Edoardo Sonzogno

Edoardo Sonzogno (Italian pronunciation: [edoˈardo sonˈdzoɲɲo]; 21 April 1836 – 14 March 1920) was an Italian publisher.

A native of Milan, Sonzogno was the son of a businessman who owned a publisher, Casa Sonzogno [it], and a bookstore. Sonzogno owned and directed the newspaper Il Secolo from 1861 until 1909. For much of that time, its editor was Ernesto Teodoro Moneta.^{[citation needed]}

After inheriting his father's business, in 1874, Sonzogno opened a musical establishment, Casa Musicale Sonzogno [it], for which he appointed Amintore Galli as its artistic director. Galli sought to establish an editorial line distinct from those of Casa Ricordi and Francesco Lucca [it], Sonzogno's closest competitors,^[1][2] by publishing monthly series of, in Galli's words, "a collection of economically priced masterworks by the great maestri".^[2]

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: Luigi Mapelli [it]'s Anna e Gualberto and Guglielmo Zuelli's La fata del nord.^[2] Notably, Giacomo Puccini's Le villi was disqualified for the illegibility of its manuscript.^[2][3] 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 Vincenzo Ferroni [it]'s Rudello.^[2]

In 1894 he established a theater, the Lirico Internazionale, 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.^{[citation needed]}

Sonzogno died in Milan in 1920.

• Ewen, David (1971). Encyclopedia of the Opera. Hill and Wang. ISBN 9780809072620.

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