Arriving at Bocconi

Angelo Sraffa was among the first professors Leopoldo Sabbatini involved in the ambitious project of establishing a business-focused university in Milan, as attested by the University Board’s meeting minutes from 5 July 1902. During those years, Sraffa taught Commercial Law at the University of Parma, where he resided with wife Irma and son Piero. However, his main academic and professional interests were already leading him toward Milan. In addition to taking up teaching at Bocconi University, he also moved his law firm to the capital of Lombardy in 1906. His home in Milan soon became headquarters to the editorial office of the Rivista di diritto commerciale, the oldest and most prestigious Italian publication dedicated to legal doctrine in business, founded in 1903 by both Sraffa and Cesare Vivante.

During his time in Parma, Sraffa forged connections that would prove to be fundamental in the next phase of his career in Milan. Among these was his relationship with Girolamo Palazzina, whom Sabbatini would later call to direct the administrative office of the nascent Bocconi University. During his years as Rector, Sraffa worked often with Palazzina and established a fruitful partnership, as evidenced by the abundant amount of correspondence preserved in the Bocconi University Historical Archives.

Also during the Parma period, Sraffa created lasting bonds — of friendship and collaboration — with Alfredo Rocco and Pietro Bonfante, who both taught at Bocconi. These two scholars made a decisive impact on the development of Sraffa’s academic work and on the consolidation of his activity, both as editor-in-chief of Rivista di diritto commerciale and as Rector of Bocconi University.

In 1913 Sraffa was offered a teaching position at the University of Turin, but his firm remained in Milan and he was able to continue his collaboration with Bocconi. Turin was also the native city of his wife, Irma, and his firstborn, Piero. In those years, Sraffa came into contact with several well-known economists from the Turin-based school, whom he would later help bring to Milan to teach at Bocconi: Luigi Einaudi (already at the Milanese university), Attilio Cabiati, Giuseppe Prato and Achille Loria.

He moved his residency and family full-time to Milan in 1919, and in 1924 was asked by Luigi Mangiagalli to be involved in the establishment of the University of Milan.

Sraffa taught commercial law as well as industrial law at Bocconi, in addition to other specific courses on railroad transportation contract, of which lecture notes have been preserved from the academic years 1904-1905, 1909-1910, 1912-1913 and 1915-1916.