Le Lettere is an Italian publishing house based in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

, founded in 1976 by publisher

Federico Gentile Federico Gentile (14 April 1904 – 21 May 1996) was an Italian publisher. Gentile is best remembered for founding the publishing company ''Le Lettere'', that he created after many years at the helm of ''Sansoni (publisher), Sansoni'', which w ...

, son of the philosopher

Giovanni Gentile Giovanni Gentile ( , ; 30 May 1875 – 15 April 1944) was an Italian pedagogue, philosopher, and politician. He, alongside Benedetto Croce, was one of the major exponents of Italian idealism in Italian philosophy, and also devised his own sys ...

History

It was founded in 1976 by the publisher Federico Gentile (

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

1904 -

1996Morto Federico Gentile, Il Corriere della Sera, 21 maggio 1996
/ref>), who worked for a long time at Sansoni, the Florentine publishing house bought by his father, the philosopher Giovanni. When in 1975 the historic Sansoni was bought by Rizzoli, Gentile decided to found "Le Lettere" with his son Giovanni (who shared the name with his grandfather), specializing it in university literary publications: more than 1500 books divided into forty series, from history to poetry, from art to fiction. The company also publishes eighteen specialized periodicals including '' Giornale critico della filosofia italiana'', '' Lingua nostra'', '' La Rassegna della letteratura italiana'', the annual bulletins of the

Accademia della Crusca The (; ), generally abbreviated as La Crusca, is a Florence-based society of scholars of Italian linguistics and philology. It is one of the most important research institutions of the Italian language, as well as the oldest Academy#Linguisti ...

. Many books previously published by Sansoni have been republished by the publishing house, which also published Giovanni Gentile's ''Opera Omnia'', completed in 1999. Since 1994 it has taken over from

Mondadori Arnoldo Mondadori Editore () is the biggest publishing company in Italy. History The company was founded in 1907 in Ostiglia by 18-year-old Arnoldo Mondadori who began his publishing career with the publication of the magazine ''Luce!''. In 19 ...

in the publication of the works of

Dante Alighieri Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called ...

on behalf of the ''

Società Dantesca Italiana ''Società'' (Italian: ''Society'') was an Italian communist cultural magazine published in Italy between 1945 and 1961. History and profile ''Società'' was founded as a quarterly magazine in Florence in 1945. The founders were Ranuccio Bianch ...

'' ("Italian Dante Society"). The company has series of

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether non-fictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller ...

, and

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

References

External links

Le Lettere at the Enciclopedia Italiana

Le Lettere official website
{{Authority control 1976 establishments in Italy Book distributors Publishing companies established in 1976 Italian companies established in 1976 Italian brands Bookshops of Italy Companies based in Florence Publishing companies of Italy Book publishing companies of Italy