After years of suing the bank Istituto Mobiliare Italiano for causing the liquidation of his chemicals company, he won a huge settlement.

FORBES: Magazine Article

In April last year they together acquired 5% of Istituto Bancario San Paolo di Torino, Italy's biggest banking group, becoming part of a controlling group of shareholders.

ECONOMIST: The Agnelli investment vehicle

The central bank also operates indirectly: it joined other public-sector do-gooders by taking a 5% shareholding in Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, a heavily loss-making encyclopedia publisher, in 1995.

ECONOMIST: Corporate culture

Infra-red (IR) camera monitors currently used by firefighters require lenses that can be blinded by intense fire, said researcher Pietro Ferraro, of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) Istituto Nazionale di Ottica in Italy.

BBC: fire fighting

Patrizia Caraveo and her colleagues, at the Istituto di Fisica Cosmica in Milan have recently reported that in two pictures taken 12 days apart by the Hubble space telescope the point of light had shifted perceptibly.

ECONOMIST: Astronomy

"IR cameras cannot 'see' objects or humans behind flames because of the need for a zoom lens that concentrates the rays on the sensor to form the image, " says Pietro Ferraro of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) Istituto Nazionale di Ottica in Italy.

ENGADGET: Infrared holography lets rescuers see people through walls, fire, walls of fire (video)