 Founder of the publishing house that still bears his name today, Attilio Vallecchi began his activity as a typographer at the dawning of the twentieth century, supporting young writers destined to fame such as Ardengo Soffici and Giovanni Papini.
He then became a publisher himself in a cultural climate divided between avant-garde and traditional propulsions. With reviews like “Leonardo”, “Lacerba”, “Voce”, “Il Selvaggio” and the bimonthly in French, “La Vraie Italie”, Vallecchi in the 1920s became the international mouthpiece of the early twentieth-century literary and philosophical trends.
Among the authors revolving around the publishing house, we find Palazzeschi, Campana, Tozzi, Slataper, Marinetti, Ungaretti, Prezzolini, Viviani, Bargellini and Malaparte, as well as Michelstaedter, Croce and Gentile, to cite only a few of the names belonging to a historical catalogue which, with several thousand titles still under cataloguing, today represents an inexhaustible cultural deposit of European importance. Its major art contributors were Picasso, De Chirico, Boccioni, Carrà and Rosai.
After World War II, Attilio’s son Enrico took over, following in his father’s footsteps and enabling Vallecchi to further broaden its area of interest and cultural diffusion: its editorial directors included illustrious names of the cultural world like Carlo Bo and Geno Pampaloni. Then came famous authors like Pratolini, Campana, and Montale, before the progressive decline owing in part to the steamroller effect of the exuberant Milanese publishing industry in the 60s and 70s. This did not stop Enrico, however, from taking over the firm again in 1983, after having passed control to others in 1962. |