairy Tales.
Sponsored by UNIC and Lineapelle, ’The Dragon Skin Cloak’ was a 2016 production carried out together with the company of Sabrina Brazzo, international étoile and prima ballerina at La Scala, and Andrea Volpintesta.
The project stems from a UNIC publication from the early 2000s, ’The Magic of Leather in Fairy Tales’ which was distributed in elementary schools; it collected the best-known fairy tales featuring leather. Three of them (Pelle d’Orso, Gli Scarponi di Natale, Il Torneo) were brought to the stage, performed to the music of Shostakovic, Poulenc, Bizet, Lizst, Kachaturian.
All the costumes were made with leather from Italian tanneries. The ballet was staged in Italy (in Milan, Bologna, Florence, Vicenza) and abroad (London, New York), garnering great public acclaim. Above all, it proved that Italian leather is an unprecedented and exclusive ’partner’ for ballet as well.
I Come From
I Come From
In 2015, UNIC and Lineapelle, with the support of MISE and ITA, produced ’I Come From,’ a short movie narrated by Ricky Tognazzi, which, thanks also to significant work in historical reconstruction, traces the relationship between man and tanning since ancient times, with the aim of promoting the beauty, history and magic of Italian leather in the world.