Flavio Radice, the boss of Pietro Carnaghi, a tool maker in Busto Arsizio, north of Milan, says he and his designers regularly use their video-telephone link to pore over plans with customers for the huge vertical-milling machines his firm makes for turbine builders.
Growing up in the town of Busto Arsizio, about 40 minutes' drive northwest of Milan, he first discovered modern art at 13, when he happened on a book, Pop Art, by critic Lucy Lippard and discovered the work of artists like Andy Warhol and James Rosenquist.