Roberto Barbieri: “Jewish publishing in Italy, a voice of pluralism”

“When publishers complain, we have to take the past into account. For over 500 years editors and publishers have complained that books don’t sell enough or that it’s too expensive to make them. We can read this even in the very first documents regarding printing, so there is nothing new here”. Thus Roberto Barbieri, executive director of the European Research Center Book Publishing Library (CRELEB), in an interview with Pagine Ebraiche proves wrong the pessimistic predictions regarding the publishing industry’s state in Italy.
Sure, there is no shortage of critical issues and much more still needs to be done to promote reading. “Nonetheless,” he argues, “the industry’s state is not as bad as is often depicted, even compared to other European countries”. Especially if you consider it in the light of a centuries-old path that has made Italian publishing “a voice for pluralism. In Italy there are a lot of publishing houses, which on some level create great dispersion, but on another level, they represent a pluralist culture”.
This is a matter very dear to Barbieri, who a few days after the Turin International Book Fair brought into focus, together with the CDEC Foundation (Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation), a central element of this pluralism – a Jewish voice – in the seminar: “The Jewish world’s contribution to the development of the Italian publishing industry. From the unification of Italy to racial laws”. It is an opportunity to reflect on the role Jews had in building Italian culture and the damage fascism and its racial laws entailed for the latter.
The Treves brothers, Leo Olschki, Angelo Fortunato Formiggini, the Calabi and Lattes families. These are only a few of the publishers mentioned during the conference. They all have something in common: a Jewish identity, whether more or less obvious. What other elements do they share and why is it important to remember them today?
The names you mentioned, as well as the other publishers discussed in the seminar, began their entrepreneurial life during the nineteenth century. Indeed, they were Jewish personalities, but at the same time they printed texts that have nothing to do with religious life. Their contribution to Italian publishing can be identified with a wide international openness. For example, they spoke different languages, while many other publishers did not. They mostly came from the book trade, while the others mostly came from the world of typography, which provided them with a different kind of logic that helped transform the industry. Additionally, they possessed the business skills to diversify publishing products which would later on serve as a model for the modern publishing industry.
Can you give an example?
Formiggini, for sure, who met a tragic end when he took his own life after the 1938 laws were issued. He took to extreme consequences the genius and the ability to see beyond that men like him possess. His merit lies in the invention of editorial communication, in how to describe a book, in the invention of a tool such as “Chi è italiano” [Who is Italian]. It was he who came up with the idea of the Italian Encyclopedia that Gentile later stole from him.
On the one hand he represented an example of a Jewish publisher of the time, but on the other hand he was also an exception. He was always at a loss, eating up the family fortune, while the Treves, the Olschki, and the Lattes were companies that later had good fortune as they were more cautious and less hasty in their initiatives. And then there is another element that all these publishers have in common.
Which is?
The ability to rethink themselves in the recently unified Italy. Until that time, it was a world tightly linked to the individual states of the peninsula, to the cities. Unification changed things and Jewish publishers became interpreters of this shift. The Olschkis practically displayed their Italianness and were objectively proud. When they were asked by the fascist government to declare the number of Jews working at their publishing house, their response was very harsh. To this question Olschki replied: “What do you mean? I am an army officer, I fought in the war, I was decorated, and you ask me if I am Italian?” That shows pride and maybe some kind of gratitude they had had up until that moment to the Savoy family, who had allowed Jewish emancipation. They had opened up a world for Jews where they could feel comfortable and could work, and so a positive ecosystem was born.
Until the betrayal of fascism.
For Jewish publishers it was a complicated time. At first many tried to find a compromise. Even if they weren’t fascists, they found a balance with power. In short, they behaved no better or worse than many others. Of course, there were also anti-fascists, but they were relatively few. Then came the racial laws and things changed drastically. A process of elimination and pauperization started taking place, which obviously affected the Italian publishing culture. International openness was lost.
The Olschki family somehow survived. They had, among other things, acquired the Giuntina printing house in 1909, from which the current publisher descends. But today, you manage the magazine La Bibliofilia, which deals with the history of books and bibliography, founded by its progenitor, Leo, in 1899. What was he like?
Born in Eastern Prussia, he founded his publishing house in Verona in 1886, then moved to Venice and finally to Florence. I was mostly interested in him for his work as an antiquarian bookseller, but he is someone that continues to amaze me. For example, he presented himself as a Dantean publisher, although it was not his main trait. Yet, he felt this trait belonged to him, perhaps also because of the aforementioned matter of Italianness. To reference his openness to the world, I will recall a quote of his: “I am willing to exchange letters in almost every European language with anyone who will want to write to me”. This is certainly the manifestation of a very big ego, but also of a culture just as vast. He was special and deserves to be remembered, just like the other publishers mentioned during the seminar, to better understand part of our history.

Translated by Klara Mattiussi, revised by Annadora Zuanel, students at the Secondary School of Modern Languages for Interpreters and Translators of the University of Trieste, interns at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities – Pagine Ebraiche.