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

publisher Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

. A native of

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

, Sonzogno was the son of a businessman who owned a publisher, , and a

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, book people, bookmen, or bookwomen. History The found ...

. 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 poli ...

'' Il Secolo'' from 1861 until 1909. For much of that time, its editor was Ernesto Teodoro Moneta. After inheriting his father's business, in 1874, Sonzogno opened a musical establishment, , for which he appointed Amintore Galli as its artistic director. Galli sought to establish an editorial line distinct from those of Casa Ricordi and , Sonzogno's closest competitors, by publishing monthly series of, in Galli's words, "a collection of economically priced masterworks by the great maestri". In April 1883, ''Il Secolo'' announced a competition for a new, unperformed opera "inspired by the best traditions of Italian opera", which could be "idyllic, serious, or comic", to be judged by a panel including Galli and Amilcare Ponchielli. The competition had two winners: 's ''Anna e Gualberto'' and Guglielmo Zuelli's ''La fata del nord''. Notably,

Giacomo Puccini Giacomo Puccini (22 December 1858 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for List of compositions by Giacomo Puccini#Operas, his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he ...

's '' Le villi'' was disqualified for the illegibility of its manuscript. The opera was taken over by Giulio Ricordi, the competitor of Sonzogno. The second competition was advertised in July 1888, to be judged by a panel including Galli and Antonio Ghislanzoni. Mascagni's '' Cavalleria rusticana'' won first prize against seventy-two other operas, including Niccola Spinelli's ''Labilia'' and 's ''Rudello''. In 1894 he established a

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

, 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 Umb ...

, 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 × 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.

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* 1836 births 1920 deaths People from the Austrian Empire Businesspeople from Milan Italian music publishers (people) Italian newspaper publishers (people) Italian publishers (people) Italian book publishers (people) {{publishing-stub