Rizzoli Editore

In 1909 Angelo Rizzoli founded the eponymous publishing house in Milan, competing with Mondadori for market share. The publishing house stood out for its journalistic production. In the post-war period, fiction became more important and new series were created to promote Italian and foreign authors. On the international scene, the B.U.R. (Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli) series stood out as an efficient and economic tool for the dissemination of Italian and foreign culture, defined by UNESCO as an initiative of worldwide importance and interest (Letterati editori). Its activities were not confined to the world of publishing: foreseeing the role that cinema would play in the years to come - and the return in terms of reputation that the movie adaptations would favour - Rizzoli extended its interest to this field. It gained popularity in the film industry starting in the 1950s, when its subsidiary Cineriz began producing and distributing films by directors such as Federico Fellini (La dolce vita; 8 ½), Luchino Visconti, and Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Rizzoli gained a foothold in the US publishing scene in the mid-50s, when, following in the footsteps of Mondadori, it explored the possibilities of expansion into the foreign market. Rizzoli added names to its list of US authors and successfully sold translation rights of Italian authors, including Oriana Fallaci, Giuseppe Berto, and Riccardo Bacchelli, to US publishers. The leading writer was Giovanni Guareschi: a total of 25 titles - counting all editions and reprints - were released in the United States in those years, mainly focusing on the saga of Don Camillo and Peppone, translated into English by Vincenzo Trubridge and Frances Frenaye. It is interesting to mention The Little World of Don Camillo edition by Keith Jennison Book (1950) for visually impaired people, simultaneously published in Canada. Some of Guareschi's stories also appear later in Graded Italian Reader. Second Stage (D.C Heath and Company, 1984), a volume for the studying of Italian language that also features texts by Leo de Castelnovo, Ignazio Silone, and Italo Calvino.

Ferretti comments on a general embarrassment on the part of the founder Angelo Rizzoli in handling foreign authors, titles, and languages, which he had trouble understanding (Il marchio Rizzoli e la collana Sidera), but it did not prevent him from opening an international bookstore in the United States. The goal Rizzoli set for himself was ambitious: he wanted to open "in New York not just a bookstore, but the most beautiful bookstore in America, an oasis of Italy right in the heart of Manhattan" (Darlinghissima, p. 371). On October 22, 1964, the first Rizzoli bookstore opened at 712 Fifth Avenue, destined to become a landmark in the cultural landscape of the 1960s and contribute to the dissemination of Italian culture overseas. During the opening ceremony, Rizzoli revealed one of the reasons behind his project: "An Italian Ambassador here once told me that there was not a single good Italian bookstore in this country. Founding one here, I believed would strengthen cultural ties between Italy and the United States" (The New York Times, 1964).

In 1966, the bookstore expanded and renovated to house a preview theatre and a new gallery, inaugurated with an exhibition by the artist Guido Tallone – attended by Fallaci and the artist himself. Following the flooding of the Arno River in Florence in November 1966, the bookshop turned into a temporary store selling Italian products and Florentine crafts to collect funds for the city. Rizzoli's many initiatives attracted several Italo-American writers, artists, and intellectuals as well as people close to Italian culture. For instance, the Italian Week on Fifth Avenue event, held on occasion of the Italian-American Week in 1975, was attended by Martin Scorsese, Niccolò Tucci, the critic Alfred Kazin, and the architect Giorgio Cavaglieri, among others. During the 1970s, Rizzoli expanded nationwide, opening bookstores in Chicago, Dallas, Costa Mesa, Boston, San Francisco, and Houston, and aiming to open others in Los Angeles, Miami, and Philadelphia.

The contribution of Natalia Danesi Murray is worth mentioning. After leaving Mondadori in 1966 to accept Andrea Rizzoli's offer, Danesi immediately became the vice president in charge in New York. There she was mainly responsible for managing employees, events dedicated to Italian culture in the Rizzoli gallery, and welcoming guests and artists. Later she would become Fallaci's agent and would accompany a group of journalists writing for American magazines on a tour of Venice. In a letter to Janet Flanner, Danesi acknowledged that Rizzoli had become not only the most admired bookstore in New York, but a well-known and respected international centre of culture (Darlinghissima, p. 390).

The bookstore was forced to close in 1984 and relocated to 31 West 57th Street the following year, where it continued to promote Italian culture and host events such as the book party in honour of Marella Agnelli (1985).

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