On Thursday, March 23, the Centro Studi Amadeo Peter Giannini was presented in the presence of President Cristina Bolla. The instituion was established to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of the Genoese-born banker. The Centro Studi Amadeo Peter Giannini aims to create a bridge between Liguria and the United States, particularly with Los Angeles.

The Center intends to promote, also at the international level, the Italian territory as a "film" destination, and to create partnerships with our companies in the sector. Training tools have been activated and the "Amadeo Peter Giannini Award" has been established to foster new generations. Working groups have been created for study, research, development, planning, internationalization and much more for the multiple areas of economic development.

"The aims of the Centro Studi Amadeo Peter Giannini are: enhancement of audiovisual professions, creative industry and economic development, promotion and territorial marketing in the regional, national and international sphere, creation of a cultural and economic bridge between Italy, Europe, the United States of America and the Americas in general, fostering international cooperation and facilitating relations between players." says Cristina Bolla.

Amadeo Peter Giannini dedicated his life to giving substance to his visions of the future by working beyond the limits imposed by the logic of profit, aspiring to meet the needs of the weakest. He realized dreams that seemed utopian by asserting the principle that "a banker should consider himself a servant of the people and a servant of the community." He revolutionized banking by founding the Bank of Italy, the first example in history to lend money to the working class hitherto marginalized by finance, and then created the Bank of America, which became the most important bank in the world. He was at the center of many innovations and also financed the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. But he was also the main architect of the birth of cinema as we know it in the present day, giving it the impetus and productive energy that revolutionized its destiny until it became the seventh art. Without him and his foresight, for example, Walt Disney would never have been able to produce any cartoons including "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," and geniuses like Charlie Chaplin or Frank Capra would never have been able to fully express their talents, leaving us absolute masterpieces. His work was essential in creating the world of Hollywood and cinema.

His parents were Italian immigrants from Favale di Malvaro, a town inland from Chiavari, Liguria. Giannini opened the Bank of Italy on October 17, 1904; deposits on the first day amounted to $8,780. The first difficulty to be surmounted was the San Francisco in 1906, but it was the earthquake that helped Giannini gain a monopoly on lending: when the earthquake and fire destroyed 50. 000 private homes, as well as offices, hotels and public buildings, Giannini, who had been a banker for only four years and whose clientele consisted of humble artisans and merchants of Italian descent, who could find no credit in any other bank, took a table, placed it in the middle of the crowd of disaster victims, put the sign Banca d'Italia: open to customers on it, and began to offer money for reconstruction.

The San Francisco earthquake thus offered him an opportunity to extend outside the Italian colony his faith in the work of simple people, the dynamism of American economic life and the stimulating function of the bank. His courage was rewarded: much of the reconstruction of San Francisco was financed through his branches. From 1916 he opened other branches: from San Francisco his activities gradually expanded to all of California, especially in the form of financing small farmers, mostly of Italian descent. Subsequently, having overcome the obstacles, even legal ones, that competitors and local authorities opposed to its penetration, it gained the confidence of big businessmen and expanded to the rest of the United States as well.

In 1919 he founded the Bank of America and Italy, an Italian branch of the Bank of Italy. In 1927 he changed the name of the Bank of Italy to Bank of America: the banker of the humble had now become the banker of all. In 1928 Giannini approached Orra E. Monnette, president of Bank of America in Los Angeles about merging the two financial institutions. He succeeded in convincing him and therefore the first major banking group in California was formed. In 1945 Bank of America surpassed First National City Bank and Chase Manhattan Bank, the two largest banks in New York City, in the size of deposits and became the world's first bank, (a role it held with ups and downs and regained on the day Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, September 15, 2008, with the purchase of Merrill Lynch for fifty billion dollars). Also in 1945 he created the Giannini Family Foundation for the purpose of promoting medical research.

During the war period Amadeo Giannini charged his son Mario with taking care of Italians confined in concentration camps and working to prevent the internment of other Italian Americans. Immediately after the end of the war he wanted the bank to participate firsthand in the reconstruction of Italy by agreeing with Arthur Schlesinger, who was responsible for managing the Marshall Plan, to speed up the delivery of aid; while visiting Italy he helped the FIAT automobile industry with loans. Giannini and his bank in California also greatly helped the film and wine industries to consolidate. Giannini financed the early films of Walt Disney, Charlie Chaplin and Frank Capra, authors with whom he formed a strong friendship.