Edoardo Sonzogno (21 April 1836 – 14 March 1920) was an Italian

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

. A native of

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, Sonzogno was the son of a businessman who owned a printing plant and

bookstore Bookselling is the commercial trading of books which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, bookpeople, bookmen, or bookwomen. The founding of librar ...

. When he inherited the business upon his father's death he set about turning it into a

publishing house Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

, Casa Sonzogno, which opened in 1874. The company specialized in producing cheap editions of early Italian

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

, and became celebrated for its one-act

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

contest, which began in 1883. Among the participants was

Giacomo Puccini Giacomo Puccini ( Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long ...

with ''

Le Villi ''Le Villi'' (''The Willis'' or ''The Fairies'') is an opera–ballet in two acts (originally one) composed by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Ferdinando Fontana, based on the short story "Les Willis" by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr. Karr ...

'' (1883) - who, in fact, did not win so that the opera was taken over by

Giulio Ricordi Giulio Ricordi (19 December 1840 in Milan – 6 June 1912 in Milan) was an Italian editor and musician who joined the family firm, the Casa Ricordi music publishing house, in 1863, then run by his father, Tito, the son of the company's founder ...

, the competitor of Sonzogno.

Pietro Mascagni Pietro Mascagni (7 December 1863 – 2 August 1945) was an Italian composer primarily known for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece '' Cavalleria rusticana'' caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the ...

's ''

Cavalleria rusticana ''Cavalleria rusticana'' (; Italian for "rustic chivalry") is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from an 1880 short story of the same name and subsequent play ...

'', submitted in 1889 and premiering in 1890, was by far the most famous opera to win the prize. Sonzogno owned and directed the

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as p ...

'' Il Secolo'' from 1861 until 1909. For much of that time, its editor was

Ernesto Teodoro Moneta Ernesto Teodoro Moneta (September 20, 1833 in Milan, Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia – February 10, 1918) was an Italian journalist, nationalist, revolutionary soldier and later a pacifist and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. He adopted the motto ...

. In 1894 he established a

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

, the

Lirico Internazionale The Teatro Lirico (known until 1894 as the Teatro alla Canobbiana) is a theatre in Milan, Italy. In the 19th and early 20th centuries it hosted numerous opera performances, including the world premieres of Donizetti's '' L'elisir d'amore'' and G ...

, in Milan. He was also one of the first publishers in Italy to launch pocket-book editions of a huge range of classical authors from all over the world, a collection he called Biblioteca Universale. The price of these minibooks (11.5 x 17.5 cm) was so low, from 1 to 3.5 lire, that anybody could easily afford a personal library of classics, fiction and non-fiction. Sonzogno died in Milan in 1920.

References

David Ewen, ''Encyclopedia of the Opera'' 1836 births 1920 deaths Businesspeople from Milan Italian music publishers (people) Italian newspaper publishers (people) Italian publishers (people) Italian book publishers (people) {{publishing-stub