Eighty years after its founding and seventy years after its stock exchange listing, Mediobanca is preparing to leave Piazza Affari. This signals the end of a period in which the bank has closely followed Italy's economic history. A new one begins, in which it keeps its primary businesses—corporate and investment banking—but exits the stock market and becomes a subsidiary of another bank, MPS. The institution was established in 1946 immediately following the war at the initiative of Raffaele Mattioli, the then president of Banca Commerciale Italiana, and Enrico Cuccia. The objective was to facilitate the internationalization, development, and reconstruction of Italian industries. IRI then controlled the three founding banks: COMIT, Credito Italiano, and Banco di Roma. Mediobanca was listed on the stock exchange ten years later, in 1956, and rapidly expanded into sectors that were parallel to credit, including trust management with Spafid in 1948 and consumer credit with Compass in 1960. It was Cuccia who turned it into Italy’s leading investment bank and the so-called “salotto buono". He led the institution until 1982 as general manager and CEO, and later from 1988 to 2000 as honorary chairman. His long leadership made him almost synonymous with the bank itself. It is no coincidence that after his death, the square in Via Filodrammatici in front of the Milan headquarters was renamed Piazzetta Cuccia.