The bridge over the Strait of Messina was already practicable in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and it could have been fully funded by American firms. This is what art historian Andrea Donati reveals, after discovering unpublished records on the matter in the Bertolini Blanc archives. These documents were made available to Iacopo Benincampi, the author of an illuminating piece published in the State Archives of Naples' magazine "Grand'A". The protagonists of these unreleased records are Edoardo Bertolini, an international businessman and Italian consul in Chicago, and his son Giorgio, who acted as mediators in a major deal involving the Messina Bridge. According to an anonymous memorandum dated 1957 and addressed to the United States ambassador in Rome, James David Zellerbach, the Strait Bridge project began in August 1953, when Edoardo Milio Cangemi, president of the Messina Chamber of Commerce, organized a conference to discuss its feasibility. The Association of Italian Steel Manufacturers had commissioned David Barnard Steinman, an American engineer, to propose a preliminary proposal to the Sicily Region presidency. This had generated a fervent discourse among specialists, including the ambitious Italian-American engineer Mario Palmieri, who was among those intrigued. Palmieri had grabbed the chance to capitalize on the Bridge's great popularity by establishing "The Messina Strait Bridge Corporation of America" in Chicago, which planned to begin formal discussions with the Italian government. It would have sufficed, in Palmieri's opinion, to refine Steinman's design. As a result, he established a broad network of relationships with major international industrial firms interested in contributing economic resources through collaboration with Italian construction enterprises. The building was estimated to cost around $300 million, or 200 billion lire, a large sum that would be repaid over thirty years by tolls.
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