History

The glorious history of our Association began on February 14 1912 with a letter sent to all the foreign newspaper correspondents present in Rome.

Dear Colleague,
 
Confident of the support of many of the correspondents of foreign newspapers in Rome, we invite you to participate in a meeting next Saturday at 9.30 a.m. at the Caffe Faraglia, Piazza Venezia (room at the back), to agree on the foundation of an Association of foreign newspaper correspondents in Italy, to be headquartered in Rome,
 
Yours faithfully
On behalf of the following colleagues
(signatures)
14 February 1912

On this date a group of Rome-based foreign newspaper correspondents sent a brief note to all their colleagues present in Italy to invite them to a meeting three days later which would lead to the creation of an Association of correspondents of foreign newspapers in Italy.

The initiative was particularly important since, for almost 37 years, foreign journalists in Italy had belonged, together with their Italian colleagues, to a single organisation, The Association of the Italian Periodical Press, whose first president, until 1883, was Francesco De Sanctis. That had been founded on 15 August 1877 in the course of a first Assembly of the representatives of the Italian and foreign press, called by a special comittee made up of six Italian journalists and Shakespeare Wood, the correspondent of The Times of London. He was elected as the representative of the foreign journalists who, just seven years after the annexation of Rome to the Kingdom of Italy, sent their dispatches from the new capital. That document of 14 February 1912 therefore marks the beginning of the history of the Foreign Press Association in Italy.

The Assembly of 17 February took place in the old Caffe Faraglia in Piazza Venezia, which no longer exists, and the first 14 journalists who answered the appeal decided to create an Association of foreign newspaper correspondents in Italy, which took on its present name, immediately informing all interested parties.

All those present paid 2 lire for the foundation fees. The monthly subscription remained 2 lire until 18 December 1920. It rose to 3 lire at the beginning of the next year and to 4 lire in November 1921. The admission fee, which was 10 lire in February 1912, was increased to 50 lire in December of the same year and remained unchanged for many years. The minutes of the Assembly of 26 and 27 February 1912, during which the Association’s first statute was approved, also contain the results of our Association’s first elections.

At the beginning of that meeting Leon Barrere reported on the appropriate steps taken with the Royal Prefecture, the Interior and Foreign Ministries and with the dean of the Diplomatic Corps, His Excellency Barrere, the French ambassador to the Quirinale, officially to announce the creation of the Foreign Press Association in Italy. News of these steps was welcomed by all members. Members were assured that the Royal Italian Government would give the new Association every moral support and practical assistance allowed by law.

In the following days the newly elected President of the Association, Boudouresque, and the Secretary, Pflaum, returned to the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps and visited the embassies of England, Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary and continued their contacts with the Italian authorities.

The then Prefect, Senator Anarratone, promised the Foreign Press Association every support -- Pflaum reports -- during a meeting with the first Governing Council. In particular, he said he was prepared to put an official police stamp on our membership cards to enable the bearer to pass through security cordons and roadblocks. We made good use of this privilege.

The minutes recall a visit by Ernesto Nathan, the Mayor of Rome from 1907 to 1913, who expressed his gratitude and urged the representatives of the foreign press always to tell the truth.

From the beginning relations were particularly fruitful with the then Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, which immediately confirmed the right of members to use the services of the press room at the Telegraph building, with the same entitlements as their Italian colleagues.

On 3 March 1912 the Foreign Minister, Marchese di San Giuliano, received Boudouresque, Pflaum and Carini at the Palazzo della Consulta -- then seat of the ministry -- expressing his interest in the professional activity of foreign correspondents in Rome. On 13 March it was the turn of the Minister of the Royal Household.

The continual growth in the number of foreign correspondents in Italy, some of whom filed their stories from Milan and other cities in the north, led to the creation in 1925 of a separate office in the Lombardy capital. Initially named the Milan Section, it subsequently became the Northern Italy Section of the Foreign Press Association in Italy. This Section was first based at Via Silvio Pellico 8, subsequently transferring to the Post Office building, with access from Via Santa Maria Segreta, and later to its current premises on Via Principe Amedeo.