Thanks to the contributions from the Ministry of Culture granted for the functioning of non-state libraries open to the public, the Eni Enrico Mattei Foundation has carried out a project to digitize the entire collection of Print and Black Gold which you can read by accessing the following link

Immediately after the war, Enrico Mattei was appointed extraordinary commissioner of Agip with the task of dismantling it. Mattei, on the other hand, managed to convince the government to resume research in the Po Valley where, in 1946, methane was found in the Caviaga field. The quantity thus obtained was far from covering the national needs but allowed the company to feel ready to compete with the other oil companies that dominated the market. Despite this, for a long time the press will continue to criticize it about strategies and operations.

Mattei's main objective was to obtain direct access to energy for Italy. His proposal for the new energy source, methane, until then little used in Europe, started the "great paper battle for methane", as he himself defined it, and involved a good part of the press that, since the end of 1940s, fueled the controversies already present in the public debate divided on the different energy sources and between pros and cons of the very idea of ​​a state enterprise.

With the aim of protecting the company's image and the work of himself and his collaborators, Mattei decided to launch the publication of "Press and black gold", a collection of the attacks received from the Italian press and foreign, consisting of 36 volumes and more than 5,000 articles. A sort of "negative" press review, useful to highlight how the controversial predictions were often unjustified given the results obtained.

Only the XXXVI volume will have a different nature: it will be the only one that will be assigned its own title, "The Summit", and will contain the portraits, the obituaries, the thoughts written around the world for Mattei's death.