In 1945, Italy was bombed, poor, and broken. By 1960, it was the world’s 6th largest economy.
Plan a history trip →Marshall Plan aid + cheap labor from the south + industrial genius in the north = explosive growth. FIAT put Italy on wheels (Fiat 500, 1957). Vespa (1946) put Italy on two wheels. Olivetti designed the world’s first personal computer (1965). Fashion: Milan became a global capital. Cinema: Fellini, Antonioni, Visconti — Italian neorealism and then La Dolce Vita (1960). Millions migrated from south to north (Turin, Milan) for factory jobs.
FIAT Lingotto, Turin: the factory with a rooftop test track (now a cultural centre, Eataly, Pinacoteca Agnelli €15). Museo del Cinema, Turin (€12, inside the Mole Antonelliana): Italian cinema history. EUR, Rome: the 1942 expo district, repurposed in the 1950s–60s as a modernist neighborhood. MAXXI, Rome (€12, Zaha Hadid): contemporary art/architecture museum spanning postwar to now.