One day Renato Giunti asked his son Sergio what he would have liked to do in life: «I like to bet on horses, they earn a lot of money», he heard an answer. The father urged him to look on Courier service the list of Italian tax returns. At the top was Rizzoli: “If you love risk to earn so much, there’s nothing better than taking care of books.”
Thus it was that Sergio Giunti began to work in the publishing house. In 1955 Sergio was 18 years old and his father Renato had just founded Edizioni Giuntine, which brought together the many souls and acronyms acquired over the years. It is a complex and exemplary story of enthusiasm and vision, a story of 180 years of history, because it begins in Florence in 1841 with the birth of the Fratelli Paggi Library, which twenty years later would be acquired by the owner’s son-in-law, Roberto Bemporad.
In 1883 the Paggi will publish The adventures of Pinocchio, the fable destined to become the best-selling book in the world after the Bible. The fact is that Bemporad, incorporated the Paggi, under the guidance of Enrico will open his gaze from the school sector to the international literary panorama (among other things he publishes, in addition to Collodi, also Vamba, Salgari, Artusi and the translations of Andersen, Grimm, Alcott ). The cleaver of the fascist decree that imposes the single book for elementary schools will be fatal. By joining with Marzocco, it will form the formidable Bemporad-Marzocco brand, a grandiose heritage in the field of education and children’s literature, which in 1965 will be acquired by Renato Giunti. Who in 1960 had already taken over the publishing house Barbèra, whose founder Gasparo Barbèra had grown up, like the Bemporads, in the Florence of the Risorgimento, building a catalog of impressive richness which boasted, among other things, the first volume of poems by Carducci, collaborator and director of the Diamante series.
Story of stories, the current Giunti summarizes a fantastic adventure of progressive acquisitions, inspired by the didactic and popular fervor of the Risorgimento and perhaps rooted in the ancient time of the glorious Venetian workshop of Giunti, the booksellers and typographers who established themselves as printers from the end of the sixteenth century especially of Greek, Latin and Italian classics. The legend tells of a direct descendant of the current Florentine family from that thriving and prestigious company of the same name capable of setting up branches in many European cities.
To better understand the cultural stratifications of Giunti, one should be lucky enough to visit the lemon house of Villa La Loggia, the magnificent headquarters of the publishing house on the Via Bolognese, which was the country residence of Brunetto Latini as well as the mansion of the Pazzi, supporters of the famous conspiracy fifteenth century. The lemon house preserves the archives of the various editorial acronyms gradually merged by the foresight of Renato first and then of Sergio, who became CEO in 1983 with the death of his father.
The collection is impressive, because it contains, in addition to administrative documents and historical contracts, correspondences of enormous cultural value, just think, remaining only Bemporad, that the names mentioned were added, in the aftermath of the Great War, publishing initiatives of great prestige , like the critical edition of the New life di Dante edited by Michele Barbi, the complete works of Pirandello and Verga, new series of fiction and non-fiction, with authors such as Guido da Verona, Govoni, Panzini, and the advice of numerous scholars and writers, including Montale. And even passing to the Barbèra, there are countless appearances, from Gioberti to D’Azeglio, from Capponi to De Amicis, from Tommaseo to D’Annunzio. Without forgetting the papers of Giacomo Agnelli, the Milanese school publishing house acquired in 1947, and those of the University Publishing House specialized in psychology and acquired in 1949 under the advice of Cesare Musatti.
And then and then … It should still be remembered that in 1973 the editions of Aldo Martello were incorporated, who from the 40s were in Milan a refined and highly original presence in the field of art and literature, with insights that would be said to pre -adelphiane. And then the Demeter, queen of manuals, and then the Dami, queen of children, and then the Touring, king of tourism, and then the Fatatrac, queen of childhood, and much more until the acquisition perhaps most ambitious of all, that of Bompiani. in 2016, which meant the entry into the “parlor” of Italian and foreign fiction, but also of the major post-war classics re-proposed in an illustrious economic series. With a clear distinction with respect to the publisher-mother, which aims at a more popular and less “literary” audience, in line with the aims of the monstrous network of Giunti al Punto bookstores, approximately 170 in Italy.
If you talk to Sergio Giunti, you will see that in addition to showing an understandable pride in the cathedral built piece by piece by his father Renato and by him, the son who loved horse bookmakers and who soon learned to bet on books, he will remember the national edition and of the manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci, fifty-year monument. And then he will tell you about the magazines, his most stubborn bet, played in obedience to his father’s not forgotten motto: “We are popularizers.” For this reason, his myth, as he explained to Cristina Taglietti on “Reading”, is not Giulio Einaudi but Angelo Rizzoli, the inventor of Bur, the most popular series of the classics. Hence the fidelity to a practical culture, sensitive to the demands of the general public more than to the debates of the intellectual elites. Even if in the 90s a failure in this direction seemed to materialize with the call of Enzo Siciliano to form two series of fiction: the first, “Novecento italiano”, proposed authors who had come out of the catalogs, the other was a series of novelties. A third beautiful and unfortunate necklace was a collection of Meridiani-style classics entrusted to Lucio Felici. Unfortunately, the “failure” will not pass the test of the millennium.
On the original line, the practical-didactic and popular one, which boasts a remarkable scholastic production, the beating heart of Villa La Loggia, here come the periodicals of medicine, history, science, music, art with the best possible directors : Levi Montalcini, Tecce, Vlad, Le Goff, Calvesi … Few remain, because the losses over the years have been frightening even for a thoroughbred gambler like Giunti. A nightmare.
The flood of November 4, 1966 was much more than a nightmare. Giunti, located in via Gioberti, was the most affected company in the city. «We lost everything – said Sergio Giunti – the archives, the warehouses, the graphics factory. Fortunately, the plants were on the first floor and were saved, while on the ground floor the water reached almost eight meters from the floor. Four and a half million volumes disappeared. Absolutely! The water entered the sewer, the floor rose and cracked. An impressive sight. We threw away 855 trucks of books, papers and furniture. The insurance only partially reimbursed us and the State granted us three percent subsidized loans to be repaid in ten years ». After the tragedy, the miracle took place: in just under a month a million volumes were reprinted and at the beginning of December the warehouse was again full. Tragic days of nightmares, but also of great fervor and enthusiasm. What the Giunti have never lacked.
August 25, 2021 | 10:51
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