Italy is the home of two of the world's biggest publishers of books in terms of revenue: Messaggerie Italiane and Mondadori Libri.[1] Other large publishers include De Agostini Editore, Feltrinelli and the RCS MediaGroup.[2][nb 1]

History

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Early printing press on Italian soil were established by a German colony in Subiaco in 1464, when Arnold Pannartz and Konrad Sweynheim produced a Latin grammar by Donatus.[4] Printing technology later developed in the 1460s in Rome and Venice, and in the 1470s in Bergamo, Bologna, Brescia, Cremona, Ferrara, Florence, Genoa, Lucca, Mantua, Messina, Milan, Modena, Naples, Padua, Palermo, Parma, Pavia, Perugia, Piacenza, Reggio Calabria, Treviso, Turin, Verona and Vicenza. By the 1480s printing facilities were also present in L'Aquila, Pisa, Reggio Emilia, Siena, and Udine.[5][6]

At the time of Italian unification and the creation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, the Biblioteca Magliabechiana in Florence merged with the Biblioteca Palatina Lorenese [it], and by 1885 became known as the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (National Central Library). The Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma was founded in 1876. As official legal deposit libraries, both maintain copies of all works published in Italy.[7]

Notable publishers in Italy include Valentino Bompiani, Giovanni De Agostini, Giulio Einaudi, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, Aldo Garzanti, Ulrico Hoepli, Leo Longanesi, Arnoldo Mondadori, Angelo Rizzoli and Albert Skira.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization named Turin the 2006 World Book Capital.

Bookselling

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Notable bookstores in Italy include:

Fairs

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See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Messaggerie and Mondadori also topped the list in 2016 and 2017.[3][2]

References

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  1. ^ "The World's 54 Largest Publishers, 2018", Publishers Weekly, vol. 265, no. 38, US, 14 September 2018
  2. ^ a b "World's 54 Largest Publishers, 2017", Publishers Weekly, US, 25 August 2017
  3. ^ "World's 52 Largest Book Publishers, 2016", Publishers Weekly, US, 26 August 2016
  4. ^ Peckham 1940.
  5. ^ Proctor 1898.
  6. ^ "Index: Place of Publication", Incunabula Short Title Catalogue: the International Database of 15th-century European Printing, British Library, retrieved 3 December 2017. (Searchable by town)
  7. ^ Franca Arduini (1990). "The Two National Central Libraries of Florence and Rome". Libraries & Culture. 25 (3): 383–405. JSTOR 25542277.
  8. ^ "Libreria Internazionale Luxemburg".

Bibliography

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in English

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in Italian

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Images

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