The award ceremony for the ‘Matilde Serao’ special award for journalism, instituted by Poste Italiane on the occasion of the 160th anniversary of the company’s founding, was held today.
The Special Serao Award for journalistic merit was presented by Poste Italiane President Maria Bianca Farina and Co-General Manager Giuseppe Lasco to Lucia Annunziata, Natalia Aspesi, Bianca Berlinguer, Giovanna Botteri, Rosaria Capacchione, Adriana Cerretelli, Titta Fiore, Lucia Goracci, Carmen Lasorella, Myrta Merlino, Tiziana Panella, Agnese Pini, Fiorenza Sarzanini, Barbara Stefanelli, Donatella Trotta, Sarah Varetto and Daniela Vergara.
The award was created to commemorate the link between Poste Italiane and Matilde Serao, the Neapolitan journalist and writer, the first woman to found a daily newspaper, ‘Il Mattino’, and to run it. At a very young age, in fact, before turning to journalism as a profession, Matilde Serao worked for three years as an auxiliary in the telegraph room at Palazzo Orsini in Gravina, at the time the headquarters of the Royal Post Office in Naples. An experience that she recounted in the novella “Telegrafi dello Stato”.
The ceremony took place in the historic Post Office building in Piazza San Silvestro in Rome, in the room now named after Matilde Serao. Also present were the Managing Editors of Il Mattino, Francesco de Core, and Il Messaggero, Massimo Martinelli.
“We have taken the opportunity of our 160th anniversary to remember Matilde Serao,” explained President Maria Bianca Farina, “a leading intellectual and a character with a strong symbolic value for Poste Italiane because her experience working at the Royal Post Office in Naples is an example of the inclusive spirit that the company has shown since its inception, contributing significantly to the path of economic and social emancipation of women since the post-unification period.
“Poste Italiane,” commented Co-General Manager Giuseppe Lasco, “was the first company in Italy to open its doors to female employment, so much so that over the years it has become the ‘pink’ company par excellence. More than 50% of the employees are women and many of them are in senior or managerial positions. The Special Award and the room named after Matilde Serao are the company’s tribute to an enterprising and emancipated woman, courageous in her journalistic work and always in the forefront of asserting rights.”
